Our good friend is dying of cancer. We first met Ursula almost two years ago at our apartment complex, La Regencia. She is single, turns 47 this month and has a spunky personality despite her physical difficulties. Her breast cancer was in remission but has spread to two tumors in her brain and four or five in her lungs. She lived across the hall from us until we moved two months ago and loved our boys from the get go, despite seeing them at their best and absolute worst. She'd come out every time she heard them running down the hall just to see how we were doing. There are times we saw her almost every day and the boys became comfortable enough to knock on her door and tell her all about their day. Over the last couple of years, she would do little things for us here and there. She'd occasionally come over and read to the boys or bring little projects for them to do with her. She saw a ball with fire trucks on it and couldn't resist getting it for James. She ordered a subscription for the kid's National Geographic for Jonathan knowing he would love it, which he does. She bought the boys tee shirts and Gracie an outfit and paint and came over to make "I'm a Big Brother" shirts for them to wear when Gracie joined our family. She also let my family use one of her beds when they came down to help out after Gracie was born. She has our phone number memorized. She always asks about our comings and goings.
We introduced her to the missionaries quite a while ago and she started coming to Relief Society activities with me, visited the Mormon Battalion and church off and on. She's been through quite a few sets of Sister Missionaries and has built friendships with other ladies in the ward but hasn't accepted the church. She once said she doesn't want to be baptized just because she loves our family so much. I was helping her organize her contact information a couple weeks ago since she isn't able to use the right side of her body now. I tried to share my testimony with her. It didn't go well. I've never wanted to force it but it broke my heart when I noticed the beautiful view of the temple from the 5th floor of her hospital room at the VA hospital on Sunday. I didn't realize it would be this hard for me to see her dying without having accepted it. I don't know how much longer she has. Her next home will be a nursing center around here. For FHE tonight, Mike gave a lesson on the resurrection to help prepare the boys (and me?). One of life's lessons I guess.
