Life of Faith: Gloria Saathoff

One of Will's friends shared her experience dealing with cancer in the family.

In one of my past blogs titled CANCER I fill you in about my Aunt Gloria and all she has endured with this ugly illness called cancer.

The past 6 months have been very trying. When my Aunt was told she now has stomach cancer, she refused to do chemotherapy and opted to follow the healings of a holistic healer. This consisted of a regime of carrot and celery juice. Every day for every meal. Before our own eyes: myself, my sister, my brother, our cousins Erica and Bobby, our parents, our grandparents, and Aunt Gloria's life partner Molly, we watched as Aunt Gloria went from 140 lbs to maybe 98 lbs, if even that. But with this regime and prayer, she was going to fight this illness. She is going to beat this illness. Faith is my Aunt Gloria. She is the strongest believer in prayer. For all life crises or ailments, there is no better cure than prayer.

The strength the love the faith the determination this woman has is only half of what I believe I can ever be. This is the backbone of our family...the SAATHOFF's. She keeps everyone together. She brings us all together for every special occasion. Because of her, we have some sort of relationship with our grandparents. Because of her, me, Jack, JR, Erica, Nobby, Vanessa, and Renee will always share a special bond.
In the past couple of weeks, she's requested us to come over late one night to tell us all that she has made peace with God. She has told Him that she is ready when He's ready to take her. She is tired and she is weak. She doesn't want to suffer anymore. No one says much... we try to cry silently so that she doesn't worry about us anymore than we know she already does. That's her role in the family. Worry Wart... she always seems to know when something is up with one of us and out of the blue you'll get a call from her just because she's thinking about you, but more so because she knows you're going through something. She's a counselor. She attempts to fix everything or just lend an ear to listen. Because sometimes all you need is to get it off your chest, is what she told me once.

Second call, we're requested to come to her home again. She's asked the Priest to come and give her communion and read her last rites. Each of us (the cousins) calls each other. We cry with each other... This day is a beautiful day, the sun is shining, and the weather is cool. This tiny woman is sitting on her couch with the biggest smile she can make... she's suppose to be ready to go, yet she exudes so much life and love. She's cracking jokes and loving each of us the way she always has. You can see the joy in her eyes as she holds her great nephews and niece. Her eyes light up even more as Bobby brings in the ton of balloons that were ordered for her. Aunt Gloria loves balloons. You can see her eyes tear up a bit and she just laughs it off.

There are quite a bit of people here, not just us, so we the family, sit back and let each and every other non family member say their hellos and good byes. Finally it is just us... the cousins, Aunt Rita, and Uncle Robert. Aunt Gloria asks Jacque to read her something beautiful from an inspirational book our mother bought for her. The reading is an introduction to asking your family to gather around in a circle and each person to say a prayer of thanks to God. All the prayers were so beautiful... there was not one dry eye in that circle.

We thanked Molly for being the woman she is and taking care of our Aunt, our precious beautiful strong woman. Molly has set aside any life she's known before to care for this woman who has probably pushed Molly to the point of wanting to tear out her hair! Hahaha. But Molly stays and she doesn't give up on our Aunt.

"Thank you God for this beautiful day. These are the days that make me strong... these are the days that make me not want to give up."

And that's all that I can hope for is that she will not give up, but that she will keep fighting and praying and that her faith will get her through this. But if she can't fight any longer, I will have had one of the greatest experiences in my life... the day she brought us all together once again and blessed me, Jacque, JR, Erica, Bobby, Vanessa, and Renee with a bond we can never deny. Family, that's what we are..., a strong loving faithful family. Nothing or no one can break that. We owe that to her... our beautiful wonderful precious Aunt Gloria. Thank you for who you are who you will be remembered as and all that you stand for. Please keep HER in your prayers... even though you don't know her personally... knowing me and my family there is a piece of her in each of us.

-- Sandi J. Saathoff