Months had passed since Mary Beth Frystak handed an envelope carrying kind thoughts to Cardinal Francis George.
The note she had written thanked the cardinal for his leadership, Frystak said. And it said she’d be praying for him.
“It was just, like, from the heart, you know?” she said.
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The Our Lady of Victory Parish worker said she handed it to the cardinal during a meeting at his office last fall. She said she didn’t hear back from him until Saturday — one day after he died.
That’s when she said she received a letter the cardinal had written to her on April 10. The 78-year-old spiritual leader had been battling cancer and stopped treatment in December.
In his letter, George thanked her for her kindness, Frystak said.
“It was like he had to acknowledge certain things before he went,” Frystak said. “And to me, that was a huge thing. And maybe to him, it was just something small.”
Frystak said George wrote that he felt a need to tell her “how much he appreciated my words to him.”
She said she framed the letter Sunday and planned to take it back to her office, where it had arrived in the mail.
“I was very touched,” Frystak said. “It was totally unexpected.”
