A few days ago a member of my high school graduating class passed away. Bonnie had always been the type of person who was on the periphery of events, parties, dances, and all of the social things that make up a high school experience. In many ways, she was challenged – not intellectually but in other ways that can make teenage years tough.
Her last days sound as if they were as challenging as those earlier days. And she left the world seemingly bereft of the parents whom she buried and any close personal friends. Fortunately, another classmate was made aware of her death through a professional acquaintance. He notified the rest of us.
I was somewhat amazed by the outpouring of sentiment and emotion that met her death’s announcement. Classmates responded en masse to express their sympathies and their memories. And I was no exception. Something deep within me was touched, a chord that struck more than a note of sorrow in my heart. Not just about Bonnie’s passing, but about the many opportunities I had omitted to reach out to her in some way. In my yearbook, she wrote that she considered me a friend – a gracious acknowledgement of the times that I had acknowledged her. But I hadn’t really been her friend. I hadn’t made the time, hadn’t taken the interest, hadn’t reached out the many times I could have.
And there’s not much I can do about that now.
Except two things:
I can pray for Bonnie.
And in praying for her I can make a resolution – to do for others what I perhaps did not do for her.
It takes very little to acknowledge another. Very little to reach out. Very little to include. Very little to show a person his or her true worth.
In the email I sent to my classmates, I said this:
When my son, Simon, died in 2004, I selected a quotation for his prayer card given to us by St. Ambrose. It says, simply this: “We have loved them during life, let us not abandon them, until we have conducted them by our prayers into the house of the Lord.” Let us do that for our classmate, Bonnie, and for all of our dearly departed loved ones. And, may we, even now, while physical life still inhabits our bodies, remember to pray for each other. That would be the one legacy our class could give that would last forever.
And this is true.
Who is God asking us to include in our “legacy” today? How can this legacy be forwarded through prayer – and through action. These together can do so much make a difference.
Dear Bonnie, Rest in the peace of the Lord. Amen.
