Boston.come has posted a statement from Galit and Mordechai Grutman about their son Roee.
“He wanted to change the world— that’s what he said to us recently — so we are going to do it for him with all the inspiration from him.”
Ellen Ishkanian’s story about Roee’s funeral is here.
How Very Sad for his family and friends.
The family has set up a fundraising site – here is the link.
https://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/6qy3/roeegrutmanfund
Thanks to the school department and the city for a very thoughtful program for parents last night at South.
I, too, was moved by the Globe’s writeup of Tuesday’s outreach program to parents at Newton South and how the Newton community always seems to come together with thoughtfulness and compassion when tragedy strikes. I recall only one suicide the entire time I attended Newton public schools from the late 40’s to 1956 and we only learned through word of mouth that it was indeed a suicide. It was a young girl and I knew her pretty well since we were both on the High School debate team. She seemed to have everything going for her–smart, articulate, a straight A student, an an almost sure bet for an Ivy League college. I don ‘t recall teachers or school officials talking to us about it, or even acknowledging that it happened.
I’ll echo Greg’s comment commending the school department for the way in which they’ve handled the aftermath of this tragedy, as well as those similar tragedies that preceded it. I am however struck by the fact that most of the focus is now being placed on emotional support for students struggling to cope with these losses, along with a renewed emphasis on suicide prevention programs. Both those points are most certainly worthy of attention. But in my opinion, the thing we have continuously failed to address in any substantive way, is the amount of stress placed on our children every day. In particular, we desperately need to take a much closer look at the levels of systemic stress our school system puts on kids.
@Mike: I agree but I think the immediate need is to support the kids right now in the aftermath of these tragedies.
We don’t know — and we will probably never know — if school stress was a factor in the deaths of Karen Douglas, Katie Stack or Roee Grutman.
That said, I completely agree that we have a systemic problem to address.
I’m going to start a separate thread to discuss how the Newton school department is handling the aftermath of this tragedy and what steps might be taken moving forward. While ordinarily we encourage threads to move in their own direction, out of respect for Roee Grutman and his family, I’d like to leave this thread focused on Roee and the beautiful words his parents shared.
Below is what the Family sent to the Newton Tab.
Newton, Mass.
The Grutman family sent the following email to the TAB when asked for their comments on their son and brother’s death. Roee, 17, a Newton South junior, died by suicide Wednesday at his Newton home. The family worked together to draft these comments, and OK’d them for publication:
Roee was a good brother to his siblings. He adored his Big brother, Tal, and his 3 little sisters. The day he died was a snow day and the kids stayed home. (By the way, I announced at my house that no matter what David [Fleishman] say – we are having a GRUTMAN snow day on Wednesday, so the kids will be relaxed and enjoy the day off) and he was doing his homework and studying for his 4 tests on Thursday and Friday. After I encouraged him to step outside for a little while, he went to our back yard and played snowball flight with his 2 sisters for sometime. The picture is from the last day of his life. He then came back to the house, continued with his homework and studying and took an instagram picture of the girls playing outside, and he wrote on instagram that he felt bad because he was not playing with his sisters as a good brother should.
He didn’t talk much, but every word he chose was sincere and he could sit in a crowd, observe what’s going on and then be able to analyze everything that was there.
He had an impact on many young kids in the Israeli scouts and the entire Tzofim (Israeli scouts) adored him. He was a great leader and a wonderful friend. He initiated many ideas and inspired other counselors.
He was his class officer and VP and was working to the benefits of his classmates. He wanted to get the powderpuff theme back to his school and was very upset that he could change the mind of the administration.
Roee was our flower. He flourished and spread his seeds around him. Now that he is gone, those seeds will blossom too and we will see how he is still changing the world, our world. We will do whatever is needed to make sure that Newton students will have a better judgement of their school responsibilities, we will make sure there is enough available support to the immigrants community that are here without their close families, far away from the world they know.
Roee wanted to make a change so let’s start now!!!!
Thanks, Mordechai
– See more at: http://newton.wickedlocal.com/article/20140211/NEWS/sthash.7Tb6lc5N.dpuf#sthash.1eKLO4hd.dpuf
Thanks for posting this Joanne. I hadn’t seen it.