I am trying to sense where I stand with you, Jesus, and what you want me to do.  I am almost finished with the science and technology work and I have two months before my sabbatical is over.  On Monday I go to Sloan to see where I stand with the cancer.  I keep on thinking that you want a catholic media enterprise, the world needs it badly and today we lost the Supreme Court decision on marriage.  You know how much this will hurt your children Jesus.  But is that which you want me to do?  Part of me wants to write my memoirs and another part of me wants to write something about the situation in the world in general so that Darren can make good Entertainment Media from this.  I am feeling well and thank you for that lord.  It was good to see Teresa and Tommy and their family's visit tonight for lasagna.  I still feel part of the world and I think that this "dying from mesothelioma" seems to be really more of something I imagined then is something real.  I still don't know when the other shoe will drop.

I am getting close to you through my readings and through my extended visits to church.  I do feel enmeshed in a safe world of beautiful buildings, powerful sentiment, and a deeper faith.  I've realize that I am not a person of feeling and emotion.  I can not expect that you will reach me through those means.  But I am a person who can take long term steps towards long-term goals.  You helped me get a doctorate; you helped me write novels; you are helping me with the virtual reality (which is always very challenging); you will continue to help me I know.  I read St. Therese of Liseux and I see her child like the belief that you will always be with her.

Jesus, it was very good to see Tasha and her family.  She is really raising the children in the faith and they even came with me one day to daily mass.  Hopefully, she will avoid the problems that I had by not raising my older children in the faith.  I know you have forgiven me for that to the extent I can be forgiven in confession, but I will pay a constant reparation for those sins of omission and I will pray for all of my children and grandchildren to return to and live in the faith that you have given us.  I can most definitely see how this faith is helping me now as I face my own mortality.  However, for the past month I've been feeling physically much better and I received a call from my job about the fall.  I did let them know of my illness, but honestly, at this point I am feeling as though it is possible to return to work and be almost 100% of what I used to be.

But now I have a different "eye" as I look forward on my life.  Funny, all the times that we spend talking about the future – such as when I went to the airport recently, talking about how I am getting to be a better traveler.  I don't know how much more time you'll give me for traveling.  It seems our life is full of projections forward and our very language and learning is about giving us what we need for these future experiences.  And I don't know what they're going to be.  Now that I ever really did know but I thought I did – I thought I would be around at least until my late eighties.  Now it's a big question mark.

I have been able to do more reading about you Jesus and the book by the Japanese author Endo is giving me more insights into the life that you lead and the culture in which you lived.  I can't know or understand it all but I can see you moving through time and history and even geography as you work towards Jerusalem and your death for us.  I try to meditate and make You the center of my life, but this life intervenes – such as last week when we are in California – your presence seems to disappear into the background.  I also know from past experience that when the sickness takes over again, I lose my ability to pray.  Therefore, I am trying at this point to anticipate and store up the graces that I will need to get through the "hour of my death" which I know will have the greatest pain and the biggest fear in my life.  (You're well aware of my claustrophobia and fears of not breathing.)  I was reading St. Faustina last night who was well assured that those last moments she would be spending with you directly.  Please be there to help me through and to let my life be an example to those who need you, particularly to those to whom I did not bring your faith when I should have.  Bring something good from my death.  I know that from a bodily sense I will be shriveled, panting, looking lifeless and homely.  That bothers me although I know that should not be a priority.  I still wish to be attractive for my husband and I know that isn't going to be possible.  As you can see, dear Jesus, I am still very much in this world and I need your help to lift me out of it just the way St. Therese speaks of in her diaries.  Lift me out of the silly little old lady thinking that I have and align me with the thinking that you want.  I know I will have no control over the endpoint – none of us do, but I never really thought about it.  I have prayed many rosaries and hopefully will have your help as a transition on eternal life with you.  Help me to be the person that you want me to be; give me the grace please to make this happen.

Dear Jesus, things may be accelerating from the disease standpoint - some fevers, some night sweating, some shortness of breath.  Up till now, most of the discomfort has been from the treatments.

Help me to know what to do with my time and how to address any fear and pain.  Reading the book on St. Teresa with her autobiography and other materials (letters, reminiscences, papal documents) has given me insights into the little way of turning all to you even when not feeling holy or in your light.  I know you are there and you have created this pathway for me, but I still feel scared and unsure.   I don't like pain; I fear pain.  But I will try my best to trust.  Please help me with the grace that I need to be in and stay in your will.  Jesus I trust in you.  Maybe I will see you sooner then I thought.   I was feeling so well for a while that I thought the disease might have been a mistake.

Help me to know you in my travels.   I am still trying to finish some courses and I talked to Meg at work and we are full speed ahead for teaching comes September.  Guide me as to what will be your will for then.

Love you.

Jesus, it has been some time since we talked.  Darren's dad died and there was much preparation, consternation, celebration, and worry with his funeral and burial.   You had granted him a full life, despite the Alzeheimer's of his last days.  Hopefully / prayerfully, the breakthrough in getting a priest to him, even though his was then in the throes of dying from a stroke and lack of feeding, you were able to break through to his heart and gain from him the repentance that you needed.  Who but you can judge someone?  Who but you understanding what the "hour of your death" really means.  In my micromanaging of the world, I could see Dad  now praying for his family from the other side.  How do you break through to the New Age group of which my mother-in-law belongs? I could see myself now at the family gatherings after the funeral worried about so much other then just the passage of a soul -- did I look OK?  (especially since Darren's first wife (from whom his marriage was legitimately annulled) came to the service) was I projecting holy vibs (they all knew that I was dying too but I tried to show faith and hope (but did I come across as pompous and silly?)  did I forever look at the photos from the funeral and look to see if / how I looked compared to the rest?  How long vanity lasts in me.  How and when will I learn to follow your light?

I am feeling considerably better -- I take 3 mile walks in the morning and much of the healing after the removal of the drainage catheter from my chest seems to have happened.  I am enjoying the time with the sabbatical and the reduction in the stress of work.   I still thing about returning to work in the fall and wonder if / how I can do that.  Please be sure to tap me hard on the head with what I am to do job wise; I have a hard time hearing your voice at time.   I did get to the healing mass at the Divine Mercy chapel and I could feel your peace.  But your voice gets hard to hear so quickly for me.  I am (at Danny's recommendation) getting more time in front of you in t your churches; but much seems to get in the way.  His (Danny's) point is that I can not go wrong if I am spending more time in our presence. That is true.

Today we go to Roxbury to get some paperwork signed.  I have more tapes from Lighthouse Catholic Media that I hope to listen to on the way.  Please help them inspire Darren and me.  I still hope that he starts the Catholic media company but I have been pushing too hard - he resists and it might be all about my will and not yours.  Please guide me there.  I am still trying to manage things from this side and the other side of the grave.   Please help me learn to see . . . and to trust. . . your way Lord.

Thank you for giving me my wonderful life and family to this point; help me with the fears that keep coming up. 

Much has happened Good Lord.  Praise to you Jesus, but I am feeling a lot better.  Since the catheter came out about a month ago I have been able to get around walking and I seem to be recovering much of my energy and strength.  I still have soreness but I am feeling almost the "New Normal. " what is troubling me though is the deposition.  I have been trying to reach the priest about having a longer confession.  This will be complicated because I don't know whether my words were justified with in the context of a legal setting or whether I was lying.  I have been waiting for over a week for confirmation of the meeting for confession.  Father got back to me right away when I emailed him for time and said that he would hear me but even after a second e-mail I am waiting to hear from him.  Jesus, please do not punish me or my family at this point.  I don't know whether I have to drop the lawsuit or whether this is OK and I do need to have your approvals from your minister the priest.

I have been able to move closer to you in other ways through my church and my devotions at home and through my walk around and praying the rosaries as I am able to start most mornings with this nicer weather by doing a 4 mile walk around my neighborhood praying the rosary as they go.  I'm still very distracted and prior but I am getting better.  I've been spending more time in church before or after mass but it is always very noisy – at least no easy for me who seems to need to have absolute quiet to be able to focus.  Actually, focusing is always difficult for me.  But I do at least tried to spend time with you Jesus.  I have been reading more of Fulton sheen's "life of Christ" and it keeps me more and more aware of who you are in the context of history and genealogy.  I've also finished most of the St. Therese of Lisieux and having more than just what a biography has been a huge boon.  There are papal documents that followed shortly after her canonization and just recently it was the 90th year since her canonization.  At the end there is a collection of her small statements to the novices and they are most enlightening.  To read Terese who is a truly unique individual and her simple and different way of seeing the challenges of life gives much hope.

I still am fearful about my health.  Generally I feel pretty well.  But I'd read what will happen and how I will fall apart at some point.  My job called me.  I have three more months before have to go back to work and one of my colleagues is leaving so I will have to pick up some new courses.  I will be letting them know soon about my own health issues.  I am putting whether I return to work into your hands.  I have fears about losing my salary.  I will never be able to get another job at my age after I and better – are at least more able to work.  So I don't want to lose the job.  But I have been enjoying not having to be under such pressure of getting to meetings and to work all the time.  Since I do work online I have the greater flexibility.  But I will be under more pressure.  I put that in your hands Jesus.  I want to be fair to my job and to the students that the school has lined up.

Please help me with all of these uncertainties.  I know you will.  I'm looking forward to taking my morning walks with rosary beads - looking forward to a walk with you and your mother.

It became more real yesterday, Jesus; and I am scared.  The visit to Sloan was not as optimistic (reading between the lines of the very terse doctor) and I will be re-evaluated in 2 months with possible surgery lying ahead.  The optimism of the "clinical trials" is starting to fade.

My problem is that I have been slipping back into "the world" more and more.  We just had the funeral for Darren's dad and there were so many worldly aspects that I have been away from my times of peace and growth.  But I am seeing that I am not as focused on you Lord; I have been focused on the world.   I am not sure if going to work in the fall will be an option at all.   Help me draw closer to you Lord, and while staying in the world, being focused on the things that are eternal and on the things you want me to do with my time.  Let me get back into the light of the path to you.  Walk before me Lord or let me walk by your side.  Either way.  Help me to see you.

Moving more and more back into the "real" world, as my recovery from the biopsy and viral infusion become more past history.   I feel like my-old-self to some degree, but more bewildered; where do I go from here?   I am reading St. Therese's Autobiography once more - skipping around in the book.   I envy and admire her simplicity and joy; she reports, on the pages that I have read recently, about how God works through the everyday life of the convent and how He love and forgives her.   She has a freshness and a childlike joy in everything she does.   I tend towards pondering and overthinking, such as my concern about what I should be doing now with my life.  I want Therese's clarity and seeing God in all her actions.

It seems I have to embrace my situation - for now, becoming healthier but wondering what lies beyond -- and assume that God values my life "as is."   I am supposed to be a science/tech educator, as well as a mother and wife.   I have an opportunity with HACS to assemble short courses and I need to stay devoted to that, and focused on that.   Or, so I think.   Jesus, would you please let me know when that is not pleasing to you?

We are working through the funeral arrangements for Darren's Dad.   I need to keep him and the O'Connor family in my deepest prayers.  They need to see you as their Lord and Savior.