Spirit, Body and Mind

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Prayer Offerings for Margo

12 July 2022: Our dear purple infused Margo died peacefully on the 6th of July. Thanks for all your prayers and support.

I was made aware that some people no longer use Facebook so are unable to add their own prayer intentions for Margo and her cancer diagnosis and prognosis.

This page will serve as a prayer wall where anyone can add their intentions and offers of prayers for Margo.

Here is a snapshot of what we shared on Facebook with extended family and friends on Monday, June 20th:

Dearest family and friends around the world,

You all know the challenge Margo has had with cervical pain and we are blessed that she is recovering from that surgery and getting better every day. Four weeks post op and her surgeon is very pleased with her progress – she is right where they would expect her to be at this point. Each day she gets a little better from that surgery with the pain gone and just the final bits of post-surgical achiness lingering.

During the lead up to that surgery, Margo had a lot of imaging done of her head, neck, shoulders, and chest area. In one of those images, they found an area of shadow and thickening on her left lung and so she was referred to a pulmonologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center and they did a PET scan and then a needle biopsy.

About a week before her cervical surgery, we learned the result of that biopsy and that Margo has a rare form of cancer – Sarcomatoid Mesothelioma – which is a cancer of the lining of the lung. It is at Stage 3, surgery is not an option due to her existing lung capacity, and this cancer has no cure. Treatment via immunotherapy or chemotherapy only adds a few months to the median survival rate which is 12-15 months with either treatment.

After much prayer, reflection, talking to the oncologists, surgeon, and our priests for spiritual guidance we have decided to not undergo any treatment since the side effects impact quality of life significantly. We would much rather make Margo’s quality of life a priority instead in whatever time she has left with us. Every day, at Morning and Evening Prayer, we pray for a miracle for Margo’s healing, but we also acknowledge that all is in God’s hand and according to His will.

We know there are so many awesome prayer warriors here amongst our families and friends and we ask for your prayers for Margo’s healing but if that is not God’s will, then we pray that she has a blessed and easy transition from this life to what I pray is her heavenly reward.

Over the course of the last two weeks, Margo has been enrolled and accepted for palliative and eventually hospice care with Community Hospice and Palliative Care of Northeast Florida – an organization she volunteered with for 20 years. They are a blessing for us and offer so much help. At this stage it is focused on getting things in place for later.

Much is unknown about the future, so prayers give us great comfort.

Thanks for those prayers.

Blessings,

Rich and Margo

4 responses to “Prayer Offerings for Margo”

  1. Bersagliere Ruggieri Mimmo Avatar
    Bersagliere Ruggieri Mimmo

    Buonasera dall’Italia cara mamma Margo, le scrivo con il cuore queste parole come fosse la mia mamma, sperando le facciano piacere, perché anche se la distanza è tanta, il cuore è l’affetto di una madre ci fanno sentire vicino…. Le porgo un abbraccio (virtuale) forte forte forte: ciao Margo…..

  2. Donato Ditaranto Avatar
    Donato Ditaranto

    Hi Margo. I’m a friend of Giulio. I’m sorry to here about your illnesses .My prayers are with you and your family 🙏🙏

  3. Bersagliere Pierpaolo Di Gaspero Avatar
    Bersagliere Pierpaolo Di Gaspero

    Buongiorno Margo!
    Sono un Amico di Giulio e posso dirle che, con il suo Amore, è diventato un Uomo degno di stima e di Ammirazione.
    È una Mamma esemplare 😘 ❤

  4. Franca Sassu Avatar
    Franca Sassu

    Dearest Margo.

    Giulio just kindly informed me about this. You are most definitely in my thoughts and prayers sweet girl! I hope that all of our thoughts will ease and keep pain away and give you all the serenity you need to face this and have the best outcome! You deserve the best as the kind wonderful human being that you are. I am sorry that I haven’t been good at keeping in touch but please know you have been a great friend to me and I have good memories of you ever since I met you as a child and friend of Marco and Giulio. I am sending lots of love, hugs and kisses. I love you Margo and wish I was there to hold your hand😘😘😘

Shared Wisdom: Accumulated Quotations

One thing that never stops, whether I am in a writing hiatus or not, is the continuous collection of words of wisdom spoken and written by others.  I seem to have a mountain of them on my desk or collected in my computer.  I have noticed that there is one modern day spiritual writer who seems to speak much to my heart.  His name is Paul Ferrini and he has been involved in spiritual work for more than 35 years.  He is a prolific writer with many books to his name and one day I hope to attend one of his retreats.  You can learn more about Paul at his web site www.paulferrini.com.  In the meantime here are just a few of his spiritual insights.

“When you don’t want to do something, say "no" clearly.
A simple "no" said clearly from the heart can prevent the drama of self-abuse.
When we no longer betray ourselves by saying "yes" when we want to say "no", we will no longer attract people into our life who will disrespect our boundaries.”

“Some people complain about the boat.
Others try to escape it. Neither choice is helpful.
Until you accept the boat for what it is, it cannot take you to the other side.”

“You are the judge and the savior

No one else can condemn you for your mistake or release you from your guilt.
You must come to terms with what you have done.
You must acknowledge your error and atone for it.
The forgiveness of others is nice to have, but it means nothing if you cannot forgive yourself.”

“Compassion

Your compassion arises
when your ability to love
no longer depends
on how others treat you.”

“Authentic Spirituality

God doesn’t ask you to pretend to be someone or something you are not.
God wants you to be who you are with all your contradictions and dichotomies.
If you have to deny any aspect of who you are to be spiritual, then you are creating an inauthentic spirituality.
True spirituality should be an instrument of revelation, not a tool for denial.”

I hope I have peaked your interest enough that you will go running to Paul’s website.  I find him to be a magnetic yet gentle spirit even before I have met him in person.  Blessings on your journey.

Musings: Our Mortality

Yet another friend has returned to the great eternity.  Just over a year ago I dealt with the passing of five people who were close to me, some more than others.  Four of them died within a seven-week span, and the fifth, my dear church sister Susan, just two months after that.  At the time I remember feeling a sense of dis-ease, and although I have many spiritual tools and good friends to help me deal with this kind of thing, I was aware of “descending into greyness” and came to the conclusion that I was in a mild depression, which is not abnormal or alarming given the circumstances.

Last Thanksgiving, as Rich and I spent our now traditional week down in Orlando, I was on the computer and needed to make a rare (for me) foray into Facebook.  While there I found an entry by Rosa, the daughter of a dear old friend, Santiago.  Santiago was an engineer who I came to know very well, along with his wife Josefina, when I lived on the island of La Maddalena in Sardinia, Italy in the 70’s.  But more than an engineer, Santiago was an artist.  He painted using many mediums, he created exquisite mosaics, and he was a talented guitar player and writer.  Santiago was also my unofficial mentor, and he re-awoke my dormant Muse and I began writing and painting again.

Rosa’s posting was a photo of Josefina, and the caption read: “Here’s Mummy putting roses on Pappy’s tomb for his birthday.”  My hands froze over the computer keyboard as the significance of those words sank in.  I contacted Rosa immediately and she confirmed the sad news that Santiago had had a very serious stroke from which he had never recovered, and that he had passed last April.  Once the initial feelings of deep grief subsided, I was able to feel so grateful for his presence in my life and also for the fact that just two years ago my husband had gifted me with a week-long trip to Puerto Rico so that I could visit Santiago and Josefina and spend some wonderful time with them after about twenty five years of absence.

On our way home from that stay in Orlando, Rich and I stopped to visit with old friends from our time in Italy.  PA had been Richard’s Department Head on his first ship, U.S.S. Belknap (since decommissioned) in Gaeta, Italy in the mid-80’s, and then in the 90’s he had been his CO on another tour in Naples, Italy.  PA retired in the early 2000’s and on New Year’s Day 2006 he had a massive brain aneurism which robbed him of motor coordination and most speech.  He and Deb, his devoted wife, returned to live in DeBary, FL in 2007.  PA was wheelchair bound and had very little communication capability but when we visited them, which coincided with our Orlando trips each year, we could see that PA was “still there”.  Recognition and interest would flare in his eyes and we somehow knew that he appreciated our visit.

During the evening of 3 January 2013, we heard from Deb that PA was not long for this world and, in fact, he died in the early hours of the next day.  Yesterday we attended his funeral Mass and my husband was asked to speak about PA on behalf of the family.  As I heard Rich’s words of appreciation for this man, I was also drawn to my own place of gratitude – gratitude not only for PA and all he represented both as a a Naval officer and as a family man, and for the opportunity we had to know the whole family and be enriched by their presence in our lives, but also for life in general, the precious gift that it is, and for friendship and the gift that that is. I was also grateful that God had given us the opportunity to be present and supportive to our friends at their time of loss and deep personal grief.

As I remembered our last visit with Deb and PA, I then thought about the passing of my beloved soul-sister Cawne the week following Thanksgiving.  I will be writing a separated posting about Cawne because of the important place she held in my heart and in my life.  All that I will say here is that she was one of three people near and dear to me that I have lost recently all in the space of seven weeks.  That makes a grand total of eight losses in just over fourteen months.  I cannot help but wonder what is the “message” or the lesson behind all that loss, and I have been resting in the Creator’s loving arms about that.

There are three themes that have surfaced.  The first is that I have been prepared to carry this weight and, in dealing with my own grief, I have been able to support many people as they have journeyed through their grief. The second is related to my preparation as a spiritual director.  I firmly believe that I am being groomed to help others as they deal with their grief, to be a spiritual companion in this particular stage of peoples’ lives.  And the third is that I believe Creator is also teaching me about and gently bringing me closer to full acceptance of my own mortality.

And so as I close this blog I am also acutely aware that I want to write another blog dedicated to this particular topic.  So many people, in the Western world are scared to think about death and dying and live in a state of complete fear and denial of death, especially their own or that of their loved ones.  And yet death is the one thing that we are guaranteed to have to face in life.  Because of personal denial of the possibility of death and the general culture surrounding death in the Western world, many people are completely unprepared for the moment. Without being morbid,  I want to write about the subject so that whoever reads about it can choose to be somewhat prepared.

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