There’s a new angel in heaven

A week ago today, my friend Sue was called to heaven after a long and courageous fight with breast cancer.  She was a WONDERFUL woman and will be greatly missed by many.  Through it all, Sue maintained such a positive attitude, her sense of humor and most of all-grace.  During the last few weeks of her life, we (my CRHP group) were able to spend quite a bit of time with her, praying the Rosary…praying her home.  It was a beautiful experience.  The love that filled her room was felt by all, but I hope mostly by Sue.  I know she felt how much we truly loved her and I’m so glad we took every opportunity to tell her so.

One of Sue’s requests was to have our CRHP group sing at her funeral Mass.  See?  She did have a sense of humor!  She had to have been cracking up watching us fumble and sing out of tune.  This is proof that we loved her!

Practicing our song before the service.

It was a beautiful Mass and a wonderful celebration of Sue’s life.  Father Phil, who did the service, gave a nice homily.  But the one thing that stood out to me was when he spoke about her life and life in general.  He said, “It’s not the duration of one’s life, but what one does during their life time.”  And he wasn’t speaking about living to be 100 years old, career accomplishments, wise investments.  For it doesn’t matter if you live a long life, it matters what you do with it…what you do “during your lifetime.”

After the Mass and luncheon, some of us headed over to give a toast to Sue.  It was wonderful sharing our favorite memories of her.  There was laughter and there was, of course, tears, but mostly laughter as we toasted to her life…a life that we all felt blessed to be a part of.

It was difficult telling my boys of Sue’s passing.  They knew she had cancer…and I feared that they might think that if Sue had cancer and is now in heaven, what will happen to Sam?  Life is not easy and this was not an easy conversation for me for I feared saying the wrong thing, using the wrong tone of voice, wrong body language.  Actually, the more I think of it…this year has been filled with quite a few difficult conversations with the boys!  These topics make them grow up so quickly.  I didn’t want them to have to think about such “adult” subjects at age 7 and age 10.  I was hoping that the only tough conversation I would have this year would be the one about Santa with Jack… As parents we do our best to protect their innocence, calm their fears, make them feel secure.  And sometimes, it’s not easy to do so.

Erica