Clare

Four years ago today, Clare Furay died. She was walking back from running at the track at Hopkins. To get home, we cross Charles St. There are three lanes running north and one lane running south, sometimes. She looked north and stepped right out onto a car coming down the other way.

Yesterday we had a memorial service for her at Wheeler House, the Jesuit house two blocks down from us. Mike, one of her housemates was there, and he read e-mails from her other housemates, and Fr. Willy read a letter he wrote to her parents, and one the only witness to her death wrote.

In our house, we have a little table with her picture on it, and "Essentially Clare", a book her father put together from her diary, letters and e-mails home. She sounded like a wonderful young woman, a better writer and a better woman than I'll ever be. She was 26 when she did JVC, a little older than usual, because she had been in the Navy after college.

I read it when I first got here, but now that the day is upon me, I realize she died so soon in her JVC year. She didn't even get to go on October retreat. It was such a stupid, pointless, death, and I realize that God can't have meant for it to happen that way.

Here is an excerpt from Clare's book, about the time she spent working with mentally and physically handicapped people one summer during college.

It's hard to define, much less put into words, what it is that I've learned...I do know of a meaning which has changed for me, though, and that may help determine how my attitude has changed. When I used to hear "Whatever you do for the least of my brothers, that you do for me," I used to think of it as a special way to get bonus points with God. If you helped someone who was less lucky, you were "getting in good" with Jesus. This is charity in the traditional sense. You were giving something now to get something after you died. What's changed for me is that now I understand how Jesus really lives in the disabled. He's there When Dee wrote her thank you, I was receiving a reward in the most immediate sense, because she gave her joy to me. Jesus was really there at the moment.

What Clare wrote has helped me in my job, to see Jesus in the cranky demanding old man, who's angry because he's dying. I like to think that Jesus could be in any of us, that you never know when you entertain angels unaware. I feel like Clare is watching out for us in Baltimore, and I hope we can continue the work she left when she was taken away so soon.