How can Jane be dying?

Friends, blogging will be light to nothing today and maybe for a little while.

My friend is dying. My head is spinning. We have known each other for 20 years, having met as volunteers for the church youth group. We had children together. Hers are now 21, 16 and 15. When the youngest was 1, her husband left the family and never had any dealing with the children again. Jane was left to raise them alone, struggling and working part-time at church. She raise three great kids with the help of almost no one but her (very) elderly mother. When I say they were struggling, I mean struggling. Life was no easy at all. As the kids were older she took a full-time position with the parish but church jobs don’t exactly pay well.

Things had only just gotten a little better over the past 18 months, when the church offered her a full-time position as Director of Religious Ed – not great money but, as Jane would be the first to say – the best situation she’d had in 15 years. I saw her last at Thanksgiving, at mass. She came to me, asking if I was unwell because I looked so pale. I told her I was wondering the same thing about her, and we both chuckled about “getting old.”

Today at Mass, I looked around and did not see her. I heard her name in the request for prayers and discovered the situation. In the week between Christmas and New Years, Jane – never sick a day in her life – discovered she had cancer. My pastor said she is not expected to live out the week, and is in terrible pain, suffering greatly.

I don’t know details beyond that. I am stunned and trying to learn more. This is simply staggering for all of us, here.

Please pray for Jane and her children. Please pray. Thank you.

Jane is gone.
Waiting for the Believers.