A life to be remembered

Yesterday brought a stark reminder about the tenuousness of our existence; a friend of many years died in a traffic accident, even though several fine trauma surgeons spent hours attempting to save her. She was a Texan by adoption, and if you’ve ever known a Texan, you know there’s something in the water there that makes most of ‘em, but especially a lot of women, stronger than their counterparts in any other state – or any part of the world, for that matter. Consider Molly Ivins and Ann Richards and you begin to understand a little about Sylva. Don’t mess with Texas (women)!

She was larger than life in so many ways. She had a big bank account, a big appetite for life, a big ego…and a big heart. Granted, you could cross her to the point that, like a Mafioso, you would become dead to her. But at the same time, there was no greater advocate for women – for feminism – than Sylva. She really did put her money where her mouth was in terms of supporting groups/causes that advocated for women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, too.

She was also an artist. I don’t think she ever found the audience for her woodworking that she deserved, but it didn’t matter. What became important to her was doing things the right way. Like Michaelangelo, she took wood and worked away anything that didn’t look like the picture in her mind.

She was also a Christian. She hated the way conservative Christians would distort the gospel for their own ends, and we had many conversations about how to overcome the religious bigotry directed toward women and the LGBT population. Sylva was a career student and a particular fan of Phyllis Trible, whose feminist scholarship has given life-sustaining nourishment to generations of students, but especially to women.

As Christians, we are called to take up our crosses and follow Jesus. Sylva did that, not only for herself, but for countless others who could not take up their crosses easily because of the additional weight the world had placed on them because of socioeconomic disparities, race, orientation, gender, etc., and made use of the wealth she experienced to try and help others who had not been similarly gifted. I lift up the beauty of her life and of her advocacy. I also lift up that we should be vigilant about saying “I love you” to people. We should resolve to say it not in a cheap, sentimental way, but in a way that recognizes that on any day you, too, might find yourself at the hands of a trauma surgeon. And in the end, Sylva will be remembered for what she gave to the kingdom of God “on earth as it is in heaven.”