I’m at that age where I’m steadily losing members of my family. It’s not a surprise; in fact, it’s something of a miracle that I’ve made it this far without being stripped of those people who stand between me and the shadowy boundaries of life. Still, it’s a shock to realize that we’ll never again be gathered around that big table at Christmas or the fourth. There won’t be any more of my grandmother’s coconut cake, bottle rockets in the back yard, or vast family games for which only some great aunt knows the rules. Even the house where we all gathered is sold, and will be a part of some other family’s memories.
The only stories that remain are now mine to tell.
While those loses of family are both sad and expected, I’d like to talk about another loss that came this year. Someone who was not part of my family. Someone who had only barely shaded from the role of colleague to friend in the last months that we worked together. Someone whose courage and grace were, and continue to be, a lesson I hope never to forget.
She was a German immigrant. A small, slender woman, with glasses of such power that they magnified her warm eyes till they filled half her face. German has a reputation for being a harsh language, but she had the kind of accent that shaved all the burrs off my name, turning it into “Mach.”
Hired for the unenviable task of supporting complex, home-grown software that was several years old, she soon proved herself both dogged in the pursuit of issues, and thoughtful in dealing with others. As is usual with someone who proved herself so consistently competent in all areas, she gradually assumed more and more responsibility, until she was the focus of much activity within our group.
While she was proving her competence, she was also gradually revealing herself as a progressive. When I say “gradually,” I don’t mean that she was hiding her opinions. On the contrary, I never once heard her back down from a principle. It was just that she was so quiet, so thoughtful, that you sometimes failed to note the forcefulness behind her soft words. In a company with an extremely conservative culture, where Rush Limbaugh blares from every other office, even the most ardent liberal can sometimes find retreat the better part of valor. She never retreated. She never yelled, never shook her first. She just held her ground and stated her positions.
She was quietly passionate and painfully intelligent. Her opinions showed the polish of years of careful thought and diligent study. She was literate, kindhearted, and dedicated. I had few occasions on which to meet her husband, a holocaust scholar, but I got enough of an impression to know that they were extremely well matched.
Then she was diagnosed with lung cancer.
The problem seemed to come from nowhere. She had never smoked, always taken care of herself, ate carefully, avoided the elevator for the stairs. It wasn’t unusual for people to think she was twenty years younger than what her birth certificate claimed.
The diagnosis was as bad as you can imagine. The doctors gave her no hope, and told her she had only a few weeks to live. But the way she handled it was the very definition of grace. She visited each person in the office and told them what their friendship had meant. She thanked us for the chance to work there. In her last days on the job, she was extraordinarily generous as she took time to help those of us who were just starting to realize how large a gap her leaving would generate. She gave away books and said her goodbyes.
Then she survived.
Part of a lung was removed. Then a whole lung. There was chemotherapy and an intensive course of radiation therapy. And to the amazement of all, she lived past the few weeks the doctors had predicted. Past a few months. Past a year.
In the communications and rare visits that happened in the period after her surgeries, she seemed much the same person — worn down by the rigors of her treatment, but just as kind and self-effacing. However, there was something she wasn’t sharing with those of us her knew her only lightly: pain. Her surgeries and treatment had left her with constant, debilitating pain.
Then, a few weeks ago, she decided to end that pain.
Even in this decision, she kept family and friends in mind, taking care that no one else would be blamed, and doing what she could to limit the desolation this decision would bring to those who loved her. She had not forgotten the people who mattered to her. Neither had she forgotten the causes that matter. That’s why she made a request of those who missed her.
She asked that they donate to The Southern Poverty Law Center. She understood the importance of what the SPLC had done for the displaced and the underprivileged. She knew their work in fighting for civil rights, and in sticking up for immigrants. She knew that the legal defense provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center was often the only brake placed on the rocketing train of injustice.
She made that last request, and now I’m making the same request. I know that in this political season, there are a lot of demands on your pocketbook. There are candidates and causes standing by that need your money. I know that. But please, if you can, find a little money you can donate to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And if you do, tell them it’s because of Adelheid.
