It’s so
easy to become the ugly American, the gringo who complains about the traffic, the
government, the crime, the corruption. But yesterday, I saw my very good friend
Karen, and spent a wonderful time with her, her husband, and her “little
sister.”
Part of the
Mormon youth group!
Yes, Karen
is a Mormon. And yes, once a year I routinely walked into her office, told her
I was married, presented her my wedding certificate, and then requested
officially that she enroll Raf in the health plan.
“So what do
you want me to do?” she would ask.
“Oh, send
me the same letter as last year,” I’d say. “Unless, of course, I’ve worn down Bentonville
and they’ll put Raf in the plan…”
I had
written a letter to the Senior Vice President for Human Resources in
Bentonville, and waited a year for a response. I wrote a second time—by
certified mail.
That got a
response!
So it was a
sort of game between us. For two or three years, I put Raf down for coverage,
and Karen sent me an updated letter.
The
relationship between the gay community and Mormon Church has on occasion—you do
sense irony, don’t you?—been strained. Did it make any difference in our case?
Absolutely
not.
“No
llores, Marc, no llores…”
she kept saying to me, and patting my arm. It was the day I came to sign the
severance agreement, and turn in my discount card.
Wasn’t my
best day.
No
llores—don’t cry. And honestly, if I had been able to, I would have stopped.
Karen was as affected as I.
And what
hadn’t she done for me? Unfailingly, she rescued me from getting stranded when
the bus broke down or didn’t come. She defended me on the—I hope rare—occasions
when I needed it. She made sure that I never had a problem getting
the—paid!—time off to take care of Franny. Sure—it’s required by law, but
kindness isn’t.
And she was
the one person in the office I called on the day Franny died.
“Karen,” I
explained, “I know it’s traditional in the office to mention Jesucristo or the todopoderoso in the little email that HR sends out
when an associate’s parent dies. But you know, my mother didn’t believe. So,
could you…”
No problem.
I think
it’s one thing that Puerto Rico does superlatively well—human relationships.
The quality of friendship here is like nothing else. Yes, it may be that the
government doesn’t work. The potholes in the road could swallow an elephant. God
or the devil knows where all the money goes.
“We don’t
throw away people like the white man does,” wrote a Native American about
people of the double spirit, the term for gay among the Indians. And the same
could be true about friendship in Puerto Rico.
What—let
religion come before friendship?
No way!
