War and Remembrance

But on the afternoon it all started, he wanted to talk to Sheila.

"Well, hello, Jim," she said when she answered the telephone, "I was just going to call you."

John Johnston

 

Jim Sunderland and Sheila Curry on a date in 1943.

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They'd gotten back in touch in 1956 in Denver. Sheila had married in 1951 and had three children; Jim had visited the family in New York. They'd lost contact again after his ordination, but fifteen years later, in 1983, Sheila had called out of the blue from California, where she was living. Her father had died, and she wanted Jim to perform the funeral Mass in Denver.

After that, they'd stayed in touch, talking about politics -- Sheila had been one of those fence-sitters regarding the death penalty until Jim talked her off it -- and sharing the tough times. Jim had buried his brother, Bob, who'd followed him into the priesthood but died young of cancer. He'd almost lost his little sister to cancer, too. Sheila's husband had died, and she'd call when she was feeling lonely. She never told him, but sometimes she had wondered how her life might have been different if her young love had chosen her instead of God. But she knew he'd made the right decision. Other people had needed him more than she did. Or at least needed him in greater numbers.

Their lives remained connected as she had once foreseen, although not in a way either had imagined when they were young and in love.

Jim still gets "choked up" when he talks about the sacrifice -- and he knows it was a sacrifice -- he made when he chose helping man over the love of a woman. But he also knew it was his role to be the man in the middle, the friend to the friendless, the man who can love the unlovable.