16.
“Through doing genealogy, I found a kindly gentleman who was my fourth cousin in the UK. He was a retired teacher and refused to get a computer, so we corresponded through the mail. His letters were brilliant and laced with really clever humor. I came to adore him. After a while, he kindly offered to research my English family history for me, and I gladly accepted the offer. He lived in the same city my family had originally come from. A few years later, on a trip to England, I got to meet this man. He had never married and had a deformed leg due to one of those old-time diseases, but he drove me around to see where my ancestors had lived and was fun and interesting to be with.”
“I was sad when he died a few years later. I had saved his letters and an oil painting he had done, and I continued to more or less idolize the man. However, a couple of years later, I received a message on Facebook asking if I knew my relative’s whereabouts. I replied that he was dead.
The person wrote back that he was sorry the man was dead because he wanted to see him go to prison. It turns out this new contact was a former student, and the ‘nice’ teacher used to force several boys in his car to play ‘games.’
Everyone wanted to report him, but they knew no one would believe them. They would have ended up getting in big trouble and probably getting thrown out of the prestigious private school.
This man had been traumatized, and finally, all these years later, he had gained the courage to go public with what my relative had done to many young boys. I don’t know if he would have been jailed, but his reputation would have been ruined, and he would never have been able to face the world again. Sometimes, you just never can tell.”
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