Saying No to the Culture of Death

Last week was a sad week because I learned about the deaths of two people from my parish. The first lady, Cathy, was one of the first to welcome me into the parish when we arrived 10 years ago. It was a friendship that spanned 10 years. Cathy was diagnosed with kidney cancer. This is a very hard cancer to treat and sadly the prognosis for this cancer always remains not good. She put up a brave fight, and like Frank she rarely complained about the pain of her cancer. Cathy was a proud mother of 5 children plus grandmother to 6 grandchildren. She was a remarkable woman, and even if she had a strong personality, she loved those grandchildren so much that one cannot forget to time that she gave to each of them.

After hearing the news about Cathy who lost her battle with cancer on the previous Friday, I learned of the death of Angela, who was the wife of a man that I have grown to know over the years of attending daily Mass. On the Monday morning I got to the church and Brian was very upset. He spoke to another person and gave her the news, for Brian wanted to tell his friends before the presider for the Mass mentioned that Angela had died very suddenly. Angela had suffered from mental illness, but was mostly depressed. In fact I had a recent conversation with her about how she felt depressed because she needed someone to help her to get dressed and to have her hair washed because of a sore shoulder. Despite her illness Angela was a wonderful woman and so very gentle. Her death from a heart attack was very sudden and there was no real opportunity to revive her, because she was "gone" by the time she hit the floor. The ambulance officers were called and at least 6 ended up at the scene, but they had to call it as a death. One of the officers, a Catholic, called the local parish priest (this happened outside of our parish) and he was there within a very short time. He blessed the body and gave Angela the last rites, for there was nothing more that could be done.

So I have to say good-bye to two stalwarts of our little community. Both are at peace.