Link to full article from National Review can be found HERE.
Emily wrote a book about death, Living Memento Mori: My Journey through the Stations of the Cross. I recommend it even though most of us don’t really want to think about death. But it’s important to contemplate it, because that makes it less terrifying and exotic. It focuses our lives.
“I’m not afraid of death,” she told me, because as a Catholic Christian I know that my home is with Jesus in Heaven forever. So I’m not afraid of death in that sense, because death means that I get to go home and see Jesus face to face. I’ve been blessed with some amazing priests in my life who have been so generous in giving their time in counseling me during near-death moments and in giving me the sacraments. I feel at peace with death.
Emily had so much pain but didn’t feel she was a victim. She believed that not only is no one entitled to a life without suffering but that the Creator of the universe makes use of every bit of our efforts, sacrifices, and, yes, sufferings. She believed there was a purpose in her having CF. God “created me for a reason.” she said. “And CF is part of how he created me — so it’s part of my reason for existing. It’s part of my vocation.”