Angels Instead

Society doesn't take care of widows any more. That corner harvest those ancient Jews did? Or the New Testament: True religion undefiled?
   I wanted someone to get religion after Roscivs died.

Somebody did: a fellow that Roscivs and I met when we lived in Provo. I think we had graduated when we met Boaz, but he was just starting business school. We three had a bond; we were all ex-Mormons at BYU. As bonus bonds, we were all the same age (most fo-Mos defect at >30 years old) and he, like R, loved Orson Scott Card's fiction.
   I want to say—
   Roscivs could forge a bond with anybody. Maybe that's partly because he had the capability to give generous significance to small connections. He didn't require a profound sameness that most people seem to need in order to seek, enjoy, or value someone else's company.

Anyway. A few months later R and I moved to Seattle (though not before meeting Boaz' future wife: we by chance ran into him with her leaving the cinema on one of their first dates). He and she got married. He finished grad school and took an internship near Seattle. We all got together a couple of times while they were up in the PNW. He took an internship in Texas, too, liked that job better, and moved there.

There's some sort of death bonus that the Feds give you if your spouse dies. I got ~$200. It's almost more insulting than getting nothing, though maybe only because they would have given me more than that per kid per month if we'd made babies. That would have made me worth giving money to. It all kinda creeps me out.
   If I'd have had all of Roscivs' babies (and actually, I did), who else would have thought I was worth helping?
   My life would be so different. So many people would think I was worth more.

When Roscivs died, Boaz and I could be described as friendly former acquaintances connected only through FaceBook and past sharing—precocious apostacy, camraderie, pizza and beer. After Roscivs died I made a number of posts on FaceBook about how frustrating it was to deal with medical bills and medical companies. (For about three months I often spent three or more hours a day on the phone trying to sort out payments. It was a part-time job. I'm not sure why it all got so nasty after he died. The bills had been pretty straightforward before that.) I didn't bother to hide my financial and emotional distress.
   Bo expressed his sympathies on FB, like several people did. Unlike others, he privately asked for my mailing address—he and his wife wanted to send me a little something—and I sent it to him.
   This was a time when people were ranting all the time about health care. Obamacare had recently passed. FaceBook was abuzz with cries of "single payer!!" and "socialists!!" Boaz expressed the "socialist" preference; he supported government takeover of healthcare.
   I had this problem with the position of government healthcare responsibility: There's a powerful human bias with regard to making things Somebody Else's Problem [nod to Douglas Adams]. When it's someone else's job to take care of a problem, it's, um, not your job. Well, I think that it's detrimental to human development to have institutions monopolize that position. That's a job everyone should have: take care of your sick people.
   I thought that these liberals talked a fine game—feed the poor! But then they didn't do anything. And mostly, that is true. Mostly it is true of the conservatives, too. They both seem to be saying the same thing. Healthcare is Somebody Else's Problem.

Boaz sent me a check for $1,000.

To help with medical expenses.

I cried and cried.
   What made me worth it to them? Was it the the science fiction? Was it that we'd supported him when he felt trapped at BYU? Was it that his wife has Chronic Fatigue, too, and he felt bad for me left disabled to care for myself? Any number of other people had that much in common with us and more.

He lived in Texas, not Seattle. But he seemed to have decided I was his neighbor.