“I’ll meet you in the right front corner…” was a secret password of sorts, a message to those who would follow. 

To understand what it means, one must ‘meet’ an ordinary woman—a wife, a nurse and a mother of seven who lived and died a ‘hero’ of Christian love. This woman, Rita Brown, was my dear friend, and as it happened, my ‘Auntie Rita’ as well. She was an extraordinary woman—her love, compassion, faith, determination and energy made her mentor to many. 

These were the virtues with which she lived her life. It is no surprise then, that these very virtues would strengthen and sustain Auntie Rita in the difficult but precious years after she was diagnosed with endometrial cancer some years ago on Holy Thursday. 

And just three weeks before she passed, this vibrant woman traveled to Seattle to see her newest grandchild. She stopped by my house one luminescent October afternoon to bid me hello. And goodbye, though we didn’t know it then. 

Fall was in the air. 

We stood on my deck, watching Lake Washington glisten under blue skies, feeling the last of summer-warmth on our faces, looking at autumn leaves floating past on wisps-of-wind, tree-born snowflakes returning to the ground from whence they came. Soon enough these leaves-of-glory would be gone from sight, but not from memory. 

And what a backdrop the colors of fall made to the cup of tea we shared and the conversation of ‘catch up’ we played. I still have the pictures of that day—my Auntie Rita and I—she all distilled soul, showing forth from beautiful eyes a shadow of grief-to-come and heaven-in-the-making: an evergreen, I thought, if ever there was one. 

We exchanged a final hug after a lovely visit. She clung to me—the hug lasting longer than usual as she whispered to me—nurse to nurse, mother to mother, a plea that broke my heart: 

“Be there for me. Please, be there for me,” she pleaded, eyes wet with unshed tears.

“Of course,” I promised, my tears falling over the edges, finding their way to my heart—as prayers.

 “Of course, I will,” I said, hugging her back, leaving some of myself in that embrace, hoping for the same from her. 

Little did I know, the fruition of that promise would come all too soon—that I would receive a call from my cousin Trisha on my birthday, that my Auntie Rita had been hospitalized with a cancer-caused bowel obstruction. A train ride to Portland followed. Once there, I was picked up by  Trisha and brought by heavenly chance to the closest place to the train station for a Saturday night mass—the cathedral in downtown Portland. 

There, we sat with little her children between us, and heard, inexplicably, the timeliest homily either of us will ever know. As it happened, the subject of the homily, if not the readings, was death, and, in particular, the death of a mother. The priest spoke that night of an experience he’d had as a young priest at the bedside of a dying woman some years before. 

As the woman lay dying, the mother looked up at her daughter, and smiled a beatific smile of great love and tenderness. She said slowly, as if every word were as valuable as any she’d ever spoken: 

“BACK----LEFT---CORNER.” 

The priest frowned, perplexed: was there some secret code here that he was missing, something of great importance that he should know about? He glanced about the room—was he missing something in the corner? His confusion and uncertainty only deepened when, just before the mother breathed her last, her daughter looked back at her, eyes filled with the tears of final good-byes, and said in the most reverent and loving tone: 

“BACK LEFT CORNER MOM.” 

“REMEMBER. BACK LEFT CORNER.” 

The daughter finished the statement with a gentle wave and soon thereafter, her mother died. 

The reticent, but still curious priest asked the daughter if she would mind sharing with him the significance of those final mysterious words. The daughter, through a mist of tears, smiled. 

“Well Father,” she began. “My mother and I have always had this special joke—we’ve talked about heaven a lot, trying to visualize what the bible means when it tells us”

“Eye has not seen nor ear heard the glory 

that God has prepared for those who love him.”

“We know theologians differ in their interpretations of heaven, but Mom and I never focused on all that."

“We just focused on how wonderful it will be to see the people of all time who are gathered together along all of our family from generations past. But we decided that with all those saints and souls, heaven must be getting crowded. We joked, wondering how we would find each other amid angels and saints, reformed sinners and regular folk. So, we made a pact: whichever one of us gets to heaven first would save a space for the rest of us, in the BACK LEFT CORNER. That’s what Mom and I were talking about. I reminded her, when the time comes, I'll meet her there, in the back left corner.”

I told that story to Auntie Rita the next day—a week before she died. She smiled her special wry smile. Then she nodded, eyes twinkling as she added to me: 

“I’m not sure, considering my political persuasion, that we should really meet on the left—it seems like the Right side of the aisle would be more like my family. And as far as the back corner—what do you think? I can’t imagine our rather loud family in the back. It seems to me we should really plan on finding each other in the FRONT RIGHT CORNER.” 

“That’s where I’ll be,” she said with a smile. “Waiting for you.”

That evening, at mass at the cathedral, another mysterious event occurred. Just as we were leaving, my cousin’s little boy happened to hold the door open for a gentleman leaving right behind us. The man, who my children called Mr. Martin, was a gentle giant we'd met at the Carmelite Convent in Seattle. Intelligent and kind, he was akin to a big-boned St. Therese of Lisieux. 

It was mysterious to find ‘Mr. Martin’ at the Portland cathedral. Martin was a seer of sorts, a holy man, connected to the Holy Spirit, and to the mother of God. He chose in this life to be rich in the love of the Lord, rather than the riches of this world. 

But there he was, in the narthex of the Portland's cathedral. He held my hand as I stood on my tip toes to ask him to pray for my ‘Auntie Rita;’ seriously ill and hospitalized with cancer. He nodded gently, saying he had just come from a novena to the patron saint of cancer patients, St. Peregrine, and that he would go to the Blessed Sacrament chapel that very night to pray for ‘Auntie Rita’ and for her family.

Then, a delighted smile graced his kind face and he said:  “I can feel the love of the Holy Spirit for her and for you.” 

He listened to the still small breath of the Spirit for a moment more, then broke into a toothless grin. (Martin, who lived in a homeless shelter, didn’t have financing for dental work. Not that it matters—that smile was lit from within.) 

“Your Auntie Rita will be in heaven soon,” he said. “Dancing with the angels.’ 

Then his huge feet lifted, first one, and then another, in the unmistakable rhythm of invisible music. He smiled hugely, joyously, as he said: 

“She’ll be dancing with the angels…dancing with the angels! Soon.” 

Little could Martin have known, since he had never met nor heard of Rita Brown before that—that dancing was one of Rita’s favorite activities. That when she danced, her little girl enthusiasm burst from the seems of otherwise ‘mature’ persona. 

Who knows? Perhaps Martin did know in a special sort of Holy Spirit way that dancing with the angels would likely be the first chosen heavenly activity for Rita —and that maybe she’d be dancing with angels even before finding her way to the front right corner. 

Martin was right about another thing: It would be soon, sooner than any of the rest of us imagined. 

We went to the hospital that night and again the following morning, I had a few hours with Auntie Rita alone to discuss the things on her mind and on my own. My conversation with Auntie Rita in hospital was a week before she died, almost to the minute. 

In view of her sudden deterioration, Rita expressed worry that she might not finish the notes and video tapes she’d planned to make for her family. She said that she’d planned to do an extensive childhood review and memory keeper for each adult child. But looking through each family video was taking so much time, she despaired that she would be able to "do the job right." (Auntie Rita was big on "doing the job right".) 

She’d been looking at videos, (via CD) sometimes over and over again, so that she might remember each detail for her sweet brood. The blessed particularities and cherished peculiarities of each of her seven children—the details of each as small humans, growing to be the adult children whom she cherished and of whom she was so proud; the details as she saw them, of each life, well lived, then and now.

She spoke of her most essential message for all seven, for Uncle Bob, for her son’s and daughters in law, her grandchildren, and for everyone who knew her. It was the message she wanted her loved ones to carry forever in their hearts and in their lives---it is the most important message any Mother can leave for those she loves: 

The core ‘Rita’ message is imprinted by the Holy Sprit into the DNA threads of our hearts before we are born and woven the activities of our daily lives. This distilled message of mother-love exists even if the vehicle of the messenger is broken, as all of us are. It is lived out in the kitchens and laundry rooms, living rooms and family cars in a million different ways, on a thousand different days. 

It is the heart of the message is known to all of us from the time we are born until the day we die. And beyond. The message that Rita Brown left for her loved ones is from loving mother to children everywhere. It is the message I will leave for my own children, and their children.

The message is as follows:

“Your Mom has always loved you.” 

“Your Mom loves you now.” 

“Your Mom will always love you.” 

After Auntie Rita breathed those words out loud, it became clear to her: even if she couldn’t finish the larger project she’d envisioned, she could at least be sure that each of her beloved knew the core of what she wanted them to know—now and forever. To Uncle Bob, her lifelong partner and dearest friend, to her children and grandchildren, her extended family, and neighbors and friends, she wished to speak these words.

I, too, will speak the following words to my own dear husband, the love of my life, who will in turn speak them back to me, our four children, siblings, and all we hold dear. 

“I love you. I have always loved you. And I will always will love you.”

In our conversation that day, Auntie Rita worried about not doing the volunteer work she’d wanted so much to do. I couldn’t help but smile. No volunteer work? This worry from the woman who volunteered love in a myriad of small ways and an avalanche of bigger ones, caring for every person she ever met.

This worry from the woman who showed her loving volunteer spirit every day, for many years in patients cared for, staff listened to, misunderstandings soothed, meals cooked, kind words said, children loved; phone calls fielded. In her inimitable sweetness of soul, she volunteered in a more cherished and valuable way than any ‘professional’ volunteer ever could. 

She touched lives in an extraordinary and lasting fashion. But in her deep humility and understated goodness, in her abiding faith and genuine mercy, she had no idea—none—how many of us she changed for the better—how many of us will always carry an image of her love in our hearts forever. 

Still, right up to the last she worried that she wouldn’t be able to make enough of a difference, especially in her last days. I told her that her greatest volunteer job was yet to come—in that time between then and eternity—in the span of whatever days of weeks she had left, she could live her life the way she always had—with sweet inspiration, great faith, and abiding love. 

We spoke of the Pulitzer prize winning author Earnest Becker who wrote on the subject of death and dying: I told her of Becker’s prophetic words—words that had applied to her since the moment of her diagnosis, and would apply even more certainly to the time—whatever time that was, that she had left. 

“When we witness a person bravely facing her own extinction, we rehearse the greatest victory imaginable.” 

With the life and the death of this brave woman, each of us witnessed a great victory—and on the day she died, when she was tied to this earth by only the slimmest wisps of breaths and the extraordinary love for her beloved spouse and children, we did rehearse the greatest victory imaginable. She fought the good fight. She finished the race. And, as St. Paul says, the victors crown will be hers. 

“Well done good and faithful servant!”

As she breathed for the last time the surrounding love of her mother, husband, children and family, she made ready to breathe in the breath of the beyond. She exhaled that last tiny breath finally, but only after waiting an impossible wait, literally holding on to dear life and love— to see each and every one, one last time. And to witness to them the love and support they would need to evidence for one another from that day forward. Auntie Rita was certainly a volunteer—a volunteer who taught us of the power of great love and sweet faith. 

We who miss you will always love you Auntie Rita. Dance with the angels, sing in the choir, and until we meet again— in the corner—the right front corner, may God hold you in the palm of his hand. 

Wait for us there! 

Postscript: The following letter was found written in the notes to the family collected after the funeral reception: 

“Rita, I am not as close to the Eternal Care Unit as you, but they say my time is coming before very long. I think you’ll understand when I say I can’t meet you in the Right Front Corner—as you know, I’m a ‘Left Front Corner’ kind of guy. 

But I’d love to see you anyway. How ‘bout we meet in the middle?” 

Your friend, Al

From a eulogy give by Eileen Geller at Rita Brown's funeral.