Nearly imperceptible teardrops bead on her eyelashes and her porcelain doll face is drawn and colorless; she buries it into a friend�s chest � an island of sadness in an ocean of frenzied school activity.

She is one of the many people at Findlay High School who have been dramatically affected by the death of Miss Fell, an art teacher. Miss Fell�s hospitalization and death came as quite a shock � one week she was there � the next she was not.

When Mr. Kupferberg announced that Miss Fell had had a brain aneurysm rupture and had been life-flighted to Toledo the day before, my first thought was �who is that?� (I wasn�t the only one to wonder.) I realized that I had talked to her in regards to a student council project. We had only ever exchanged a handful of words. That was it. But even so, I was soon swept into the haze of shock and grief that filled the school.

I regretted that I had never known her, this vibrant art teacher whose absence left some of my best friends wracked with loss. More than this, however, I was stunned by how utterly mortal I felt; I could see this same shock in the eyes of the teachers, the students, the administration. �She was only 38 �� �So sudden ��

Miss Fell died while she was young, while she was beautiful. She did not die of a long drawn-out illness and did not suffer. She loved her job, loved the kids she taught, loved the people she worked with. �Dur Dur, do you have any candy?� she playfully asked a student she had nicknamed. �Does anyone have any candy?� she asked the class just days before her brain aneurysm ruptured.

It makes me think of my grandmother, who spent the last six years of her life alone and lonely. She passed away this spring, after watching her body slowly break down until she spent more time in a hospital bed than in her condo. But she did live to see two great-grandchildren, and most of her grandchildren had grown up before she died.

Because she lived in the Pacific Northwest, I didn�t get to see her often. My last conversation with her was over the phone; she had watched a video of one of my show choir performances a few days earlier. She was crying with pride over that and a letter I had written her. Looking back, I think that may have been the only true talk I ever had with my grandmother.

I always got the feeling that my grandmother never truly approved of me, that I was not the perfect, prim granddaughter that she wanted. Perhaps I was, perhaps I was not. All that matters now is our relationship � what little relationship there was. Beyond the fact that she was always a vague presence in my life, I never knew her � not as well as my mother, father, or even my sister, did.

In a way, I am relieved that I did not know Miss Fell and my grandmother as well as others did � I was not as affected by their deaths. On the other hand, I feel like I�ve missed something.

I am glad that Miss Fell did not waste away like my grandmother did. My grandmother was scared of death and yet it stared her in the face for the last months of her life. Miss Fell was taken by death with her eyes closed, quickly, before she was even aware of its presence.

And while there is no one who does not wish Miss Fell could put a band-aid on her brain and come back to the world of the living, I cannot help but be glad that her death was the painless way it was. I�m sure that wherever she is now, she�s having as much fun as she did when she was alive.

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