Phyllis Carol Roe: Wounded Healer
A Remembrance by Ben Roe
Who was Phyllis Carol Roe? She was our sister, our friend, confidant, counselor, colleague, inspiration...
What was her essence, her spirit? Many words probably come to mind: free spirit; one who chuckled; one who listened carefully and said insightful one-liners; healer.
She was an influential presence among us. She touched many, many people in many ways. Her leadership touched and helped shape the AAPC, the Western Region, the Samaritan Center movement, and most especially the Samaritan Counseling Center of Hawaii.
Where did her gifts come from? Where did she get her ability to be a "non-anxious presence," to "treat everyone as family"?
Henri Nouwen's image of the Wounded Healer is one particularly helpful way to understand Phyllis, it seems to me. She had a number of wounding experiences in her life and I think each one was transformed into something healing.
I was a source of wounding for her. The most literal wounds were those I made when she was in her first year, when I would bite her, according to my mother. Now that is taking sibling rivalry a bit too far, and I'm embarrassed to admit I did that! Perhaps part of her gentleness grew out of this experience...
She was just under 1 year old when I came down with polio. I don't know how much of my pain and trauma she witnessed before I disappeared into hospitals for 3 months, but she knew at some level how severe this illness was. Witnessing these kinds of things can change one. Even though I think she was born compassionate, I think this experience deepened her instinct for compassion.
But the deepest wound I think came years later, after we had separated for our respective seminaries, hers in New York City, mine in Claremont. My individuation was messy, drawn out and painful. One therapist has reminded me that there is no graceful way to individuate from what has been called an enmeshed family system. Through her experiences with our family, she developed a sense of the value of family, and she broadened it to include the world.
Death was a wounding experience: first her closest friend in college died in a car accident; then while she was in Atlanta, our sister Rebecca died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm after a long and difficult period of living with systemic lupus; our father Joe died also of a ruptured aortic aneurysm in the year before she and Michael came to the Islands; and her husband Michael himself died suddenly!
Any one of these experiences of death could have turned her against God permanently. Some of you know better than I the struggles associated with these experiences of death. As she worked through each of these painful wounding experiences, she grew more able to be present with others who were dealing with grief. She was able to stay with grieving individuals through the agony of loss and facilitate the healing process. She was able to be with them in the depths because she'd been there, knew the territory and knew that living again was possible.
Facing the certainty of her own early death and the uncertainty of its timing was also a wound. She lived for 7 years with the awareness that death could happen to her suddenly at any moment, without much warning. Her experience with a dissected aorta and aortic aneurysm, as well as her experience with our sister Rebecca's lupus, gave her a sensitivity for chronic conditions and a willingness to be a non-anxious presence with those who lived with these kinds of situations without running from them.
She once wrote that "having such an illness is like being in a crucible in which all of our usual denial is burned away, and we are left face to face with basic questions of life and death--and their meaning." She affirmed the "characteristically human" search for meaning, but said, "Perhaps the meaning lies, however, not in the cause of the disease, but in how we respond to it, in how we use the experience to learn and grow." She affirmed the possibilities of growth through facing death: "In looking death in the face we find the beauty in life. We also discover that in life and in death we are embraced and strengthened by the All Compassionate One who will never leave us." But we have to look. In a sermon on perspective, she quoted Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "Earth's crammed with heaven. Each common bush aflame with God. Yet only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest set around and pluck blackberries."
She wrote once about Rebecca, "Was Rebecca healed? Beyond any doubt, yes she was healed. Was her disease cured? No. Did her faith make her whole? Rebecca would tell you that it was her faith in God through Jesus Christ that gave her the inner strength to face death and to live life. She came through her illness to believe in her worth as a person, to experience being loved and loving, and to know joy in simply living for one more day. Yes, by the grace of God Rebecca became whole as her body crumbled. I know because she was my sister."
My sister Phyllis could sit and listen intently and not say anything, being fully present, being a non-anxious presence, because she had allowed her wounds to be transformed into healing gifts. My wish is that we can work to or be open to allowing all our wounds, mistakes, and failures be transformed into healing gifts.
Ben Roe is the brother of Phyllis and lives in Denver.