My Big Sis

I remember when I was in my twenties and living in San Francisco as a bachelor.  One evening in December of 1970, I was in the apartment of a coworker who had just gotten married that day.  I had shared his apartment with him the night before because I had to sub-lease mine, due to being fired for bad behavior.  I was in his wedding earlier that day.  I felt a loneliness and disconnect at the reception. A drink, food, conversation did nothing to lighten the darkness.  I did not even know I was lonely.  I thought I was miserable because I had no job, no girlfriend, no apartment while he had just gotten married and was quite happy and successful.  After the reception, I went back to his apartment.  I was alone.  Panic.  I felt unsafe just being with me.  What to do?  Human contact.  But with whom?  Not just anyone.  It had to be someone who cared enough about me.  I called my Big Sis Maureen.  She was three time zones away and asleep, at least until I called.  She did something that was brilliant for me.  She knew, even before I did, that I was a person of compassion.  So she started to tell me about her difficulties.  Why?  The pain of others took me out of myself.  Maureen seemed to know this even before I did.  Maureen told me about her years of miscarriages, after she had birthed two boys.  She was finally going to give birth to another child.  She had suffered so much over those years.  We are not a telephone family, plus I was full of my own life with highs and now lows.  I was all about me, until that moment when we talked on the phone in the middle of her night.  My misery, from being a jerk, fell away, as we talked about her life and losses.  I only lost a job, and apartment.  People often ask if Maureen and I ever made friends.  Well, that night she saved my life.  It began the second chapter of our friendship.  You want to keep friends like that.  Two months later, I had my epiphany about becoming a priest.  Many people say they have been helped by that decision.  Don't thank me.  Thank Maureen.