Say a little prayer

Prayers go up and blessings come down. Yiddish Proverb

Last night, my friends, U and A, came for dinner. U goes into the hospital today to have the cancer that is corroding her breast removed. She's having a double mastectomy. Radical treatment for a debilitating, life-threatening disease. Curative and preventative. Her mother died of breast cancer. So did her aunt.

Over a glass of wine and a light summer's meal, we laughed and joked, talked about life and travelling, careers and hopes and dreams. Alexis and Liseanne joined us. C.C. came late as he was driving back from the southern part of the province.

It was an evening of hope. Of love. Of confidence in tomorrow. It was an evening of celebration.

This morning, I am going with U and her daughter T to the hospital to wait until U goes to sleep and has her body radically transformed. The surgeon's knife will cut into her body and remove the cancer, but nothing can cut out what U does not carry -- fear.

I asked her if she was afraid. "No," she replied. "I have nothing to fear. I trust my surgeon. I trust the science of medicine and I know this is the best course of action. I know this is the right thing to do. I know I will be okay."

Her husband agreed. "Everything is going to be fine," he said, raising his glass to toast good health, his wife of 45 years and the future.

Over the course of the four hour surgery, U's body will be altered and the cancer removed. Nothing however, can remove the beauty that radiates from within U. Nothing can change her spirit. She is a woman of great heart. A woman of quiet joy. Serene. Gentle. Graceful.

Cancer has taken hold of her body. Today it will be removed. And when she awakens, U will still be the amazingly beautiful, kind and loving woman she is.

I am blessed to call her friend. I am blessed to be a part of her circle of love.

As Aretha Franklin promised in her 1960s hit, "I'll say a little prayer for you,", please say a prayer for my friend today. She is strong and courageous, a beautiful spirit. According to scientists, 'prayers work'*. Our prayers are the gift we share when the only thing we can do is stand in silent support of those we love.

*A recent, controversial study of cardiac patients conducted at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, concludes that this type of prayer -- known as intercessory prayer -- may indeed make a difference. "Prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care," says cardiac researcher William Harris, Ph.D., who headed the St. Luke's study. The study was published in the October 25, 1999 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.