Hello everyone.  I hope you are well and keeping safe.  Some very sad news.  My aunt Eileen died yesterday evening.  I had the opportunity to speak with her on the phone just a few hours earlier in the day.  The poor thing could hardly breath with this awful condition of pulmonary fibrosis.  I wanted to assure her that God was with her and all the angels and saints, and that God loved her so unconditionally.  I told her how happy God has been with her wonderful life so dedicated to Him, so happily.  

My aunt came out from Ireland a few years after my mom.  She met a wonderful man named John Gill.  He was a widower with two children.  He became my Godfather shortly after they married in 1965.  A young man in his early thirties, he suddenly died in his sleep.  My aunt, now a very young widow, had two children from him and two of her own, including an infant, to raise.  She acted fast!  She got a job at the local public school in Woodbridge, N.J., and held various posts from working in the cafeteria to becoming a teacher's assistant.  

She was a daily communicant and one of the first to volunteer for anything in her church community of St James. I really can't say enough about her.  I know for so many of you, her story is a story that you also know very well with the wonderful people in your family who have passed on.  

My heart is really aching today, I loved her so much.  I think of that beautiful song by Carey Landry, "Gentle Woman" and how it speaks to me of my aunt.  Granted the song is about the Blessed Mother, but I know she doesn't mind sharing the light and love with my aunt.  Thanks for your prayers.  May I ask you to pray for Eileen, my cousins and for my mom who is so devastated at the loss of her baby sister.  Here are some of the lines from "Gentle Woman"