Touching story from Rosary Rally Captain in California

I would like to tell this story related to our rosary rally.

There was a middle aged woman of Italian descent named who used to come to our rosary rallies all the time.

She once told my wife that she liked the way we do our rally.  She owned a small café that was not doing well financially plus, her troubles were compounded by the fact that she was suffering from cancer, but she was always faithful to our rosary rally until the day she became incapacitated.

My wife had a strong inspiration to call her one month to find out how she was doing.  The last time she had come to the rosary rally was only a week after having had surgery, a heroic deed on her part. 

Her neighbor answered the phone that day instead and said that the lady was in intensive care and the doctors gave her only two weeks to live.

So with the information from the neighbor, my wife called the Catholic Nursing home where the lady was lodged and learned
from the Catholic nurse that she was in and out of consciousness.

My wife had recently learned that the lady's only family in California was a son who lived not too far away and who was caring for his mother.

Since the nurses are not allowed to call a priest or make any such decisions, the attending nurse was very happy when my wife told her that she was going to speak to the lady’s son to get permission to have a priest come.  The son was very pleased as well when my wife called him and requested it.

It was a veritable drama to get a priest.  Finally, we got the chaplain at the local Catholic hospital to come over.  Three days later the poor woman died, but she died with all the sacraments.

There was no one else looking after her spiritually. It was clearly the hand of Our Lady.  My wife attended the wake and the lady’s sister who flew out from New York, told my wife that she was reluctant to call a priest because she didn't want to scare her sister.  How people have wrong notions these days.

TM

Santa Barbara, CA