A New Exit Strategy

Comically sad, odd things happen in my church on a regular basis (what we call Dibley Moments named for a flavor similar to the English comedy "Vicar of Dibley").  One of my favorite memories is of a regularly attending new visitor who came dressed in a witch costume for the Sunday closest to Halloween and All Saints, complete with tall, black hat.  Some of the more conservative members pierced their lips, crossed their arms and acted as if Lucifer would appear at any moment to claim possession of the property.  I knew I loved our rector's wife when she smiled and admonished the judgmental to relax, saying she rather liked the flair with which the visitor pulled it off.

But despite all of our small church, small Southern town eccentric behavior I was shocked by a story that appeared in the St. Petersburg Times about a woman who told her friends at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church that she was dying of cancer just to get away from them.  This just beat all (as we say Down South).  

The woman had attended the church for two years and sang in the choir.  She fabricated an illness that  lasted 11 months, including hospice updates and a final report of death from her "sister" who planned to ship her body north for a funeral. 

It looks to me like she would have been home free but for the fact she attended her own memorial service at the church, identifying herself as her sister.   A suspicious choir member contacted the local sheriff who found the woman at home and quite alive.  She reported to the sheriff's department that she had attachment problems rooted in childhood trauma which caused her to fake her death to withdraw from the church.  

I don't know why - call me curious - but there is a "rest of the story" here we aren't getting.  I ponder what it might be as I hum "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover" and wonder why she didn't leave well enough alone and skip the memorial service.