Emily Sullivan, who regularly attends the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, said her mother, Kaite, had a quiet but important impact on everyone she met.
“It wasn’t this big presence, but just the simplicity of how she lived,” Sullivan told “Practicing Catholic” radio show co-hosts Leah Heselton and Father Tom Margevicius. “She loved being a mom. That was, like, her favorite thing, and she would say that all the time.”
When Sullivan learned about her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis, she was shocked and troubled. But her mom’s demeanor was so hopeful that it shaped how the whole family handled the difficult news, Sullivan said.
“She was just so determined to figure it out and just kind of get through it,” Sullivan said. “She always said that it was just another hoop that she had to jump through, just another cross for her to bear.”
But later in her journey, Sullivan noticed a shift in her mom’s perspective on faith. Whereas before, her mother prayed for health, she soon started praying for God to be with her family. Sullivan’s mother passed away about a year ago.
“I don’t even know if healing is necessarily a possibility,” Sullivan said of experiencing the loss of her mother. “I think there is an acceptance and I think that grief and the process of losing somebody, I think it looks different with everybody,” she said.
“Emotions are really hard to navigate in that kind of situation,” Sullivan said. The only thing I would say is in everything, it is just a ‘Jesus take the wheel’ moment because there’s not much you can do about a situation like that.”
Since her mother died, Sullivan said she’s seen a consistent effort in her family to attend Mass, go to confession and regularly pray.
“You can’t go wrong when you have that,” Sullivan said. “God obviously heard all of our prayers and he was like, got it, message received, because I think the miracle that we got was just my mom’s life. And just her testimony in general and being able to watch her go through something like that as nobly as she did.”
To hear more from Sullivan about her family’s faith journey through a breast cancer diagnosis, tune into “Practicing Catholic,” which debuts at 9 p.m. Oct. 31 and repeats at 1 p.m. Nov. 1 and 2 p.m. Nov. 2. Also on the program, Joe Masek, founder of The Freedom Group, talks about overcoming pornography addiction.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, “Practicing Catholic” can be heard after it has aired at archspm.org/faith-and-discipleship/practicing-catholic or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.
