A.M. attended my Interpersonal Communication course at a community college in Northern Indiana. He was quiet but engaged. After a narrative self-disclosure assignment, he shared with me privately that he was struggling with the loss of his mother, with whom he was very close. He told me he also struggled with suicidal ideation.

A.M. further explained that his siblings’ seeming indifference to the loss of their mother made his grieving process even more challenging and disheartening—he felt alone in the world. Having lost my own mother when I was his same age, I tried my best to recommend community outreach help, as well as make myself available to him to talk whenever he wanted. I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone in the world.

My focus was on trying to help A.M. focus on his goal of achieving an education, and to trust his time management skills to balance his job and studies so that he could focus on the path forward, while using positive memories of his mother and his earlier path as inspiration. I reminded him of some Jimmy Durante lyrics: “And the angels grew lonely…took you because they were lonely.” Our mothers were needed elsewhere. “They wandered down the lane, and far away.”

I didn’t want to invalidate his feelings of loss, but wanted him to know the past could serve him in moving forward, rather than being an anchor of dysphoric rumination, holding him in bondage to his past. I shared a Kierkegaard quote with him: “Life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backwards.” Recently I received an email from A.M. He told me he was living with his girlfriend and that they were expecting a child. He seemed happy and focused.

In my interactions with A.M., I often wondered what it was about me that brought him to seek my interaction; my guidance. I became aware that students bring far more than intellect and their physical presence to the classroom—they bring their sorrows and uncertainties and fears; their missteps and dreams. Had he seen a bit of himself in me? Had I seen a part of myself—possibly my younger self—in his aspect? An instructor can be a mentor, like Virgil—much more than a mere vessel of knowledge about academic subjects, but one of compassion and hope in the messy and beautiful course of life.