So it’s been a year since Caitlin’s transplant. A fact that’s as hard to believe as her absence.
This post from that day, if the lungs had come a month earlier, before the weeks on ECMO…. … too painful to think about, really.
So.
I’m going to let Caitlin’s words take over, with thanks to Kate S, an old friend of hers who has most recently, graciously, shared her correspondence. The “Caitlin book” that I’m writing has a lot to do with this search for faith.
Emails with Kate
I
can i ask you something personal? If you don’t want to answer I understand. I have never been that religious but i have always had faith. i hope that makes sense to you. as i get older i struggle more and more with the reality side of my brain and the side that wants to hope and pray for the best, and have faith. i am always so interested in how people like you — really smart people that is — stay so solid in their beliefs and faith. i don’t know, i guess i am just curious about it. then sometimes things happen that make me feel like i am more connected, and that it is possible. i’ve been trying this thing where i “dialogue” with my illness. it was recommended by an astrologer who did my chart, and it is something i kind of do a lot anyway but in a different way. its like visualizing sessions of going through your body and imagining healing. but this takes it a step further with actual talking to your disease. anyway i was lying in bed this morning doing that for like half an hour. andrew was there, he was like half awake, we were just laying around. anyway i never said i was doing that. then when he got up and was walking into the living room he just said casually “i feel like god was in the room this morning.” It was so odd, that is not a normal thing for him to say (obviously). It was just kind of cool.
II
i am pretty open about everything, but religion is one thing where I am both curious and less knowledgeable. There is so much craziness around religion, that I am always compelled by the smart and grounded ones who find their faith in it, like you. And there have certainly been times when I have reached for it (and it is christianity, because that’s what I was raised with, however weakly). When I was 11 I was very sick for a long time, and I had a hospital physical therapist who would come in and do chest pt (a treatment for CF). She would talk about God and Jesus, almost in an awkwardly preachy way…she was southern. But I was so sick and so detached from anything normal that an 11 year old kid thinks about, that I just fell into it. And she encouraged me to pray and so I did, and I prayed a lot all through my teenage years. And I can still remember her talking to me as I stared out the window and I can’t believe that was an 11 year old kid. It was like I stopped being a kid that year.
When I got older I got interested in reincarnation. Stories of children remembering details of lives that they couldn’t possibly have known, the idea that we are here to learn lessons in this life. Figure out what those lessons are, be good people, and evolve our souls. The idea of souls. It was fun to read about, yes, but mostly the ideas of reincarnation resonated with me. I was interested in the fact that most of the religions embraced the idea very early on in their inception (or so I have read), and even though now it is considered maybe “new age-y” it was in fact very “old age-y.”
When I was very sick that time, my mother had an experience of lying on the couch in our living room sobbing, just crying really hard. Thinking, how will this ever be ok. She said she heard a voice say clear as a bell “have faith.” She has told me this story lots of times since then. She says it was so clear she sat up immediately and stopped crying. Yesterday she bought me a card. She picked it based on the quote on the cover by Frances Hodgson Burnett (author of the Secret Garden) “Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen.” She came home and opened it to give it to me and inside it said “Have Faith.” She didn’t even know that, …how odd?! And wonderful.
Anyway — things like this, and the moment with andrew, are just examples of many validating moments I have had during whatever my spiritual journey is. They have made me believe that there is something there. Sometimes I am more connected to it, and sometimes I am not. Perhaps that is the drawback of not having a solid religion to keep you connected, to draw from when you feel like you are losing faith. I don’t know. This might all sound insane to you. I don’t want to think of myself as one of those people that everyone seems to be nowadays which is just “i’m spiritual but not religious,” because I think it is more than that. It is more than just liking the idea of something. I think you have to believe in the GOOD of something, solidly, in order to stay the course.
Email to Nick
A Ravenna church she longed to see
So what I always loved about Early Christian art was that it was so …early. Really the beginnings of Christianity , and thinking about what that meant is neat for me. This was years before even the crusades, the first really violent time in the name of “Christ” (well except for Christ himself obviously ). So there was violence of course … In Rome and in the Byzantine empire. But Christianity hadn’t even reached a point yet where people were “fighting in the name of the Catholic Church” etc and things were still more modest.
You can see the change in how Christ is portrayed in the art in these small churches. He’s still a shepherd but he’s wearing roman robes and looks more regal. So it’s the beginnings of it…. But it’s unlikely that these religious people then were implementing awful atrocities on people
I think the area seems beautiful and peaceful. But also something I can’t really place, and don’t necessarily need to figure out. I just would like to go.
There is always going to be bad in the world. I think that is what makes being good so important.
7 thoughts on “DECEMBER 18 — “God was in the room””
Impossible that a year has passed, and yet, it has. A year ago this past weekend I was at a family Christmas party and I stepped away to pray for Caitlin. I thought of that this Saturday night–same party, held in your neck of the woods. I am so glad to know you ARE writing a Caitlin book. Writing will help heal and cleanse. Wishing you blessings and continued strength.
It was a joy to read these emails. Thank you for sharing them.
I’ve been stuck on the image of the Pieta while praying for you and your husband and Caitlin this week. It always comes to me when I think of you. God is so close to us in our suffering, closer than any other time. And I think of Simon, the man chosen from the crowd to help carry the cross. He is Caitlin. He is you. You all have shouldered something for the redemption of the universe. Blessings to you and yours this Christmas season.
Oh Maryanne… reading those notes from Caitlin made me cry. I remember last year at this time checking this blog frantically so many times a day for news from you… I keep typing words and deleting them and trying again. I am not religious but I believe with all my heart in our souls living on and there is no questions Caitlin’s lives on. I hope you both get a message during these holidays that gives you a little extra peace. xxxx
Thank you for continuing to share Caitlin with everyone. She was a remarkable young woman. True love incarnate. She is in my feed everyday at this time and it reminds me of how much she loved and was loved. I feel her in the room. XOXO
Maryanne, I remember reading the email from a year ago – it seems like yesterday. I think of Caitlin often and find all of her writings/e-mails to be inspiring. You and Nick raised such a extraordinary individual; her wisdom and love continues to live and influence the lives of many.
God Bless. ~xo
Thinking of you so much. Watching the film, crying, Feeling grateful she blessed the earth as she did. Grateful to witness the ongoing love. Hang in there, my friend.
9 Lives Notes 
Impossible that a year has passed, and yet, it has. A year ago this past weekend I was at a family Christmas party and I stepped away to pray for Caitlin. I thought of that this Saturday night–same party, held in your neck of the woods. I am so glad to know you ARE writing a Caitlin book. Writing will help heal and cleanse. Wishing you blessings and continued strength.
It was a joy to read these emails. Thank you for sharing them.
I’ve been stuck on the image of the Pieta while praying for you and your husband and Caitlin this week. It always comes to me when I think of you. God is so close to us in our suffering, closer than any other time. And I think of Simon, the man chosen from the crowd to help carry the cross. He is Caitlin. He is you. You all have shouldered something for the redemption of the universe. Blessings to you and yours this Christmas season.
Oh Maryanne… reading those notes from Caitlin made me cry. I remember last year at this time checking this blog frantically so many times a day for news from you… I keep typing words and deleting them and trying again. I am not religious but I believe with all my heart in our souls living on and there is no questions Caitlin’s lives on. I hope you both get a message during these holidays that gives you a little extra peace. xxxx
Thank you for continuing to share Caitlin with everyone. She was a remarkable young woman. True love incarnate. She is in my feed everyday at this time and it reminds me of how much she loved and was loved. I feel her in the room. XOXO
God bless you and Nick at this time of year.❤️❤️🙏🏻🙏🏻
Maryanne, I remember reading the email from a year ago – it seems like yesterday. I think of Caitlin often and find all of her writings/e-mails to be inspiring. You and Nick raised such a extraordinary individual; her wisdom and love continues to live and influence the lives of many.
God Bless. ~xo
Thinking of you so much. Watching the film, crying, Feeling grateful she blessed the earth as she did. Grateful to witness the ongoing love. Hang in there, my friend.