Woman lived a hard “brass knuckle” life

I never knew Connie or her family but I stood "reminiscing" about her life in front of about 40 of her friends and relatives. I often find myself in such an odd but sensitive situation when speaking at a funeral.

Connie's past had caught up with her. She had died at 52 of hepatitis c and cirrhosis of the liver.

Days before the funeral, I chatted about her life for an hour or two with her sister and grieving parents. An incident from her youth gives insight into Connie and her family. When in junior high, a girl who had been bullying her showed up at the door with brass knuckles.

Connie didn't want to fight, but her mother told her she can't back down. A time was set to fight it out at a nearby school. Hordes of the other girl's friends gathered to watch. Connie got the best of her antagonist and beat her up in front of them all.

In the crazy, hippie '70s when Connie was a teen, she got into drugs and became addicted for years. She dropped out of high school and moved briefly to Florida with her boyfriend. Later, she lived with a man for nine years and then finally married him. They were divorced within a year.

At 32, Connie had a little boy, Joey, by a different man who never took interest in his son. Joey, who I met at the funeral, is a cage fighter. Responsible for her son, Connie gained motivation to seek to overcome her addiction. She went into an arduous recovery process and reportedly stayed clean the rest of her life.

At her funeral, I confided that though I didn't know Connie, I felt I knew something important about her. In her battle with addiction she would have courageously wrestled with 12 grueling recovery steps including coming to admit she was powerless over drugs and her unmanageable life. She would have sought to embrace faith in a power greater than herself who could restore her to sanity. She would have struggled to turn her will and life over to the care of God as she understood him. And through prayer and meditation she would have sought to improve her conscious contact with God.

After eventually getting off drugs, Connie earned her GED and went to junior college to become a medical assistant and support Joey. Though she made admirable progress, her life never became blissful. Her boyfriend shot himself just weeks before she died.

Connie's mom told me she liked to read--love stories, spiritual books and the Bible. She would come to her parents' home for Sunday dinner and after supper would plop on the couch and delve into her Bible.

Connie‘s hardscrabble life reminds me of an account in John 4 of Jesus and a woman he met at a public well. This woman had five failed marriages. Apparently giving up on committed love she was currently living with a man.

Perceiving her background, Jesus gently engaged her by putting himself in the vulnerable position of asking for a favor. They then became immersed in one of the longest and most profound spiritual conversations ever recorded between Jesus and another person.

Condescending religionists of more refined and accomplished status stood at a distance, troubled and confused as to why he bothered to converse with such a one.

I could've imagined Connie and Jesus inadvertently meeting at a convenience store. They might engage in a profound and sensitive discussion about failure and brokenness. About mercy and grace. About human pain and divine comfort. About utter hopelessness--and hope in him.

Pious religionists and others of more refined, accomplished status would quite possibly stand at a distance, troubled and confused.

Originally published in St Louis Post Dispatch ‘stltoday’ -Feb. 16, 2012