Funeral solution shows there's something about St. Mary

With Mother's Day approaching, Joy Morris of Huntley wanted to fulfill her mom's last wish.

"I made this promise to my mom," Morris says, recalling their conversation after she had flown to Florida to help her father and a sibling care for Diane Mogensen, who died on March 29.

"These talks were hard because that meant that I had to face the fact that my mom was going to die," Morris says. "That was really hard to do when you have such a great mom like I did. I realized that it wasn't about me, and I had to do what was best for my mom. So I buckled down and had the hardest talk one could ever have: What are your dying wishes?"

The 70-year-old woman, ravaged by a lifelong lung disease, talked about the importance of her religion. Born Diane Minicozzi into a Roman Catholic family on Long Island, the New York native attended St. Dominic's school from kindergarten through high school.

As a teenager, after the death of her parents, she raised her youngest brother.

Then she fell in love with Clarence Mogensen, a divorced dad with four kids. They married in 1974 and moved to Buffalo Grove, where they ran a business called Bagels to Go.

Believing that her church didn't approve of her marrying a divorced man, the woman never tried to become a member.

"But my mother prayed every single day in her prayer room," Morris remembers. "It was very important to her."

She even worried that the hospice care she received in her last days would be considered suicide. "That's how Catholic she was," her daughter remembers.

The Mogensens moved to Florida in 2002. They scheduled a funeral service there, but many of the woman's friends and family still live in the suburbs here. So Morris, who isn't Catholic or a member of any church, called St. Mary Parish in Buffalo Grove to schedule a funeral service.

"Easy, right?" Morris says.

Not so much.

While she once considered St. Mary Parish her home church, Mogensen was not a member, explains Father Marc W. Reszel, the pastor there who denied Morris' request.

"Used to," Reszel says when I call to get his explanation. "If you used to live in California, you can't vote for Nancy Pelosi."

A Mogensen funeral could possibly conflict with the need to conduct a funeral for a member, Reszel says. The pastor adds that Morris isn't even Catholic and that the family has other options in the towns where they live.

A heartbroken and angry Morris decided to call her local Catholic church in Huntley.

"She was obviously really hurting," says Father Steve Knox, pastor of St. Mary Catholic Church in Huntley.

While acknowledging that funeral requests can be complicated, even "messy," at times, Knox says, "The church needs to be there for those that are grieving."

So in the week after Mother's Day, Mogensen will get her funeral at the church in Huntley.

"My mom's wish was to have her memorial at St Mary's," Morris says. "On May 17th I will complete the dying wishes of Diane Mogensen -- my compassionate, loving mother -- thanks to Father Steve and St. Mary's Church in Huntley."

She wanted a funeral at St. Mary and she'll get one.

"She did not specify," Morris says, "so it's a little loophole."

I suspect Mom would approve.