The Fourth Day of Lent 2013

I have a memorial service to attend tomorrow, Monday, for a friend. She was very big into social justice here in our community. She started a program some years ago to get old bikes donated and refurbished, and she made them available to homeless men if they completed some set number of hours of community service. Those bikes can still be seen around town, and some got turned back in when the men didn't need them anymore, so someone else could benefit. She worked at homeless shelters and with crisis centers and various other things. That program, she called JOBS, or Just Old Bikes Swap.

I lost track of her when she left our church and first tried other Catholic parishes, eventually landing in the United Methodist Church. She had some health issues, and I was quite surprised to hear from her in early January. She told me she had been in the hospital for some time, but she was fine. She always said she was fine. She didn't want to be the center of attention. I went to see her at the hospital, and I'm so glad I did. She was in good spirits, and still trying to help others. She had gotten involved in a new program, a reaction to the December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. As a former teacher of young  children, she was disturbed by that incident, as was the nation. She and another friend were making crocheted scarves for children whose parents went to the Joseph House Crisis Center for help. They have a big box of scarves in bright colors, and these children, who may haven ever had anything new given to them before, are invited to pick one out to take home. She called it HUGS, an acronym for Help Us Grow Safely. She dreamed of seeing children all over town wearing those scarves as a visible sign that we are a community that cares about its children. She just wanted me to pray about it, she said.

I did a little more than that. I started crocheting some scarves, and I wrote about it in a column I write sometimes. I got four other women making scarves as a result of that column, aloong with a colleague and her family.

She called me one more time, to tell me how happy she was with the column. And a few days later, I learned that she had died. Peacefully, I hope, at home.

I am taking between 30 and 40 scarves with me to the memorial service, to hand over to the other coordinator of the program. I wish she could see all the beautiful little scarves that people have made in response to her wonderful idea.

I think in a sense, it was always Lent for Kay, even after she left the Catholic Church. She was always trying to find new ways to help others, and she always deflected concern away from her and onto others.

I didn't know her as well as some of the people who will be at that service tomorrow afternoon, but I did know how special Kay was, and I feel the void.