Saying goodbye to a former classmate | Column

Published 1:30 am Monday, December 15, 2025

By Lea Bossler

Orcas Island High School Class of 2008

Barry, I remember that awful day in eighth grade like it was yesterday. I can feel my internal alarm bells going off before I know why. I see your skin turning white. I hear my voice shaking as I asked for help. Help. HELP! I see the panic on the faces of the adults who were never trained to handle the situation. I feel the helicopter beat the air and then the ground right outside of the building. I wondered if my already small class size would shrink before the helicopter lifted.

Then there are the weeks, months, years that followed, all the way to now, where a kid I could easily identify in my single-digit years as desperately needing additional support was labeled a “challenge,” then a “problem,” and today, a “monster.”

Frankly, why would someone put in the work to change when the people around them have already decided who they are for them at a young age? I get it. I also was labeled in early elementary, probably inadvertently for the adults, and that still haunts me. At 35 years old, I untangle that I am AuDHD, and if this were a different time, or with a different therapist, I would be given a different diagnosis, with harsh and hurtful consequences. No wonder self-harm and suicide have seemed reasonable to many, including myself at times.

I would guess that you maintaining Orcas as your space meant that your inner child remembered feeling home, and you, logically, held on to it. You probably had some good memories, maybe some that I also share with you, when the classroom activities fit our “non-typical” brain structures. You were always so brilliant, when you felt like you could be. Your smiles and laughs will be remembered.

I share your lifetime of sadness and frustration of the path that Orcas keeps barreling down: first millionaire and then billionaire gentrified, as the community gets pushed further into physical and mental health crisis, with the constant threat of quiet homelessness and temptations of addiction, for those who hold closest the beating heart of Orcas. All while billions pour into creating images that look perfect, as if the shine fixes anything. Many of us Orcas kids grieve the same things. We watch our beloved hometown wither under monetary privilege getting its way.

You needed help, and I know that you knew this, too. I also know that “monsters” are never, ever, created in a vacuum. “Help” is society humanizing instead of demonizing. “Help” is actively using proven strategies over passive hopes. “Help” is taking an alternative route when the current one doesn’t work. “Help,” most importantly, is also a personal choice, for all, that requires brave and consistent steps forward.

Thirty-five seems pretty young to accept how many from K-12 are no longer with us. I would hope that the greater Orcas Island community agrees.