Helen De Cruz (1978-2025)

Helen De Cruz passed away yesterday. This is the last thing Helen wrote, meditating on their life coming to an end, and here is a short obituary, a lute performance Helen’s friend Jacek Łozak dedicated to them, and a public conversation Helen and I had at the end of last year, on the theme that Helen was moving away from religion at the same time that I was moving towards it.

I spoke to Helen a few weeks ago. They had been thinking about the parable of the talents, comparing their shortened life to someone who’s only been given one coin but has invested it well. Helen spoke of finding it hard to get their career started, not getting tenure first time around. They talked about the things they were proud of in their career, which mostly seemed to be about helping people and promoting things they cared about in the field, e.g., securing UK residency for a student in difficulty at Oxford Brooks University, helping a colleague who’d got into trouble, and recently organising an online conference at the APA. Helen advised me to look after the emotional needs of my students, but never forget that they have to make their own decisions. I suggested, by analogy to the butterfly effect, that the impact of Helen’s novel and influential philosophical contributions, as well as their many good deeds, would be even greater in the fullness of time.

At the end of the conversation I asked Helen for their current thoughts on God. They said: "God is very far away. But God is right here."

Helen was a wonderful person and a great philosopher. They have left us with great riches to enjoy.