Greetings Everyone, Members and Visiitors alike... I am dedicating this page to a young girl by the name of Tempest Smith. She was 12 years old, and her young life should have been just beginning, instead, because of constant taunting and ridiculing by her classmates at a Lincoln Park, Michigan school, she decided, that death would be better than enduring another day of the misery that she was subjected to all too regularly. As I said, Tempest was a 12 year old girl, that is her picture to the right. She looks pretty normal to me. But the majority of her classmates thought that because she dressed in a "gothic" style, and had an interest in Wicca and witchcraft, that she deserved to be ridiculed, made fun of, taunted and teased. Tempest was in middle school and most of the classmates that made fun of her, had done so for several years, to quote, "had teased her constantly since elementary school". Continued ?     In memory of... Tempest Smith 1988 - 2001 A school picture of Tempest Smith is reflected in the mirror still bearing the smudged lipstick of her final kiss. Tempest revealed in her journal that the teasing of her classmates drove her to take her own life. There is another Memorial to Tempest Smith, located here...     In Love & Light, we light this candle in your memory...            Excerpts from Tempests, journal... Tempest's journal, discovered under her bed after her Feb. 20 suicide, offers a glimpse into a problem family and friends didn't fully understand: the incessant teasing she faced every day about her shy demeanor, choice of clothing and religious beliefs that made each day of school -- then eventually life itself -- unbearable. Everyone is against me. Still, death will come sooner or later for me. Will I ever have friends again? The haunting, hopeless feelings Tempest privately expressed in her journal, daily. 'Jesus luvs u' Tempest often spent hours in her bedroom writing poems and other reflections in the small notebook she kept beneath her bed. The notebook was a birthday gift from her mother. It had a picture of pop star Ricky Martin on the cover. Tempest, wrote about typical youthful concerns: crushes on boys; her dog, a shar-pei named Buddy; trips to her grandmother's house. She wrote about family, calling her mother, "the best mom ever."       What can we as parents do to stop this? Listen to our children. Speak up for them. Tell them it is okay to speak up when they hear others doing this to classmates, or people in general. Lead them by example. Don't laugh at the jokes based on predjudices. When you see someone being mistreated, speak up for them. Remember, one day, that person may be you. There are many injustices happening right now, right here. You may not see them, or then again, you may not think it is that bad. Just like those children thought what they were saying and doing to Tempest was just fine and was causing no harm. I have learned over the past years, that children can be the cruelist of all. They feel that they are infallible, that their words have no effect on anyone, that is, until their own mortality is put in check. Continued ?  Her Mother remembers... her daughter was a tall, slim blond who got her name because she was born during a violent storm... Denessa Smith sits alone in her dead daughter's room. Tempest Smith, 12, killed herself in her Lincoln Park bedroom last month (Feb. 20, 2001) after being taunted by classmates. Continued ?     Life at home was different, said Tempest's mother, Denessa Smith. "She was very talented," Smith said of her oldest child. "She liked to play the flute and write poetry." Smith, who raised Tempest alone, wasn't concerned when her daughter became interested in witchcraft. "She asked me if I'd buy her some books about Wicca, and I said I wanted to read them first," Smith said. "The books all talked about love and nature. I didn't see anything wrong with that." Tempest would get moody sometimes -- "but what 12-year-old girl doesn't?" wondered Smith.  "I knew she was being teased at school, but I didn't know it bothered her that much. She never told me." Denessa Smith isn't sure if school staff knew about the teasing her daughter received. "Tempest said she told her teachers about it all the time," Smith said. "I have to wonder if someone in the school couldn't have stopped it." "Although Tempest is gone, it's not too late for educators and students to open their eyes to the consequences of teasing", Denessa Smith said. "You never know -- something you say might be the one thing that pushes them over the edge," Smith said She also wrote about the pain she increasingly endured during school. He said some things to me. It all made my skin boil. Afterward, my head ached. Although Tempest had a few friends, many of her classmates had teased her constantly since elementary school. They teased her because she wore dark "Gothic" clothing to school. They teased her because she read books about Wicca, a pagan religion often associated with witchcraft. Her classmates often taunted her with Christian hymns. Now people aren't chanting Jesus luvs u. They're singing it. Anybody here to hear me? No one will stay near me. Death -- why does it come? Ever will I die? No, no, I will live hopefully.   In loving memory of Tempest Smith, and our warmest regards for her mother Denessa...   Aradias Attic Dec. 29, 2002        Classmates had this to say... Students at Lincoln Park Middle School are now trying to find peace themselves, haunted by the feeling that they may have driven their classmate to end her life. Many of Tempest's classmates have told teachers and counselors they feel responsible, because they teased the girl so ruthlessly. More than 100 students showed up at Tempest's funeral last Saturday, bearing cards and placards expressing their grief -- and guilt. Continued ?    A page from Tempest's journal says alot...   A young teen's cry: 'Just help me' By Special to The Detroit News Excerpts from Tempest Smith's journal: * Look at me, what do you see? Please help me to forget this. Moment of silence, will it ever come? Even I don't know who I am any more. * Here I am, all alone. Everyone's gone. Leave me all alone, why? Please, just help me * Try not to get hurt. Please, please help me to overpower this. * Running, running from a dream that I wish was not. * Stop me from hearing this. To whom do I go to? Open a new page in my life. Relax, how can I? Many people have this?   Teasing and taunting led girl to end her life Pressures that prompted mass shootings also spur quiet suicides By George Hunter / The Detroit News Read the entire story here.    "I'm sorry if I said mean things to you," one of Tempest's classmates wrote. "I didn't mean them. It was the easiest way for me to hide what was wrong with me." "I am sorry that it led to this," was the message written on a placard. "None of it should have happened. If only they had understood, then you would still be alive." "Tempest would've been surprised at how many of her classmates cared about her", said seventh-grader Shirley Kovacs. "I was sad when she died," Kovacs said. "The whole school was sad."   School Officials had this to say... Lincoln Park school officials and grief counselors have been working with the students. "The last thing we want to do is make our students feel guilty," said Lincoln Park Middle School Principal Robert Redden. "But, maybe there is a lesson to be learned here: that we should strive to treat each other with more kindness."