In middle school my parents made me attend confirmation classes at our church. So each Thursday afternoon my friends and I, a small group of rowdy teenagers, would all sit in a make-shift classroom in the Church, all wrangled together, and try and discuss the “joys” of Christianity. Our teacher for the class was a member of the congregation- a family man. Had a wife and daughter. Anyway, each week this guy would try and tell us how awesome Jesus was and all that good stuff, while we would just talk and goof off the whole time until he would just get pissed at us and start to yell. Well, one day before class some of us were sitting there waiting and the minister shows up instead of this guy and tells us that the guy committed suicide just like an hour before. I mean, we all knew it was fucked up to a certain degree, and sort of joked that we were the ones that drove him to do it, but now, being older, it makes me think of the pain that guy was going through and how it superseded whatever Christian belief in suicide as being a sin (if you believe in that kind of thing- which I don’t). His replacement was a pretty odd guy, too. One night during class, we were doing some sort of talk therapy thing and he broke down about how he hadn’t seen his daughter in years because she was involved in some sort of cult. Adults are complicated. (Shrug)

Funny enough, a couple years after all this I had a substitute teacher for physical science (like an introduction to Physics). Sort of same situation. Kids giving the teacher attitude. She lost her cool and started yelling. Well, the next day we found out that as she was driving home after class and she started to cry and lost control of her car. Apparently she was killed in a front-on collision with a cement column (we had an overpass by the school). Next day the regular teacher came back and gave us the third-degree and told us we should all feel terrible. It’s not like we were being any WORSE for her than usual.