MONTEGO BAY, St James — A pall of gloom continues to hang stubbornly over Cornwall College’s school community, following the sudden death of one of their promising students, days before the start of the Easter Term.

On December 28, Cedric ‘CJ’ Murray, a 17-year-old grade 11 student at the Montego

Bay-based institution, was taken to hospital for medical attention, after he complained of having a headache.

He later returned home but things took a turn for the worst that night when he wet his bed and became mostly unresponsive.

At about 2:00 am the following day he was again taken to hospital, where he was admitted following a battery of tests.

But, within 10 hours of being at the medical facility, he was pronounced dead.

On Monday, Vice-Principal of Cornwall College, Lisa Allen, described Cedric as “a very good, active and valuable student, someone we would be happy to continue having”.

Allen said that the school community is taking Murray’s untimely passing very hard and that counselling has had to be provided for students, some of whom cried openly at the sad news.

Teachers are also in disbelief, she told the Jamaica Observer West.

“We provided grief counselling for the students, particularly from his class [11 Science] and we are trying to cope with the sudden loss. That’s the best way I can put it,” expressed Allen, in trying to explain the tremendous grief the school community is undergoing.

Allen said a series of further grief counselling sessions are expected.

“Because, [Murray’s death] happened over the holiday, we weren’t able to make the arrangements prior to today [Monday]. But I am sure the principal is making some arrangement for some other people to come in to provide some more counselling, but our guidance department did it this morning,” she said.

Cedric’s father, Sedric Murray, a successful cabinet maker, who resides in Cacoon Castle, Hanover, told the Observer West that his son wanted to become a medical doctor.

“Once, I said to him ‘CJ, why don’t you try to get the trade [cabinet making] in your head?’ And he said, ‘Daddy you cut wood, but I will cut flesh,'” recalled the elder Murray. He said his son had even placed the words ‘Doc Cedric W Jr Murray’ on the door to the entrance of his bedroom.

The senior Murray said that family members are finding it very difficult to cope with the sudden passing.

“Every morning you would send your son off to school, you wait for him to come home and knowing that he won’t be coming home again, that’s not a nice feeling. It is not nice,” he said sadly.

Cedric’s mother, Paula, a teacher at the Bethel Primary and Junior High in Hanover, described her son as someone who would go the extra mile.

“As a teacher, my children have grown up reading, and he [Cedric] said that the boys at school [Cornwall College] are not reading and he said he wanted to start a Book Club to help boys to realise the importance of reading,” Paula recalled.

The club was started last year, and currently has over 60 students, some of whom are from other schools.

Mayor of Lucea and Chairman of the Hanover Parish Council, Wynter McIntosh, said Cedric, who is a former 2008 Youth Mayor of Lucea, “had potential and his passing is a great loss”.

“Because I know the potential that he has, in my mind, he would have been a future politician. I know he wanted to go into medicine and so it is really a loss. Myself, as the chairman of the Hanover Parish Council, is grieving with the family at this time, because it is really a big loss,” McIntosh told the Observer West, shortly after leading a team from the parish council on a visit to the deceased family.