My brother Johnny passed away at 1:15pm EDT today after a peaceful encounter with cancer at the Valley View Long Term Residential Health Care Facility in Goshen, N.Y., a few days before his 65th birthday.
Johnny was a deeply religious person, devoted to the Church, to Our Blessed Mother, and to the Holy Rosary.
Throughout his life, he touched many lives with the spirit of peace and caring that ennobled his every day. Towards the end of his life, he took on the full-time care of my aging parents, and without complaint or regret devoted himself to their care until his cancer had spread so widely he was no longer capable of doing so.
Thankfully, his suffering was leavened by the gift of prayer that elevated him among all our family, and he was able to enjoy the caring presence of my sister-in-law Claudette and my mother and father, Mr. & Mrs. John and Nina Shea, in his last moments. All of his brothers and his sister, and his nephew John, were able to visit him from California, Florida, Georgia and Virginia in his last weeks.
Johnny will be greeted with fervent acclaim in Heaven. He will be joined there by his grandmothers, grandfathers and uncles and aunts and cousins, and Father Jack O'Connor, who have gone before him.
Those of us who survive his passing can only hope to emulate the grace and goodness with which he touched the souls of each of us who had the pleasure and the blessing of knowing him.
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