Remembering Roberta: teacher and friend

Roberta Hartzman
1948-2015

My friend, Roberta, helped so many people. Her life was not easy, so she got desperate about learning how to make it better. And then she shared those lessons with the rest of us. After hitting rock bottom and surviving, she learned to "work the program" so that she could continue to survive AND to get healthy. She invested hours and days and weeks and months in relationships and meetings - to help others who needed the things she was learning.

I remember when I first heard about Roberta's groups. A close friend was meeting with Roberta and  was experiencing healing. Because of that friend's honesty, I began to wish I had a place like that. A place where it was safe to express my pain and a place to admit where I was messed up and where I could find hope for healing. Because they were both so honest and willing to admit their flaws and their failures, I had the courage and the audacity to ask Roberta "How messed up does someone have to be to come to one of your groups." She quickly assured me, "You're messed up enough, Kaye!"   So I started attending one of the groups studying "Twelve Steps for Healing Damaged Emotions."

Best thing I've ever done for my emotional health. In all my years of attending church and being in leadership positions, I've sat through lots and lots of meetings. Hundreds of meetings. I've been involved in various small groups through the years. But this place was different. Instead of trying to impress others with good stuff - like my maturity or wisdom or ability or whatever, this was a place where I was allowed (AND encouraged!) to reveal the bad and the ugly, too. Not to focus on the negative, but simply because we all have crap in our lives and we'll never get better until we face it honestly.

Roberta longed to help people get better. She knew the negative power of secrets. The bad secrets. What did she tell us? "You're only as sick as your secrets." She also knew that the more successful and "put-together" we seem to be, the harder it is to humble ourselves and be honest about that stuff. She did everything in her power to invite and welcome church leaders to go through the Twelve Step program - because she knew how much they would be transformed and how wonderfully the rest of the people would benefit from it.

Roberta learned about healthy boundaries and she helped us learn about them as well. She taught us how to figure out which things were our responsibility and which were not. She taught us how to build healthy boundaries in our lives. She helped us anticipate the boundary busters that were sure to come along and gave suggestions for how to prepare for them.

As a pleaser, I had long, deep-seated habits of cowering before the wishes of other people. Gradually, Roberta helped me to sort out whether I was in fact answerable to each of these various people or not. It has probably been fifteen years since I started meeting with Roberta and learning from her, but to this day I still hear myself quoting one of her one-liners that helped me hang in there so I could get better. Like, "It's unfortunate that you feel that way." Because I'm such a softie, my pattern was to just sort of melt if I discovered that my actions (or inaction) had made someone feel badly. Consequently, I would immediately backpedal to try to fix it and make it all better. Nowadays when I find myself doing that I can hear Roberta words reminding me that I can simply say, "It's unfortunate that you feel that way." Not, "Oh, dear; I'm so sorry you don't like my new hairstyle. Here; let me change it for you!" Nope. Roberta taught me that I don't have to bow to the wishes of someone who pressures me to do so. I could just say, "It's unfortunate that you feel that way" and move on.

Does this mean that Roberta taught us that we should never help others? Not at all!!! To the contrary, she had a huge servant-heart and taught us much along that line by her example. It's just that she helped us sort out which requests and demands were appropriate or reasonable and which were not conducive to our well-being - or which might not be helpful to the person making the demands.

So much more could be said in praise of Roberta and the ways she helped people. Even as I type, I'm realizing that her help continues. Just thinking back over these things and trying to articulate some of them has been good for me. It has reminded me of things I haven't thought about for awhile or of good habits that I've forgotten to implement recently.

Thank you, dear friend. You taught me much and continue to teach me and I appreciate you more than I can express. I'm reminded to revisit the things you'd taught me and yes, to keep working the program - which involves passing the healing on to others.