In my last post I quoted this Bible verse:
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25)
This post could be subtitled, "And yet some can."
In an addendum to my last post I mentioned a friend of mine and my SO's who has terminal cancer.
My heart is very heavy. She isn't really my friend (as she herself once said!) but is a friend of my partner's. But I am feeling her loss so keenly because she was one of those rare people who brought joy to everyone she met. Running counter to type, and oh, so antithetical to the woman I described in my previous post and called "Clueless", L. (my friend who is dying), felt it was her moral obligation to use her large unearned wealth not only to give to charities (she gave money and land) but to treat her less fortunate friends. No matter where she was (and she spent quite a lot of time out of the country) she always remembered to give my partner a membership to the Museum of Modern Art as a birthday present. Not only was she ever generous, she also never let my partner's birthday pass unacknowledged. She renewed this membership every year. If she was going to be gone during my partner's birthday month, she hand-delivered a card with the new MOMA card in it the month before. This membership has brought us countless hours of enrichment and pleasure.
Several times L. gave us a check when we went on vacation. And if she met people for lunch, she always picked up the check and left a large tip. No dickering, no bickering.
As I've said, I believe that people with unearned wealth start life with a large moral deficit, and L. more than made up for hers, and then some.
Even as I am writing this, she will be boarding a plane to spend her last months in the MidWest with her sisters. She had a mutual friend call up my partner to say goodbye.
Even though L. and I were not close friends, I will miss her a lot. She loved life and brought joy to so many people.
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