Met them all in first year undergraduate at St. Michael’s College. Three attending, plus their friend visiting from another university. All having attended the same Catholic high school.
One became a university professor of philosophy, at a Catholic university. Another became a lawyer, where the family law side of his practice is “collaborative family law“. A third became scrambled by third year, at the latest. Assume schizophrenia or similar, since he never recovered and remained largely in third party care, it seemed, for the rest of his life. On the other hand, maybe not. When he last visited me, at his insistence, nearly frothing at the mouth, there were no religious delusions that I can recall. Kept speaking about the image of his deceased father, in the shadows, smoking.
Wondered what had happened to the fourth. An internet search and discovery that for many years he has run a used book store in a smaller town. With emphasis on Catholica. Lots of mail order, it seems.
All of them growing up with this spirit that never left, even in madness. A life framed by same and, in madness, undoubtedly not destroyed by same.
How many with such clear
What would we have thought, had we been able to see from that early age, how it would have turned out? Being able to perceive the potentiality realized? How well do we appreciate our own accomplishments? Perhaps the assessment should be left to those we touched along our way.