We are Walking Each Other Home

I am getting old, and I’ve been mystified by the changes happening in my body. When I look in the mirror, I wonder who is looking back at me with all of those wrinkles. When I glance at my hands, they have somehow become my mother’s. My skin is getting thin. So, truth be told, I’ve been quietly obsessing about my aging mind and body, wondering how I will handle this obvious downhill slide. I have not really shared this with my people, it's been a quiet sort of bereavement, an ache of the heart. 

Last week God broke through my mental anguish and gifted me with the best sort of understanding. Now, I'm sure you've experience those kind of moments of grace, where the blinders are pulled off and you can see the beauty before you. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take this space to share one of those moments with you; it brought me back to the deepest parts of myself. 

It happened about a week ago when I was at Holy Spirit Catholic School in Goddard, teaching seventh grade writing. I was going to students’ desks, reading their saint essay, guiding them on structure.
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​One of the students, Camille Robben, a sweet, soft-spoken girl (whose name is being used with permission), asked me to help with a specific part of her essay. I sat down on a chair close to Camille. I read a bit of her work, but then my eyes were pulled towards the informational sheet containing her saint’s story. 

I glanced at the article on the saint and began reading in a leisurely fashion. Blessed Chiara Badano, an Italian, was in her teens in the 1990’s when she felt a pain in her shoulder. When the doctors checked it out, Chiara was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, osteogenic sarcoma.
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I sat up straight. That was a term I knew well, too well. That was the exact kind of cancer that had killed my friend, Brenda Jean Florian, in 1984. All of a sudden, I began intently reading the article.
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Have you ever used a transparency? As I read about the life of this Italian saint, it was if I was putting two transparencies, or two lives, on top of each other—and the pictures were the exact same.

Blessed Chiara, an athlete, underwent chemotherapy and almost lost the use of her legs. Brenda, also an athlete, did lose one of her legs to amputation when she was just sixteen years old.
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Chiara’s cancer, like Brenda’s, kept progressing, which meant surgeries and chemotherapy. Chiara’s hair fell out. So did Brenda’s. Now, it’s easy for me to type those words: “Her hair fell out.” But it was not so easy when Brenda asked me if I would help her wash her hair, and no matter how carefully I held her head and sprayed the water, her hair just sort of melted off of her head. It was devastating. 
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As Blessed Chiara and Brenda fought the cancer, they both endured much pain and suffering. Both of them offered up their pain for the sake of others. I can distinctly remember Brenda having to do breathing treatments, where she breathed into a tube, trying to get her lungs to open up more. Before each painful breath, she would decide on a sacrifice focus. “This one is for Brian.” And she would breath into the tube, pushing, pushing, pushing, for her brother. She did that with each member of her family as well as for her friends.
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Eventually, both of these vivacious, very alive teens were told the news that they only had months to live.
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• When Blessed Chiara found out that she was going to die, she thought of other people, telling her parents to keep their normal routine, that she would be happy in heaven.
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• When Brenda found out she had mere months to live, her worry was about her mom, who had lost her husband Jerome to liver disease. Brenda knew the pain her own death would cause her mom; she instinctively made light of it, assuring her mom that she was going to be joining her dad in heaven, that she would be happy.

Knowing that she would not have a wedding, eighteen-year-old Blessed Chiara planned her own funeral. When I read that, I inhaled sharply, tears coming to my eyes. Brenda had made that same decision for the same reason. No wedding to plan? She rolled with the funeral; she picked out her favorite songs and even went as far as asking specific friends to be her pall bearers, something that still makes me shake my head in wonder.
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Blessed Chiara is revered and honored for the way she led her life. It was surreal to read about her details. See, I have spent most of my life thinking deeply about the saints, the holy men and women who have lived lives sold out to Jesus—people like St. Faustina, St. Padre Pio, St. Pope John Paul II.
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My whole goal of getting to know their lives was to imitate, to live with my heart just a little bit more like theirs. As I read about Blessed Chiara, I felt the Holy Spirit light the wick of understanding within me. Brenda wasn’t just my best friend who had died when she was seventeen—she was a saint.

Now, let me just pause here for a moment. Anyone that knew Brenda, anyone that saw how she lived, would absolutely agree that she had an express ticket to heaven. I have always figured that she has been in heaven for the past forty years.
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Yet READING about Blessed Chiara not only gave special sparkle to Brenda's life, it reminded me of some important truths, vital truths, that Brenda had entrusted to me, which I will share with you. 
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Back in the year 1984, as Brenda’s health declined, she accepted her impending death, but it did this thing to her: she became my Morrie—she wanted me to live life fully, embracing everyone and everything. She knew she would never get married, never have little ones call her Mama. She wouldn’t have a career. 

She implored me often, saying urgently, “Lori, you get to live, so do it well. Live big enough for both of us. Make your life count for something.”

So this week I’ve been pondering those words spoken to me long ago. I have lived 56 years and yes, I am aging, but wow, because of those extra four decades on earth, years that were not given to my friend, I have experienced everything she did not. Russ and I have been married for 35 years. Some of those years were difficult, as we maneuvered through work, the addition of children, and the addition of more children. I have held puke buckets, helped with homework, tried to tame the chaos that IS big family living. But stepping back to see the big picture, I have watched my children graduate. I have seen four of them get married. We have held and been astounded by our three granddaughters. 

I have all things. 

Has it been easy? No. Has it been worth it? Absolutely.

Friends, as I have considered all of this, I'm realizing that my aging body is a glorious manifestation of this: “I have lived a long life.” 
 
May I never again complain about the sags and the bags. May I only be grateful for the years I’ve been granted and the gifts I have been given. 

I thank you for reading this. I hope Brenda's story, including her urgent appeal to live life well, gives you some illumination on your own life. I'm not sure how or why God does what He does, but this I know to be true: we are truly walking each other home.