A dear friend has died. Mary Uscian was -and will continue to be- a source of light and hope to her friends and to the community. She was a nurse who made sure poor people received health care. With a friend, she started the local sliding-scale medical clinic. She made sure there were health screenings at the shelter for homeless people.
But more than what she did, there was just who she was. She was hilariously funny, quick-witted, deeply spiritual, but also justly critical of (and wounded by) the Catholic Church.
I'm having trouble with tenses as I write. It's hard to remember to write "was" rather than "is". The news is still fresh feeling, and I'm in that phase where it's hard to grasp the finality of her death. We'll really never see her again. That's just wrong.
Please hold her (and she'd want me to say, everyone who works for justice) in your thoughts and prayers today. The world still needed Mary. There's some comfort that she's no longer suffering from her brutal illness. But it's not quite enough, yet.
1 comment:
I just stumbled onto your blog about Mary's passing.
We had been out of touch for a while and I was doing some searches to reconnect.
How sad to learn of her death. Even sadder is your allusion to the brutality of her illness.
We met in the 1970s in Chicago. We volunteered with the American Friends Service Committee in support work for draft resisters in the waning days of the Vietnam War.
She was among the people who influenced me to become a nurse.
I appreciate finding someone with whom to share my grief.
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