Youth pastor posts heartbreaking tribute to gay teen’s suicide. | Photo: Andrey Zhukov / Flickr
A youth pastor just posted a heartbreaking tribute to a 17-year-old boy who left him a suicide note.
Youth Pastor Peter Delacroix discovered the suicide note in his emails sent from Max – one of the teens he peer counsels.
But in the 10 minutes it took to rush to check on the boy, it was already too late.
Delacroix wrote in a heartbreaking Twitter thread that they attempted CPR ‘but he had been anoxic for far too long.’
‘I will miss him very much,’ he continued. ‘He had the heart of a lion, the soul of a poet and the smile of an angel.’
Delacroix then deliberated whether or not to publicly post the boy’s suicide note, after Max’s grandmother (and sole guardian) urged him to.
Youth Pastor: ‘Here is Max’s final valediction’
The youth pastor decided to post Max’s suicide note, in the hope that it discourages anyone feeling they’re alone.
The note in full reads:
Dear World,
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
In the thread, Delacroix also advised: ‘Parents, if you have a queer child, hug them and tell them you love them.’
‘Do this every day,’ he urged. ‘Tell them they are beautiful and have worth, no matter what anyone else might tell them. Be their armor against hate.’
Delacroix peer counsels 13 other queer kids and said beautiful messages on social media are having a ‘big impact.’
He said: ‘I cannot ever thank all of you enough for helping to start the healing process for us.’
Read the full thread on Twitter:
This morning, I found myself up much earlier than usual, so I decided to check my email and just generally screw around on my laptop. During this time, I received an email from one of the queer teens I peer counsel as a Youth Pastor at my church.
1/— Peter “Little Doc” Delacroix (@DocPeteyJ) 5 May 2018
If any of this is triggering, the youth pastor also listed the number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline in the US: 1-800-273-8255.
You can also access help via the Suicide Prevention website.
See also
Need support? LGBTI helplines for those in crisis or seeking advice
