The empty desk in the first row on the left, three seats back

I only knew Stephen for a bit less than a year. He didn’t give me the chance to get to know him better because he killed himself.

Stephen was a high school freshman in an English class I taught in 1971. It was my first year of teaching, so I guess you could say I was a freshman too.

Young teens have the ability to sniff out any weakness, and I had more than my share of weaknesses in front of the classroom. But I was lucky because they were all nice kids, and we got along fine.

Stephen sat in the first row on the left, three seats back. He was a good writer with a quick wit, and though quiet in class, he wasn’t reclusive. He raised his hand when he knew the answer. He turned his work in on time.

In short, he was the ideal student with a bright future ahead of him. I liked him a lot. He was the kind of kid I probably would have kept contact with years later, as I have done with so many other students I have taught.

And then one night during the summer after his freshman year, he hanged himself.

I thought of him this week when I read about Rebecca Ann Sedwick, the Florida middle-schooler who jumped to her death from a tower at an abandoned concrete plant after months of online bullying from as many as 15 girls, torture that began after a dispute about a boy.

Her parents weren’t clueless about their daughter’s agony. They removed her from the toxic situation at school, home-schooled her for a while, and then enrolled her at a new school to start over with new friends. In short, they did all they could at home to help their daughter weather the storm.

Still, thanks to social media, a child’s world today is larger than the walls of any school or home, so the torture never ended for her. Despite the “perfect, happy face” she showed to her family at home, she posted messages to her online family, saying, “I’m jumping.”

And then she did.

Unlike Rebecca, Stephen left no clear clues to why he chose to end his life. He was intelligent, successful at school, and well-liked — or at least not reviled, so far as anybody could tell.

And yet, one dark summer’s night, Stephen slipped a rope around his neck and ended whatever bright future stood ahead of him.

If anybody knew what demons haunted Stephen’s nights, nobody ever came forward with the information. His death was just one more mysterious tragedy that haunts the life of everybody who knew him.

For me, not a year has gone by that I haven’t thought of Stephen and his hidden pain. I thought of him at the start of each new school year, as I faced all those unknown faces. I thought of him as my own children entered their teen years, and when three of my grandchildren began navigating the sometimes forbidding odyssey of high school.

And I thought of him when I read the tragic story of Rebecca, who also felt she could not face even one more day of torment.

I have agonized for more than 40 years over what my role might have been in whatever torment ended Stephen’s life. Could I have said anything that might have made a difference — for better or worse?

As adults who have survived our own youthful torments, it is hard to imagine a child making a decision like that. Over time, we have learned that those problems that seemed so monumental at the time were insignificant pieces in the big picture puzzle that is our lives.

But first, we had to get past the agony to arrive at a place to see the minuteness of what seemed so massive at the time.

When I was about Stephen’s age, I took my first girlfriend to a dance. I was a sophomore, and she was a pretty, popular freshman. My life was perfect when I picked her up that night.

But she went home from the dance with another boy — a freshman. I went home alone.

We weren’t in love or anything — in fact, our relationship had pretty much run its course — but how could I ever show my face at school again after she dumped me for a freshman guy? Details like that mean the world when you’re 15.

Fortunately, my humiliation happened on a Friday night. I had the weekend to heal, and Mom helped as much as she could. After listening to my teary tale of woe, she told me that there were a lot better girls out there waiting for me.

And when I told her that it still hurt, she ended the discussion by patting my arm and saying, “it builds character.”

That phrase became an inside joke between us, whenever any woe descended upon me. I could be hurling my giblets into the toilet some night during a bout of flu, and when Mom showed up at the bathroom door to ask how I was doing, I would groan, “just building character.”

Though a child’s agony over a lost love or a betrayed friendship may seem small to us, we must remember that to a child new to the pains of life, “the first cut is the deepest,” as the popular song tells us. It is a hard lesson to learn, but one that every adult must help every child discover.

I often taught the Carl Sandburg poem “Fellow Citizens,” about a down-on-his-luck man who had “a light in his eyes of one who has conquered sorrow, in so far as sorrow is conquerable or worth conquering.”

I always thought of Stephen when I read those lines.

But Stephen never read that poem, because we studied it in junior English. He didn’t live long enough to be a junior.

Neither did Rebecca.

They didn’t live long enough to know that first cuts heal — and that second cuts don’t hurt nearly as bad. Or that the online taunts of mean girls aren’t worth ending a life. Over time, those hardships might even help build character.

But only if you survive them.

Though their lives have ended, their memories of Stephen and Rebecca will live on. For their parents, teachers and friends — and even for their enemies, who will one day realize the brutal power of their youthful cruelty — they will always be the empty desk in the first row on the left, three seats back.

• Author, musician, and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Con¬tact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors

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