By Christine M. Quirk — Christine@concordbridge.org
Justin Cameron, Adrian Soto’s principal, said he was a typical kid. He started school in Concord last November, moving here with his mother, Elizabeth Garcia, from Westford.
“He was very much like a lot of our sixth graders,” Cameron said. “He was a gamer. He was a YouTuber — and he was just really kind-hearted and had a big personality.”
But Adrian also had complex medical needs and died after surgery on August 7. He was just 12 years old. He is survived by his mother and the middle school friends and teachers who now feel his absence daily.
“He was a shining light,” Superintendent Laurie Hunter said at the August 20 School Committee meeting before a moment of silence. “He had been at our school for a few short months, but he touched everyone around him.”
Adrian was scheduled for surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital in August. Cameron said the surgery was not high-risk and that he and Adrian’s mom had been talking about how to manage the beginning of school in case Adrian was still recovering.
“She reached out on a Saturday, and I was expecting to hear from her, because I knew he had surgery two days prior,” Cameron said. “I thought the conversation would be … he might have a delay [in] starting school.”
Instead, Garcia told him there had been complications and that Adrian had passed away.
Making connections
Cameron said Adrian had the unique ability to connect with his peers and teachers.
“He was equal part cracking a joke with a kid to sharing that same joke and having a belly laugh with an adult,” Cameron said. “You could just tell he was never going to lose that.”
Adrian, as it turns out, was also a prize-winning muffin maker.
Cameron said the sixth graders take a FACS course — family and consumer science — similar to what used to be called home economics.
“Every March, while the country celebrates and engages in March Madness, which is college basketball, we engage in Muffin Madness here at Concord Middle School,” he said.
Sixth graders form teams and develop a muffin recipe. Staff judges the muffins on presentation, taste, and composition.
“[All of those] things are a Muffin Madness bracket, and Adrian and his team was one of the winners,” Cameron said. “That’s probably one of my favorite stories.”
“To look both ways means to look around you and realize that everyone, not just you, has something going on. It is important to look both ways in life because you can see how other people are feeling. Looking only one way is to only focus on one thing and not have room for anything else.”
Adrian Soto
Coping with loss
In the aftermath of Adrian’s death, school officials worked with Adrian’s mother and Riverside Trauma Center to find a way to both honor Adrian and support his classmates and teachers as the school year began without him. The community also rallied around Garcia, arranging meal and gift card deliveries. Separately, a GoFundMe created to help her after Adrian’s passing had raised more than $20,000 as of last week.
Cameron sent a letter to the seventh and eighth grade families, explaining they would talk about Adrian at a first-day-of-school assembly and discuss the book “Look Both Ways” by Jason Reynolds, which had been required reading the year before. The letter also included resources about how to talk to children and support them after a traumatic event.
Cameron said both school and Riverside counselors were at the assembly, ready to step in if a student became overwhelmed.
“No one ended up leaving, not even the kids that were closest to Adrian,” Cameron said. “I was really proud of the school for honoring him that way.”
‘Appreciate … the little interactions’
In some ways, Cameron explained, the gathering’s theme was inspired by Adrian himself.
“That assembly was inspired because Adrian’s mom asked me to go on to Adrian’s school computer to find a story he was writing,” Cameron said. “But in going through the computer, I also ran into [a] journal reflection that he did from ‘Look Both Ways.’ … The whole theme of the story is you have to slow down your life and really appreciate [the] little interactions you have.”
Adrian lived this idea in his relationship with his van driver.
At Garcia’s request, Cameron contacted the bus company and told the driver he had made a difference in Adrian’s life.
“He said, ‘Oh, no, I have to tell you the difference he made in my life,’” Cameron recalled, saying that Adrian took the time to get to know his driver, asking about his day and his interests.
“And he said, ‘You know, that’s the message that you have to give to your students,’” Cameron said.
Adrian leaves a “legacy of joy,” Hunter said.
“He was a young man with a lot of joy and a full heart,” she said. “That smile is entrenched with us, and that will be what he carries forward.”
