I was driving home late last night after teaching and having a lengthy and fulfilling conversation with a colleague about things ranging from Marxism to Game of Thrones. I hadn’t eaten and when I got stuck in a never ending McDonald’s drive-thru line I had time to scroll through Facebook. It hit me a few scrolls down. One of my greatest champions both academically and in my formative college years had died.

Father Bernie was a Catholic priest who was as learned as anyone I have ever met. He had a slew of degrees in law and theology and a bunch of honorary commendations added onto that. Although he taught legal and political science courses, this is not how I met Father Bernie. I met him when I was working at the Women’s Center. One afternoon he was sitting across the hall talking to someone and the other person pulled me into the conversation. The other person’s identity and job becomes important because Father Bernie–a Catholic priest who had taught seminary and worked with the Vatican–was visiting the director of the LGBT resource center. The conversation was lively as Father Bernie asked me about myself and when he was told what I had done at the Women’s Center asked a question I’ll never forget.

“Did you attend youth diocesan leadership camp by any chance?”

This is not a question you are asked everyday. But it so happens that I did attend youth diocesan leadership camp. And at that moment we had formed a connection about leadership and social justice that carried me through some formative years. Hell, I took a Canadian Politics class just because Father Bernie–born and raised in Nova Scotia–taught it. And when I gave my presentation in that class on the Canadian healthcare system he ended his comments with “I think you’re destined to teach someday. I really hope you do that.” Father Bernie not only wrote me an amazing letter of recommendation for law school (which is probably in large part how I got a scholarship to a Jesuit institution) but encouraged me to attend a Catholic law school to follow up on my sense of social justice that started in the church. Although I didn’t attend his first choice for me (Notre Dame), he always said that “the Jesuits are a good second choice.” (In the end, I think the Jesuits are much more my style…but that’s the kind of conversation I liked to have with Father Bernie and that no one else would really get.)

A year after I graduated, Father Bernie was called to the Vatican to serve in a leadership capacity and left my undergraduate institution. I always meant to find an address to write him, especially once he returned to the states. I never did. I both found it difficult to track him down at times and never quite felt comfortable with the kind of letter I wanted to write–the one where I thank him for everything (this part is fine) and tell him that I ended up following more of his advice than just making the Jesuits part of my education. I wanted to tell him that I was teaching now. I wanted to tell him that his comments always sat in my head. But I never found the words or the time or the gumption.

Just this Monday, in therapy, I was talking about Father Bernie. I mentioned that although I knew he had diabetes, he walked more than any person I knew and that he’d probably end up outliving us all. I talked about how much he impacted me and what it meant to have someone like that–so unique and caring and intelligent and not required by blood to be supportive–in my life at such an important time. I talked about how if I ever did go back to Catholicism it would be because of people like Father Bernie who showed me that you could sit in an LGBT resource center in 2001 as a Catholic priest on a regular basis.

So when I was hit with the news of his death not one day after having that conversation, I was torn to pieces. I pulled over after getting my food and sobbed. I sobbed like I haven’t sobbed in ages. This wasn’t a cry. This was a primal scream into the void. This was the 21 year old version of me crawling up to smack me for never writing that letter. It was the 15 year old version of me for whom leadership camp (along with good friends and theater) brought me out of the greatest depression I’ve ever encountered. It was the 28 year old version of me who was going through an existential crisis and thought back to Father Bernie’s comments about teaching to find a way out of it.

And all of those versions of me crept out in the sobs that kept me from getting back on the road.

This isn’t one of those “tell people you love them when you have a chance” type posts. I think that part comes through clearly enough. It is one of those posts, though, about how we honor the people in our lives whose words and actions live on long after they have left. It is about the critical moments tying together. It is about purpose in a life that can be rather purposeless at times. It is about a man who no one has ever uttered a bad word about and how it can sometimes feel like spitting into the ocean to sing their praise. It is about breaking conventions of religion and helping those around you not because it is the politically savvy thing to do but because God’s higher orders or the Universe or your own moral compass tells you it is the right thing to do.

And it is about those people you meet in unexpected places that leave unexpected marks on your life in profound ways and how I hope that I can do the same for my students in the years ahead.

Rest in peace, Father Bernie. You belong to the ages now and you did it the old fashioned way–walking up and down campuses across the world with a smile and an open heart and some sage advice.