It was during the hour of Divine Mercy on April 24 when I realized what I had missed: the anniversary of the death of my dear friend Kate O’Beirne. I had been thinking about her a lot lately, as I typically do, but I hadn’t done anything special or different on the 24th. In truth, I had already marked the anniversary in prayer. Kate died on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2017. Her family was praying the Litany of the Saints by her bedside as she took her last breath. I was at Mass when a member of Congress, a friend of ours, texted me that she had gone to our Lord.
Grief is a multifaceted mystery. It is, to reclaim an earlier meaning of the word, queer. It never fully disappears; it will turn down its volume now and again, only to spring loudly back to the forefront of your life when it is least expected. It’s inescapable. Many of us fear it, deny it, reject it. If we face it, however, we might just come to learn something about the depths of our hearts — how they reflect and are healed by the Creator of the universe.
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