05/15/2000

Lawrence,

Last year around this time, I asked you to state your intentions. At that point, you didn’t feel that you were in any position to answer my questions. You felt it would be inappropriate. And, while I realize I am still a student at the school where you teach, so much has changed since then that I hope you’ll consider answering.

So, this year I am going to make the same request. I feel that, by now, you must have at least a sense of where we are headed. I think I know, but I need to hear the words.

What are your intentions?

Have you taken the time to reflect upon the past year? If you haven’t, you should. When was the last time your life changed so much in one year?

Or maybe it isn’t your life that has changed; you have changed. The thought of how you’ve grown brings tears to my eyes. I know what a struggle it can be, and how painful at times, but all your angels see throughout the process is the splendour of a rose bud that desperately wants to blossom.

In time it will all unfold. Just let it happen.

I get the sense that my words don’t express the intensity of my emotion. I am very proud of you. You hear that? This is coming straight from my heart: I am so proud of you, Lawrence. I have challenged everything you’ve ever believed, and you’re still in one piece.

You treat me with respect even when you don’t understand me, and you’re patient with me when I don’t understand you. You took it upon yourself to play every role that needed to be filled in my life, and you did so with a grace and beauty of which you probably imagined yourself incapable. You have changed my life.

I know that you may doubt yourself sometimes, but I have always known that you are truly a good man.

You were alive more than thirty years before I was born. It has suddenly occurred to me that, in that time when you were alive and I wasn’t, I must have been your angel!

Giselle