Little Therese and Aidan

This is the anniversary of Aidan's transplant. If you remember, 8 years ago in 1999 was the year St Therese's relics were touring the US. Elizabeth Foss and the members of CCM had prayed for a shower of roses for us during our vigil, and St Therese responded with a generosity we will never forget. The touring of the relics was just one example. We used to joke -- joking was a stress-buster for us, a way of dealing with the sheer tragic oddity of our situation -- that next a concrete rose would fall off a San Francisco skyscraper and land on our heads.


There was one time, when Aidan was doing very badly after his transplant, that we got a holy card from somewhere with a picture of The Little Flower's older, suffering face -- when the disease had taken hold and she was clearly battling severe pain. The card quoted her, "To love... is to give everything... and to give oneself."

At the time Aidan had had a major stroke and was completely paralyzed on one side. We had fought so hard to help him stay alive and now it looked like he might be alive but no more. All that was left at that point was love... just love. It wasn't a feeling. It was something like the "dark night of the soul" -- a nothingness that was more powerful and strong than anything I had ever felt before.

Just around that time, standing by Aidan's cribside, I felt a presence that was very like someone standing right behind me at my shoulder. I think God must have given me a grace of really sensing His "cloud of witnesses" and particularly that of her, who promised to "spend her heaven doing good on earth" and to "send a shower of roses from heaven."

One of the most memorable parts of the movie Therese was when she was struggling in her last days and hours before death. The movie transcended itself there. It made me cry especially because it brought to mind Aidan's agony in the days before and after his transplant.