BY THE WAY: YOUTH FELLED BY MENINGITIS TOUCHED HEARTS

The biographical poem that Michael Dennis Sweet wrote for his Louis J. Schultz seventh-grade class assignment made me think this was someone much older and wiser than a 13-year-old boy.

Wrote Sweet, who was felled by a case of HIB meningitis, "I am the son of a happily married man. I am the brother of three sisters. I am a lover of pizza, money and pets. I love football, basketball and volleyball. I am someone who needs a home, food and shelter who gives respect, care, kindness. I am someone who would like to see no violence, better respect, nicer people."

Michael died Friday, March 10, at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital of HIB meningitis.

As Michael's English teacher, Pat Heckert, read this poem over the phone Tuesday, I felt goose bumps form at the base of my neck. This is someone who was in touch with his soul, I thought. How many of us remember introspection like that the first year we claimed we were a teen-ager?

Jo Peukert, who taught Sweet at May Greene School and followed his progress when both transferred to Schultz Middle School, said there was a noticeable quiet in the Schultz School halls on Monday.

"It just kind of shocks people when something like this happens," Peukert said. "Kids are never prepared for this kind of shock. They ask questions. They want real answers. As a teacher I don't even think I could be prepared for something like this."

This appears to be one of those cases where the questions will always seem unanswered. What first appeared to be nothing more than the flu was later discovered to be a kind of bacteria that could not be vanquished by Michael's immune system.

Sweet wrote another telling paper for Heckert's class. In this paper he was assigned to write about how he would run the class if he were the teacher.

He said he would order enough pizzas for the entire class. Everybody would be allowed to feel like a movie star before they graduated from the seventh grade. There would be no principals. There would be scavenger hunts.

When he wrote about Thanksgiving he said he was thankful that there was food on the table and "very nice clothes to wear." When he wrote about Christmas he said it was the best he ever had.

Rather than try to figure out the how or why of it all, I feel compelled to applaud Michael's natural inclination to speak his mind even when it might not have sounded so cool.

Heckert remembered when Michael would chastise his classmates when she was making a point. "He used to say `Shissh, she's trying to talk.'"

Said Heckert, "He had the right name. When I think of him I'll think of what a sweet guy he was. He still is."

Michael Sweet enjoyed the people who made up his world and he wasn't afraid to show how much he appreciated the way they enhanced the quality of his life.

Perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts he could pass on to those around him, to any of us.

~Bill Heitland is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.