Saying Good-bye from Afar

A very close family friend passed away suddenly this week. Mrs. S was my parents' next door neighbor for 30 years. Her daughter was my best friend when I was young and I spent countless days and nights at her house. Our yards were fenced in together, and that was exactly how I saw our families, homes, and lives for many years: an extension of one another, all fenced in together.

Mrs. S probably never knew it, but she is one of the first people I remember who stretched my worldview beyond the "private Catholic" bubble in which I spent most of my first 20 years. She was Methodist. She didn't have the same political beliefs as my parents. She was a full time professional with a Master's degree. She sent her daughters to public schools. She kept her dogs in the house. She gave her kids an allowance. She stored her peanut butter in the fridge (it really is tastier that way).

She and her family weren't part of the Catholic community that shaped almost every aspect of our lives, yet this was the family I felt closest to for at least the first 13 years of my life. I very clearly remember recognizing that our families were different in some ways but that it didn't matter. Maybe it sounds trivial, but this set the stage for some very important realizations about good people and difference as I grew up. When I started to ask more questions of the world, I always remembered Mrs. S and her family and was reminded that good people don't all think exactly the same way or make exactly the same decisions. And that is part of what makes life complicated and beautiful.

I feel blessed to have had a nice, long conversation with Mr. and Mrs. S in their backyard when I was home this summer. It is difficult not to be able to go home for the wake and funeral, to offer my support to Mr. S and E, and to have a more personal outlet for my own grief. It is one thing to miss a wedding because that is the beginning of something joyful that will, ideally, last many years. But to miss this funeral, this closing, feels much worse.