Romantic relationships aren’t the only ones we should prioritise

Veronica Zundel challenges us to accept and support healthy connections beyond the ‘ideal’ the Church perpetually highlights

This year it will be 30 years since my dear friend Kathy died. We had much in common: single, intelligent Christian women battling the sexism of the Church, and survivors of brothers with severe mental illness. In her 30s Kathy vowed that if she reached 40 and was not yet married, she would “make her own arrangements”. In the event she got tired of being alone, and made her own arrangements earlier. She slept with a boyfriend she thought was a Christian and wanted to marry her (neither was true), then got pregnant by another who chickened out of marrying her. It was painful for her friends to watch. Finally she got engaged to her lovely lodger who went through a marriage ceremony with her when she was in a coma dying of breast cancer. He adopted and brought up her daughter, who was only 22 months old when her mother died.