Lost too Soon to Lung Cancer

This week was a heavy one.  I attended the rosary for a former student.  In seventeen years of teaching, I've encountered over a thousand students easily. . .and when I first heard this student was sick, I knew just who she was.  I could picture her.  Usually, I can recognize some former students by sight--names might or might not come to me--but this one?  I knew who she was.  She was the kind of student you thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated.  She was attentive and well mannered.  She was inquisitive and encouraging. She was quiet and conscientious, actively involved on campus and just an overall good girl.

From what I heard and read, the traits she had while in my eighth grade Language Arts class followed her to the high school.  Of course they did!  She was THAT kind of person:  4.5 gpa, cheerleader, hospital volunteer, aspiring surgeon. . .who at 17-years-old was diagnosed with lung cancer.  Tragic.  It's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of her suffering and being sick--this girl with such strong work ethic, and pride, such a promising future.  It breaks my heart for her family, and for her friends.  

And it makes me take pause and love on my littles a little longer. Tucking them in at the end of an exhausting day was relished as a gift instead of a chore.  I looked into their eyes and listened when they were talking to me.  We held hands and picked flowers.  We hiked and explored just because we could.  I read aloud a whole chapter a night instead of cutting it short. . .It's amazing how death, especially that of someone so young, can expand your mama heart to look past the drudgery and embrace it all.  It's the realization that another mom a city away is wailing into the night for what used to be normal--and just like that, it's gone. She's gone.

I absolutely positively do not understand how people come through crisis without their faith.  I realized in church Thursday night, as we prayed the rosary aloud in a church filled to capacity, my prayers and my faith in God and the promise of heaven is all that could get me through. Heck, my faith is all I could think of as I walked up the aisle to pay my respect for her family and a constant stream of prayers were uttered silently in my heart for their comfort and healing.  

Lung cancer. Seventeen.  Sandra.  Those words just don't belong together, yet there they are.  And all I can offer is my prayers.  And all I can ask is that you might do the same please.  

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.