Facing Difficult News
This week I learned that a former member of my “crowd” (novitiate group) has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Thinking of her brought on a rush of memories of our youthful early years in the congregation, with our unknown futures stretching before us. Our life paths diverged many years ago, but a bond remains. In my note to her, I found myself promising prayers from the Sinsinawa Dominicans, because “we are your family, too.”
As I was sitting with the reality of her diagnosis, I found the poem, The Facts of Life, by Padraig O Tuama. Some of the stanzas named the reality that had so stunned me.
That you will learn most from the situations
you did not choose.
That you must accept change before you die,
but you will die anyway.
So you might as well live
And you might as well love,
You might as well love.
You might as well love
I would like to be able to do this living and loving no matter the circumstances. What will make it possible? Might it have something to do with family bonds? What do you think?
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