Cherish people
We learn a lot about life when people die. Like what really matters and what doesn’t. And whether we regret not saying things we should have said before it was too late, or appreciate having said them in time. And we drop the judgment and personal politics that can easily divide, and come back to the essence of human relationships.
This has been going through my mind lately at the passing of Dr. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. I’ve highlighted some great commentaries on Betsey recently, and more have come out since then.
But this seems an unusual one, and warmly so.
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese is how the world knew her, a scholar and intellectual. It was Betsey I knew. Our friendship was a practice in an unfashionable truth — people need not agree to be steadfast, life-long, dear friends.
I loved Betsey. And Betsey was the hardest friend I ever had. It is in times like this that I find myself quoting Bo Lozoff, “You can do hard.”
Betsey and I together planted the seeds of our long and mutually treasured friendship as young women and young wives in the 1960s, each in her own way intent on Figuring Things Out.
They forged an alliance of women raising their ‘consciousness’ about feminism and rights, and then took different directions. Fox-Genovese’s direction was deeper into faith and the love and laws of God, the truths about the human person that belie secular liberalism and feminism. Many former colleagues and friends reviled her for what she came to believe, forgetting who she always was. But not this friend.
Over the years, it was always a surprise when Betsey and I found each other, all the more so when we both ended up in Atlanta. And over the years, she and I came to disagree profoundly about practically every idea that once had brought us together. And still, a larger truth shone brighter. We loved each other for who we were. Kept up with each other through the rough and smooth parts. And it’s mostly the very small, very personal things on which I now find myself dwelling in this sad moment.
Betsey and I graced each other’s lives. We reached across a number of genuine divides we both fully acknowledged. Why bother? Because we cherished each other and our friendship. In the face of her death, that is where I find the beauty.
If we could restore intellectual honesty and real goodwill to our dialogue with other people — anybody, no matter who they are — we would have such a richer national character. That’s one thing we cannot expect our leaders to do for us, but it’s sure something we can do for them. Practice persistent kindness.
