6:33 p.m. - August 22, 2002
Who can think beyond now?
To be thinking of virtue and doing good and what is excellence and then be interrupted by a telephone call from a former students' mother, asking me to visit the hospital because her son has asked for me repeatedly, is enough to alarm anybody.
I feel guilty, irrationally so, and in my mind am replaying conversations I had with my gay Mormon student.
He tried to commit suicide Monday morning.
I am angry but I don't know why, angry at his father and his religion and myself for not knowing the answers or making them any easier on him, angry at his mother for calling me and angrier still that I'm angry and confused.
Interrogation at the hospital from the parents wondering if I could shed any light on what happened because he's not talking to anybody other than a therapist and a nurse. What could I say?
I'm too angry to write but it hurts. This is what it is like to be a teacher and I feel responsible.
Lorster, we'll continue later, eh? I'm going to rifle through my address book. I'm in the mood to talk to someone.
