So here I am at the age of 20 years old and so very sick that my bed is now on the bathroom floor. A prisoner to my home. A prisoner to my body. Stripped of attending college, stripped of doing theater, and stripped of having a social life. As I watched my father, mother and sisters go to work, eat and carry about their life, I had one constant—-God.
I was raised as a Catholic school girl and was very religious—my family was a two times a yearer and me? Well, I would vist the funeral parlor daily, light candles several times a week, went to the stations of the cross, weekly mass and prayed the rosary daily and wore my scapular with Mary on the front and Jesus on the back.
In one visit to my IBD specialist in New York, Dr Samuel Meyers, he said that I needed surgery the next day and the surgeon told me to go home, pack my bags and come back by the evening. My colon was ready to perforate. He also said I had cancerous polyps and told my mother if she doesnt die from her colon bursting, she will die from colon cancer within a year.
I went home and packed. I knew though where I needed to go. I walked the one block down to my church with bible in hand hoping to do confession (not sure what I was confessing as I was a pretty good kid). To my surprise, the golden doors were locked. It took everything I had to walk there and now the doors were locked? I went over to the rectory and no one answered. I was devastated. I struggled walking that block home and crawled up the stairs to my room and placed the bible in my bag. My mom asked me if I was ready to go and I looked back down into my bag, and placed the bible back on my bookshelf. I answered her that I was ready.
As I slid into the car, I knew that in that moment, I lost my religion. I was stripped of everything and now, God, too, had abandoned me. I now had lost it all.
