I had emailed my mates at uni to tell them I was in Shepparton and couldn’t get to the memorial service, but the idea of not being there played on my mind all afternoon. The agency was kind enough to let me borrow a work car and I made the trip down. It was a Roman Catholic ceremony, made hauntingly obvious by the opening petition to God to forgive Minnie’s sins before welcoming her into God’s kingdom. My angry thoughts returned to me, believing it’s not Minnie who needs forgiveness by God in this instance.

John 11 was read, the story of Lazarus’ death. I listened reluctantly, until I heard the line,

So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Hey, that’s me, I thought. There I am in the story. The persecutor.

After the reading Jacque, Minnie’s daughter, spoke. We all could see the pain she was fighting just to be able to string a few sentences together. She told us that, being blessed with her mother’s courage, once she is through this pain she will be a force to be reckoned with. She will be able to cope with anything. Then she told God that given she had only known her mother for twenty years, and God had known her an eternity, Jacque did not blame him for taking her.

Perhaps I should feel guilty for being so angry at God in front of Minnie’s own daughter who chooses not to be angry, but I didn’t. I held my mouth shut as tight as I could so I wouldn’t give my tears a soundtrack, and in my head I was screaming, “Be angry, girl. Be angry.”

Minnie lived twenty years as a single mother, studying in the USA and working as director of learning institutions in Zimbabwe and Kenya. I heard about all the stereotypes and prejudice she had to face in all of those countries, and thought that it would require the courage of a closed heart. But Minnie’s heart was always open. I remember walking through the streets of Sweden with her. We would stop so often to have conversations with strangers, as if we had known them forever. If by chance she spied someone on the street with the same skin colour as her, she would race up to them and bluntly ask, “Are you from Africa?” Within ten minutes we would be seated in a cafe sharing food and beer and hearing their entire life story. Minnie had a hospitality about her that welcomed the world to her. Walking down a street with Minnie was like being reintroduced to the planet.

If Jesus had let Lazarus die so Thomas could die and be reborn in witnessing the miracle, and if Jacque will be reborn as a brute force once she gets through it, then I too must die to this grief. And if I am reborn, then I hope the new me will carry Minnie’s open heart, a spirit of welcome about me.

God, let me die to this grief you’ve given me. Then, God, give me a new life that carries this spirit.

And then, please God, help me forgive you. I know I should, but you’re still a bastard.