Integration 3 Hicks 1 David Lassen Moreau First Year Experience 4 March 2022 The Eulogy of – Gone Too Soon When I think of , the first thing that comes to mind is how busy she was. She loved to occupy her life of course with her friends and family, but also with hard work. She was like most Notre Dame students where she could find herself becoming burnt out and, “yet it’s precisely those who are busiest, I wanted to tell her, who most need to give themselves a break” ("Why we need to slow down our lives" by Pico Iyer – Moreau FYE Week One). She occupied her time with so many business clubs and yet still was there for her friends. She was always busy and she liked it that way. Yet, she also tried to find the importance of mental health in her daily life and often would try to get herself a break. I think this is part of what she meant a life well-lived was. To her, living a good life was a life lived for other people, but not at the cost of her own health all the time. This was a value of hers that she wasn’t going to let anyone change. Although we all have different versions of what we think a good life is, she stuck by this to keep her guided and focused. I think she of all people would appreciate the fact that Father Hesburgh said something that spoke on that same determination: “But I took a stand for something, and I wasn’t about to stop” ("Hesburgh" by Jerry Barca and Christine O'Malley – Moreau FYE Week Two). When you take a stand for something, you should be prepared for backlash. And yet, he, and Kathleen, kept going. They believed in what they fought for. I think in her own life, she found herself wanting to backtrack or make her beliefs seem different from what they actually were just to avoid https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/41088/modules/items/146492 https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=10159379-7eca-4549-8581-ab9500c9ecd9 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/41088/modules/items/146492 https://notredame.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=10159379-7eca-4549-8581-ab9500c9ecd9 Hicks 2 arguments with others. She wanted to be agreeable, so she avoided divisive subjects like politics. However, Fr. Hesburgh showed what it meant to live a good life and stick by his beliefs but still being friends and knowing so many people. If he was able to do this on such a big stage, I think it makes it seem more reasonable for the rest of us to do so in our own lives. Kathleen was always such a positive influence for others, so I find it difficult now to speak on her death. But she was also a strong Catholic who believed there was a life beyond our earthly time. If anything, her major goal in life was always to do Jesus’ work here on earth so that one day she might also join him. But she was also a realist at the moments when she needed to be. Like the nun who reminded her during a Moreau class once said, “Suffering and death are facts of life; focusing only on the ‘bright and shiny’ is superficial and inauthentic” ("Meet the nun who wants you to remember that you will die" by Ruth Graham – Moreau FYE Week Three). I think this quote reminds us that most of us don’t want to accept the most basic aspects of life: we are born and then we die. It’s morbid to think in only those terms, but those are the facts. Suffering and death are unavoidable. And because of this, if we only focus on the bright things that make us forget about the morbid ones, it isn’t genuine. But I also think this quote isn’t saying to have a negative outlook on life, but rather I think it’s saying to give your life more meaning because our days are numbered. I think living life and staying present in the moment gives us more happiness. In dark times, we can find the light and positivity to keep going. Kathleen would say the same. I think it would be rude of me now if I did not mention the success Kathleen had outside of her own personal life. Her work serving the Latino community with her Finance and Spanish degree from Notre Dame helped many in the Texas community. She didn’t always know what she wanted to do though. Up until about January of her freshman year, she didn’t even know https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/41088/modules/items/146492 Hicks 3 what major she wanted to be. But she stuck with her gut and lived a successful life by doing so. But she knew what it was like to feel misguided. She would agree with the article Notre Dame gave to her to help her own discernment that said, “You have to know yourself first - your values, interests, personality, and skills (VIPS) - before you can make effective career choices” ("Navigating Your Career Journey” by Meruelo Family Center for Career Development – Moreau FYE Week Four). She knew while she might not have had the pure skill to do Wall Street level finances, she knew her warm personality would be better suited on a smaller level. We all should pick a career based on our strengths, which in turn helps other people the most. And that personality is what Kathleen will probably always be best known for, and that’s the way she would've wanted it. Her parents even told her at one point that, “you can live a good life through a good career, sure, but you want your eulogy to remember who you were as a person, not who a boss determined you were” ("Week Five Discernment Conversation Activity" by Joyce and Philip Hicks – Moreau FYE Week Five). This simple advice was quite effective for her. She would repeatedly tell me that she valued her happiness over any job. And happiness to her was making other people happy. I think we all here can attest to her bubbly personality and the weird jokes she always made that would make us all laugh. It took awhile to get her to open up to you, but once you did, it sure was worth it. I think at the end of her life, Kathleen probably thought really hard about the life she had lived. That girl was always thinking about something, wasn’t she? She enjoyed thinking just to think, but she made sure it was never detrimental. Afterall, “‘Why’ questions trap us in our past; ‘what’ questions help us create a better future” (“The Right Way to be Introspective (Yes, There’s a Wrong Way)” by Tasha Eurich – Moreau FYE Week Six). When she thought about the past, she always did so to prepare for a better future. She never wanted to ponder about a past https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/41088/modules/items/146492 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/41088/modules/items/146492 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/41088/modules/items/146492 Hicks 4 situation or event in terms of “what if?” She knew that effort would be futile, as she would be unable to go back and change it. But if she had made a mistake in the past, she would think about it for a while so she could avoid it in the future. Maybe that’s what all of us here today should do as well. We can think about our past memories with her, of course, but she wouldn’t want us to be sad that we can’t go back to those moments. She would want us to be happy we got to even meet each other, and then use our experiences with each other to live an even better life. And like the religious person she was, I feel like it’s only fitting to end on a note from Pope Francis. He said, "... the future is made of yous, it is made of encounters, because life flows through our relations with others” (“Why the only future worth building includes everyone” by His Holiness Pope Francis – Moreau FYE Week Seven). She loved the relationships she had with each and every one of us, those gathered here today and those gone before us. I think she would call all of us to go and live the best life we can, for the sake of others. We only have one life, and it’s quite limited and short when you think about it. And the way we get through life is through our relationships. Life “flows” through them. Let us remember our good moments we spent with her, and yet also change the future for the better through understanding that our lives are all about the connections we have with each other. Thank you. https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/41088/modules/items/146492