Gay youth pastor Peter Delacroix woke up over the weekend to find that a teen he’d counseled had decided enough was enough.
He rushed to the boy’s house, but was too late. “Max” had hanged himself, and was too far gone to respond to paradmedics’ attempts to revive him.
After some consultation, particularly with Max’s beloved grandmother, Peter decided to publish the teen’s last words on Twitter.
Anyone who thinks that there isn’t a cumulative effect of the kind of hate speech that’s been given presidential sanction these days should read the suicide note Max sent to Peter. It will make you cry uncontrollably in an instant.
Here is what Max sent to Peter:
You are ugly and dirty and you make me feel ugly and dirty. I have heard all my life that I am a sinner even though I love God and I like to think God loves me too.
I’m sorry Jack that I didn’t kiss you that day. I’m sorry Pastor Pete but please don’t be sad. Mostly I’m sorry Gramma because I know you tried really hard to love me when no one else would. I’m sorry I let you all down. I’m sorry but I’m just tired of all the hate.
I’m tired and want to sleep forever but maybe I will wake up in Heaven and there will be no hate there and only love. No one will call me bad names or hit me or remind me of my accidental place here.
Everyday I watch the news and see the hate against people like me and I realize I have no future. This country I don’t recognize anymore hates me and makes laws to punish me just because I’m gay.
They hate me because I love too much and love too wrong. I learned that my kind of love is bad. I heard it enough to believe it a long time ago.
Everyday someone comes along that tells me that I am worthless and my love, how I love, who I love is an affront to God as if anyone truly knows God’s mind.
I love beautiful things and I cry when they are gone. There is no more beauty left in the world. It has been replaced with this alien thing called hate. Bad people killed all the beautiful things. This is not a world I want to live in.
This is my choice the only choice I was ever given and it is mine alone.
I love you but I won’t miss any of this and I don’t think in the end I will be missed much at all in a world that looks at me like I’m something dirty they found on the bottom of their shoe.
I’m sorry I was weak and that I loved too much.
Max
If you know someone at risk for suicide, do what you can to get them help. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255, and their website is suicidepreventionlifeline.org. The site includes pages dedicated to specific groups — including the LGBTQ community.
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