Obituaries

A correspondent from a Texas prison included the paragraph below in a letter to me. I didn't know the person to whom it referred, but was nevertheless touched by the information. It seemed to be that this was a very brief but powerful statement about the tragic consequences of the current moral panic about inter-generational love.

jay

A 51 year old friend of mine in here [A Texas Penitentiary] shared the piano with me at Catholic Mass each week. He was much more skilled than me, perfect pitch, played by ear, directed singers, etc. But when he found out that he could no longer share his music talents in any Texas parish once he was back in society because of his SO charge, he gave up his will to live, let his diabetes take over and he died in his sleep last month.

When I expressed an interest in this bit of news in my next letter to him, he mentioned a second example. In this case the man saw release into a society that would do all it could to make him fail as a worse option than prison -- or death:

Second man committed suicide. Teddy was scheduled to get out in June. He was a 61 year old sex offender , who had no place to go, no friends or family that would accept him, no money or rese4rve, not eligible for S.Security yet, poor mobility, so used a walker. It looked hopeless to him, so he took a lethal hit of K2, the drug of choice here. He was found dead in his bed come morning.