Kristina Calco's Story

<- [ This is Kristina Calco. This is her story )

“Hi, I’m Kristina Calco and I’m 12 ½ yrs old going on 13 on Dec. 26 (the day after Christmas aren’t I lucky?) You are reading about my life in my preteen/teenage years. Let me tell you a few things about me.

I have wavy/curly dark brown hair an inch or two longer than my shoulders and dark… and brown eyes. I wear glasses and am a little pale, not so much anymore because I got tan over the summer. I’m 4 ft 10 ½ (I know I’m short for my age, 20th percentile, but I’m growing.) I’m in 7th grade this year and am dying to be 13 (then I’ll finally be a teenager!). I have to get braces really soon right now I’m wearing a twin block to move my jaw forward. I had an overbite but it’s almost gone because my treatment for that will be over soon. Although braces are no walk in the sun, they’ve got to be better than this! I’m not popular but I’m not a loser and I’m actually pretty shy around other kids, unless I know them well.”
In middle school, Kristina was a 4.0 honor student who always strived for perfection in everything that she did. She was extremely artistic and her work was chosen, not only to be on the cover of the school yearbook but she was also selected to design the school t-shirts. In an effort to overcome her shyness, she joined the student broadcasting staff, the yearbook staff and the newspaper staff. And although she was admittedly not the best at sports, she joined the Swimming team, the Volleyball team, the Track team and even joined the Ski Club. She signed up for Forensics and earned a 3rd place trophy in the 2003 State Forensics Tournament. She later wrote that no one would ever know how hard that was for her. That was actually one of the proudest moments of her life. Kristina supported her school in every way imaginable and attended numerous sporting events, such as basketball and football. At the end of the 8th grade, Kristina tried out for and made the JV Cheerleading team for High School. She wrote in her journal:
“Me, Kristina Arielle Calco, I made the cheerleading squad for high school! JV too! I’m so proud of myself!”

Despite all of her accomplishments however, there were some who would choose to drag Kristina down. Our first indication of what had happened was found in Kristina’s suicide note, which was written in the form of a poem. She wrote:

[ Her Suicide Note/Poem )

"I knew I was always the ugly one. Don't say that's a lie because you don't know what some kids have said and done. It hurts to think about how mean some people could be. Even when I started to look a little better, they still couldn't see.”


When we found that note, we were absolutely dumbfounded. Not only could we not make heads or tails of it, but we had absolutely no idea why she would write that. She had blossomed into a beautiful girl. And so our search for answers began. Initially, we found 2 Instant Message Conversations in which Kristina said to a friend:

“You should have heard what they said to me in middle school. It was awful. I felt like crying."
"Everyday this boy would tell me I was ugly and nasty, and then he got other people to say it too. It was torture and a living hell.”

“Everyone I've ever liked has always rejected me for reasons of ‘God, you are so ugly’ or ‘I’d never go out with you’.”


When the other party questioned her about whether these words were actually spoken to her and what she did about it, Kristina replied...
"yes, they actually said those words to me and I cried a lot."

[ Eulogy Kristinas mother read )

My daughter was a very sensitive young girl of 15 who sadly was just never meant to make it to her 16th birthday, which would have been 12/26/2005. To us and everyone else, this Saturday, (December 3rd, 2005) seemed not much different from any other Saturday. Kristina slept in, ate breakfast, showered and dressed. She asked to go to the library to get books for a project she was working on about John F. Kennedy. I dropped her off at the library while I drove to pick up my other daughter from dance class. After that I drove Kristina to the mall to do some shopping. She helped her friend get ready for the dance and decided that she’d like to go after all. When she came home she went directly upstairs to fix her hair. When she was done with her hair and makeup, we drove to get a dress at Marshall Fields. She chose the dress she wanted, we paid and we just cut the tags so she could wear it out. We drove home to get the $10 entrance fee and my husband. Kristina asked me how she looked, to which I replied that she looked great, which of course wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She had wanted me to tell her that she looked beautiful, which of course she did. Kristina told us the dance was over at 11 pm, so my husband arrived shortly after that to pick her up. He called her cell at which time she told him she’d made an error and that it was really over at 11:30. She came out sometime around 11:40 PM, came home, showed the other kids her dress, and proceeded to get on IM. I must have told her 6 times to take off her dress and get ready for bed. She asked me to take her picture first, which didn’t seem an unusual request as she did this for every dance she had. I took her picture and then went up to bed.



That’s the last time I saw Kristina alive.



Kristina never saw the gorgeous, bright, brilliant, intelligent, special person that she was. She couldn’t stand looking into mirrors because all she ever saw looking back at herself was “ugliness and fat”. “So I don’t look”.

I hope you read all the way to this point, this is such a sad story. Kristina was a very beautiful young girl. I don't think she understood what she was doing. It still gives me a chill about what could have been going through her mind all that time.