Last Things

Why we should never take our loved ones for granted

In my previous blog post, “The Last Lent,” I mentioned that we often don’t know that we’re experiencing something for the last time, and how much more aware we’d be if we knew.

Back when A. was a baby and I was still home with him for the first 10 months or so, I often watched daytime TV when I got bored. One day, Oprah Winfrey did a follow-up show with several couples whose rocky relationships had been mended, thanks to the intervention of Dr. Phil.

One 40ish woman came alone. Her husband had in the meantime died in a car accident, and in tears, she said how grateful she was that she had kissed him goodbye and told him that she loved him that day as he walked out the door to go to work. It was the last time she ever saw him alive.

I’ve had a similar experience with a friend, which shocked me to my core. At the time, I wrote about it in my journal. Below is my “flashback” entry from that day.

It just taught me that we should never take our family and friends for granted. Let’s cherish every moment we get to spend with them… and remember this especially at times when we’re maybe not seeing eye to eye.

FLASHBACK: NOVEMBER 21, 2021

Just learned today that my friend D. unexpectedly died last week. The last time I saw her was three weeks ago, as usual at the 8:00 AM Sunday Mass and subsequent coffee hour. She seemed quite depressed.

She said, “You won’t see me for a while; I’m going down to Massachusetts to see my sister.”

She started crying and said she really wanted all that COVID stuff to be over. I hugged her and held her for a moment and kissed her hair… and then I left because I needed to go do my grocery shopping.

The truth is, I could have stayed a while. I could have listened, could have let her pour out her pain, could have lent her an ear and a shoulder to cry on. But it was inconvenient and awkward and uncomfortable.

In the parking lot, I ran into D.’s friend T. He said he was worried about her, that her health wasn’t all that good anymore. He told me she lived way out in the woods, all by herself. He had offered to help her with some of her chores, but she had refused any assistance. We talked about how “they” should set up a phone tree for people in our parish who lived alone.

I said, “Imagine, someone like D., if something happened to her, no one would find her for days or even weeks.”

For a minute, right then, I thought of turning around and going back to the breakfast room to spend more time with D. But then I decided not to. She was just having a bad day. She’d get out of her funk once she saw her family. She’d be fine.

In one of his landmark speeches, Fr. Mike Schmitz called it “indifference.” It’s not that you don’t care; you just don’t care enough to act.

Last Sunday, I didn’t see D. at Mass and coffee hour. I noticed her absence with a feeling of slight unease, but then told myself she was probably still with her sister.

Today, again, I didn’t see her… and yet I didn’t really start to worry until L., a woman with Asperger’s who is very attached to D., asked about her.

“I’ve been saving her a seat for two weeks in a row,” L. said. “I wonder where she is.”

I looked at the little baby-blue backpack she had propped onto a chair to save space for D., and I started wondering too.

At home, I called D.’s landline, but no one answered. Next, I called T. and asked if he had heard of her. He said no. He told me that D. had a hurt leg and that there was so much junk piled up along her 300-foot driveway that she’d had to park her car at the bottom of the driveway and walk all the way up to the house.

My feeling of unease increased. I guess his did as well, because he said he’d take a ride to her house this afternoon to see if she was okay.

When I came home from the Eileen George Prayer Group, T. called and said there was a car with Massachusetts license plates in her driveway. D.’s pickup truck was missing. He found the door of the house unlocked and—for the first time ever—entered her home.

He said the front door would open only a few inches, and he had to push hard to force his way in. The room was filled with piles of junk and trash, with no discernible walkway. As he climbed over the piles into the adjacent rooms, it became clear that D. hadn’t been able to access her refrigerator, stove, kitchen sink, or bathroom in quite some time. T. said he found a kerosene heater and a fresh roll of plastic garbage bags out back.

We both agreed that this was bad enough to call the cops and ask for a wellness check. He said he’d get back to me and hung up.

I was aghast. What and where did D. eat? Where did she shower and go to the bathroom? And where did she sleep? Was she living outside or sleeping in her pickup truck? And why didn’t I know about this?

Of course, the answer was simple. I didn’t know about it because I hadn’t asked. Because I’d never visited her at home. Because she was, as I sometimes jokingly said to others, “this friend who kind of looks like a homeless person but is really, really smart.” That’s all I knew about her, and it was all I wanted to know.

I called D.’s landline again. The phone just rang and rang and rang.

Then T. called back. According to the police, the previous Sunday, November 14, someone else had called in to ask for a wellness check on D. They had found her dead at her house, amidst her piles of trash. Heart attack, most likely.

It occurred to me that that Sunday a week ago, where I’d noticed her absence with fleeting unease and then immediately forgot about it, was the day they found her.

I could say that’s what makes me feel the most ashamed—that I was too busy with myself and my own life to care enough to act. But that would be a benevolent lie.

What makes me feel the most ashamed is the way I acted after I received the news. I felt dizzy, disoriented, sad, and a whole slew of other emotions I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I felt like I was going to explode if I couldn’t talk to someone… so I talked to everyone.   

It started out innocently enough. I called Father J. and told him the sad news. Then I called E., the Republican Town Committee chair, who knew D. well. I cried so hard, I could barely speak. Had I stopped there, it would have been fine.

“Tell people she’s passed away,” warned the third person I called, “but leave out the details. We need to protect her now.”

But I didn’t listen. I needed to relieve the pressure and the guilt and the pain. So I called more people—without noticing that they became progressively more removed from D. and less genuinely sad about her passing—and told them the whole story.

I only shut up when one gossipy friend said with breathless excitement, “How long before they found her? Was her body decomposed?”

I stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t believe she’d just asked me that. Then I realized: I was trampling on D.’s grave. I was feeding her to the hyenas.

I turned off my phone and finally allowed the silence to break me. I sobbed, I begged VatiGod, Jesus, and D.’s soul for forgiveness, and I promised I wouldn’t let her down again.

Tomorrow, I’ll call the parish office and book every available Mass to be offered for the salvation of her soul. I’ll make it my mission to get her out of Purgatory and into Heaven ASAP so she can live in a beautiful place with the angels and Saints.