The best teacher I ever had didn’t have a drivers license yet. He was a voice on the other end of a phone, and he was about to die.
I met him while volunteering at the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. We talked for a long time. We never met, never knew what the other looked like, and yet that Boy changed my life. I think about him every day.
Kind of like Fight Club, there are essential rules for suicide crisis counselors, such as:
- Try to talk them out of it. It’s called suicide prevention.
- Never talk about yourself.
- If it’s a minor at high risk – you are mandated to call the police.
The night I talked to The Boy, I followed none of those.
The Boy had a concrete plan to kill himself that night. I tried to do what I’d been trained to do — help him find reasons to live — but he didn’t want to talk about that. Growing impatient, he said that he called simply to ask about something. But when I asked what that was, he wouldn’t tell me that either. I felt like I was losing him. So I just shut up and listened.
That’s when everything changed.
The Boy was a good kid. Smart. Funny. Curious. And calm. So calm for someone who was about to not be here anymore.
When the call ended, I knew I had to quit. I didn’t yet understand why.
On the Line is the story of my journey to figure that out, and of what one unexpected conversation can teach us about compassion and the power we have to bridge the gap between fractured souls in a world that often forgets to look beyond the surface.
