Several years ago I was living in south Minneapolis at the home of a friend who had become a new homeowner. She and I met at a job in which we worked with mentally ill adolescents and through the experience we bonded. Many of the kids we worked with were violent and when she and I worked together, she knew I had her back and I knew that she had mine. It's hard to find such a relationship, especially professionally.
Predictably, we remained friends even after our employment there ended. She was there for me as I was applying for jobs in the Twin Cities Metro area and offered me a place to stay if my job search required an overnight. When I graduated from Law Enforcemnt Skills training, she was the only person to show up and offer her congratulations at what she know was a tough battle. My father had died early that year and my Mom didn't understand that this graduation cost me far more than my adademic four year graduation did; academically, I was a natural. Physically, I had a lot to overcome (being a woman), and I remain pleased with my showing at Skills.
She was a great friend, but we had one point of friction which I never wanted to bring up: my faith. She knew I was Catholic, but from the time she met me, I was not a real Catholic; I was struggling. I did not want to leave the Church, although I tried. Somehow, though, I could not bring myself to even darken the door of another religion. Although I did not go to Mass on Sunday very often, the pull was still there, and the moral upbringing was still present.
When I was "down and out", that is, having lost my job and what I thought was my very dignity, she purchased a home. She needed a roommate and I was her only choice. She was my only hope. True friendships can be like that.
Now, just so you understand who my friend was: H. was a political and personal Liberal with a capital "L", most of her friends were gay men, and she referred to herslf jokingly as a "fag hag". It wasn't until I moved in with her that I met some of her friends and even went out with them socially. Some of them are not friends I would have chosen for myself; they were angry, hateful people, ready to take offense at the slightest thing. Most were people just like me - just trying to get by, just trying to do the right thing, all tied up in moral relativism.
Eventually H. and I drove each other nuts as roommates tend to do, and I left. We remained friends until a few years ago.
This next part of the story is still painful.
Before and after I moved out, I was undergoing my long conversion. She and I stayed in contact and went out for our birthdays, even if we never had a chance to meet up otherwise. She had expressed long ago how important her friends were to her, as she saw her family as the ultimate representatives of betrayal. As I knew the story, I felt priviledged and did my best to remain as a good friend to her as she was to me.
After she had become a Social Worker, she had an Advance Directive written up and asked me to be one of her proxys. I looked it over and agreed, applying what I had learned (imperfectly) from my moral theology class in college. I thought it was acceptable and although I had seen questionable content there, I thought it could be justified. So I signed my name and agreed I would speak for her if the time ever came. She did not trust her family and knew that I would stand up and be her voice, and I fully intended to live up to that if it was necessary. For, you see, she was my friend and I owed it to her to stand up for her even in adverse conditions.
But my conversion was ongoing, and she was unaware of this as we were not in much contact anymore.
Then, one day, H. sent me an updated copy of her Advance Directive and as I reviewed it, I realized that she was asking to be Terri Schiavo - she wanted to die of starvation should the situation present itself. She claimed to know what she was talking about, but she didn't understand the reality of such a death. In all of her enlightenment, she had bought the liberal agenda including the outright ignorance of the suffering of such a death - even if confronted with that very thing.
H. was a social worker in a nursing home, and she often spoke of the people there whose time it was to "go" and the families who did everything to prolong their lives, refusing to allow them to pass away peacefully. At heart, I believe H. was a compassionate person, but God was not the source of her strength or her understanding. So when she was confronted with suffering and death, it terrified her. She also had deep-seated issues surrounding the need to control a situation (she was sexually abused as a child), and felt that she must have absolute control over every detail of her life...including how she was going to leave it.
I took the document she'd sent me and went to my parish priests at that time in order to help me with this, explaining that long ago I became a "proxy", and in fact was primary on her "Living Will." I tried to obtain some direction with what I had, and was looking to both preserve the friendship and break the news that I could not ever hold up my end of that contract. I would not tell the doctors, or enforce anyone to starve her in such a way. I was do my best to keep her alive until God himself called her home, which of course, was adverse to her wishes.
I did not receive much help from either of the priests I consulted. One did pose the question, "Would you starve your dogs?" And of course the question was "NO! That's cruel!", but he never helped me figure out how to best deal with the battle I knew was coming. The other priest was entirely unhelpful, and just told me to listen to my conscience. My conscience (more properly formed than before) had spoken, but it did not answer as to how best to deal with what I knew was coming.
I knew that H. would see this not as a rejection of a false ideology, but as a rejection of her, and certainly I did not want to reject her. I hoped to open a dialogue in which I could explain our Catholic faith and the dignity of life, using that as a platform to help her understand how I could not carry out her wishes which were in direct contrast to these beliefs. I also knew that she needed to be affirmed, but I didn't know how to do this with such an intimate topic, and I needed some sort of pastoral help in handling this.
I did not find it.
But God is good and he helped me say what had to be said in the tone with which it needed to be said. On the day she and I finally spoke, I explained to her that I could not fulfill the contract. In her condescending way that betrayed her own fear of rejection (that very thing I was trying to calm), she asked me,
"What's the problem?"
I carefully explained to her that what she was asking for amounted to murder and I could not, in good conscience, be a part of it.
Sharply, she told me that she needed me to be on board for 100% of this. She told me that I could not pick and choose what I wanted to follow.
I explained to her that I was aware of this and that I was telling her of my dilemma out of respect to her. She did not let me finish this explanation, but broke in and demanded that I be on board with her own wishes and that my statement told her that I was not respectful of her wishes. She told me that I did not respect her enough to follow her beliefs.
Very hurt, I took a deep breath and said to her, "I can't sacrifice my own beliefs on behalf of your own, H."
She said "Fine, I'll take you off, " and slammed down the phone.
I did not get a chance to "dialogue" with her. I did not get a chance to try to explain the dignity of life. She cut off our conversation and rejected me even as I tried to embrace her humanity even more deeply than I had ever before, because, through my conversion, I had come to understand who she really was: a child of God who deserved not to suffer more deeply than she already had.
H. rejected me, but I have never rejected her, and I still pray for her often. I have not tried to contact her for I know her too well and how such reaching out would be simply ignored or would fuel her anger even more deeply.
But she was like a sister to me, she is a strong woman pining for the truth she can't seem to find in the world she inhabits, so I ask you all to pray for her, and offer your Divine Mercy novena this week on her behalf.
H. couldn't follow me....so she forgot me. But I still can't forget her.
I suspect we all have stories of those we love who chose not to follow us to Christ, but that does not mean we should ever leave them behind. Let us all remember that even the greatest of Saints once rejected God...and that His love overcomes every evil.
Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of Your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, for the atonement for our sins, and those of the whole world. For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us, and on the whole world.
