'My life has flipped 180': A year's worth of columns show joy, heartache and change

Courtney Goude knows the difference a year can make. Her message to 2024? Let's do this.

Goude and her twin sister, Emily, were homeless in their senior year of high school. But a mom who saw their pain rallied a team of doers and helpers around the sisters, providing them shelter and support. Kelly Jo McDonnell introduced them into a village of people who cared.

That village has only expanded. When I wrote about the Goude sisters in September 2022, they were settling into their new dorm at the College of St. Benedict. After the column ran, a reader stepped forward and offered to pay for the twins' tuition for all four years, including Courtney's study-abroad programs.

"It's absolutely insane," Courtney said. "It's the most considerate, generous thing anyone has ever done for us."

The donor wishes to remain anonymous to the public. But as Courtney tells it, he wanted to honor the memory of his late wife, a fellow Bennie. Courtney spent part of last summer in Madrid, exploring cathedrals and cafes, beaches and paella. In February, she'll travel to spend four months in South Africa.

"My life has flipped 180," said Courtney, whose childhood struggles have informed her plans to become a social worker. "I'm grateful for all the experiences I've been through because it's shaped me as a person. I know what it's like to not live in a healthy house behind closed doors."

Emily completed her first year at St. Ben's, but the stress and anxiety of college convinced her that she needed to be on a different path. She's now working as a phlebotomist in St. Cloud and planning to move to the Twin Cities with her boyfriend. The apartment they've been eyeing is just a 10-minute walk from Kelly Jo.

"She is an angel of a woman," Emily said. "We've only gotten closer."

Courtney agrees. "She is our chosen family."

As we settle into 2024, here are some other updates on people I featured in some of my favorite columns from the past year or so.

Don't ask Kelly Loverud if he's found a new cat. Just don't.

"I get MAD when people who know what happened say ... 'Hey, I know someone who has some kittens that need homes,' " he emailed me. "Did they read the [expletive] article? Steve wasn't some cat that you can ho-hum replace. She wasn't a car."

Kelly took it hard when his Steve, his one-eyed female "cuddle kitty," passed away in August. He expressed his grief by typing up a slightly salty yet tender tribute to Steve and stapling copies to utility poles in his northeast Minneapolis neighborhood.

About a week after my column ran, Kelly received three handwritten letters in the mail. Judging from their distinct style of cursive penmanship and card selection, they were written by older women. Kelly bought cards and wrote them back. He tells me the most interesting part about losing Steve is that it's helped him support others. When a bartender at the nearby Knight Cap unexpectedly lost her beloved dog, he could empathize with her better than most. He delivered food to her and gave her some photos of her late pup.

He's not sure how much it helped. But her tearful reaction gave him a pretty decent idea.

People are still showing up for Mary Johnson-Roy, who inspired the world with her story of faith and forgiveness. But her dementia has progressed since I last visited her in May. She can no longer feed herself and needs to use a walker. Her deteriorating vision means she can only see through the size of a pinhole in each of her eyes.

One morning last week, I caught up with Mary and her husband, Ed Roy, who was feeding her grapes and sausage and biscuits. "It's a road, a journey," he said, his voice weighed with exhaustion. "I tell my queen, 'We support each other. We hold each other up.' Me and her."

Mary, the founder of From Death to Life, became a worldwide symbol of grace when she forgave her son's killer, Oshea Israel. She facilitated healing groups for moms who lost their children to homicide. Not only did she befriend Oshea, she began to love him like her own. Their astonishing story was chronicled by NPR's StoryCorps in 2011.

This summer, the audio storytellers came back to north Minneapolis for another interview featuring Mary, Ed and Oshea. Ed admits that reminiscing about their most joyous days together moved him to tears.

"There was dust in my eyes," he told me. As for the others in the room, he teased them, "Y'all have a lot of dust in your eyes, too!"

The couple are downsizing to a one-bedroom apartment after their landlord raised the rent. Mary will most likely need to move again this year into a center that can provide memory care.

"She has slowed down, unfortunately. It's heartbreaking," said her longtime friend, Brian Mogren. "Her world is becoming smaller. I would also say, too, the love around her is growing."

Finally, I can't claim credit for this next sweet outcome, but Hmong American artist Seexeng Lee says one of my columns played a part in it.

In April, I bemoaned the lack of statues depicting real-life Minnesota women and offered up 10 candidates who I thought should be immortalized in bronze. One of them was Olympic gold medalist Suni Lee.

Little did I know that Seexeng, a proud dad of two daughters, had plans of his own to sculpt a bust of the gymnast from St. Paul's East Side. But pulling off a public art installation requires time, money and energy, and the Blake School art teacher had faced a number of setbacks in manifesting his dream.

"Your article was the thing that got me to move forward," he said, adding that Lee was an easy inspiration. "Moments like this only come once in a lifetime, and I had the skill set to actually do it."

Seexeng raised about $18,000 by cobbling together some of his own savings and collecting donations on Facebook and from local businesses. The city rallied around his vision, with City Council Member Nelsie Yang securing $15,000 in neighborhood STAR funds. When Lee came to the surprise unveiling of her statue in Phalen Regional Park in July, she was stunned.

When I asked Seexeng what he looked most forward to in 2024, his answer was easy: "Sunisa's trial!"

The Olympic trials will be held in June in Minneapolis, giving Lee a chance to shine before a hometown crowd. Last April a kidney condition forced her to end her collegiate gymnastics career at Auburn University and take a break from training. Lee is back to competing, though, and has said she hopes her return proves that people can overcome hard things.

That statue overlooking Lake Phalen celebrates that spirit.

"It validates Suni," said Seexeng. "It validates our community. It validates something we did together."