Thoughts in a Haystack

I haven't posted in a while because of the demands of work and the distractions of a comment thread that has grown to unusual (for my poor blog) length.

One commenter there stated that "I don't respect anyone who calls himself a [particular religious faith]." I think it's clear that s/he would say the same about any follower of any organized religion.

What I want to explore is whether that statement is any different than "I don't respect anyone" ... who "has a different skin color; who has a different gender; who has a different sexual orientation, etc."

I have to explain my own experience first.

When my wife of 31 years, Shirley, was first diagnosed with cancer, she stayed, while I was away at work, with the people for whose son she had been babysitting for several years. When the chemotherapy made her too weak for them to care for her, we put her in the hospital.

On Christmas Eve 2008, Shirley decided that she didn't want any further treatment and, instead, wanted to live out what time she had left with as much quality as possible, rather than just quantity. The friends who had been taking care of her in my absence stated that they could no longer do so ... a totally understandable decision under their circumstances.

I was lucky to have a job that provided insurance that included some hospice care. (Why there isn't universal coverage for such care is another matter!)

But that coverage only paid for 4 hours of care a day. Between my job (and I have to say my bosses were most kind about forgiving time I took to care for Shirley) and the travel time to and from my job, there was least 10-12 hours that Shirley would need to be taken care of a day. It was clear that I could not take care of her myself and would have to put her in some place (such as a VA hospital ... since she was a veteran), where the "quality" of her remaining days would hardly have been a high priority.

I was at wit's end.

The daughter of other friends of ours, who I'll call "Margaret," is a physician's assistant. We had asked her to help with the hospitals and doctors when Shirley first became ill and she was wonderful, terrorizing the medical staff to the point that there was nothing they wouldn't do for Shirley.

But Margaret was, in fact, nothing more than an acquaintance ... the daughter of some friends ... and, in fact, both Shirley and I had, to our shame, made fun of her as a "type A personality" who was too controlling.

When I called Margaret concerning my dilemma about what to do with Shirley, she didn't hesitate and, almost literally, kidnapped Shirley from the hospital the day after Christmas and had her taken to her own house.

She arranged for a hospital bed and all the other of Shirley's medical needs to be installed in a spare room of her home. Being that it was only about a half hour from my job, I could be there most evenings and weekends and frequently stayed the night. Thus, Margaret let two strangers invade her home.

Margaret found a wonderful woman (thanks, Pat!) to (at a rate we could afford) care for Shirley for four hours a day. Margaret scheduled and dealt with the hospice people who cared for Shirley another four hours. And, because of her work schedule, Margaret took care of Shirley the rest of the afternoon until I could get there. Trust me, this is only the briefest sketch of what Margaret did for us.

This went on for an entire year, until Shirley's death on New Year's Eve, 2009.

Margaret also happens to be a deacon at an evangelical Christian church. Shirley was an avowed atheist and I am, as people here know, an agnostic. While Margaret offered to arrange for "spiritual counseling" for Shirley, when that was refused, it was completely dropped. Margaret managed most of Shirley's care for that year but she did not try to control Shirley's, or my, life.

For an entire year, Margaret disrupted her life, and that of her pre-teenage daughter, for an acquaintance. But she never complained. She never became testy (even though Shirley and I sometimes did). She never demanded that we conform to her beliefs. She was the closest thing I ever expect to see in my life to a "saint" ... an admittedly flawed human being who, nonetheless, did good for others far beyond what the vast, vast, majority of people would be willing to do.

If you can't "respect" such a person, then you are a bigot.

Worse, you're an idiot.
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