Tribute To Rosa

Rosa was one of our members and a subscriber at Daily Gospel Reflection Website. Yesterday morning, October 14th,she passed away at Clara Maas Hospital, Belleville, New Jersey, of kidney and heart failure. Rosa was just 50 years old.

I have met Rosa a few months back. She was a member of our Church and quite active in the "Why Catholic" program of the parish. She was a single mom of an 18 year old daughter named Sarah. Sarah is a freshman in college. Before the opening of the school year, Rosa was so nervous about her daughter's going to college. At the same time,she was very excited knowing that her daughter is enrolled in a good and esteemed school.

I don't know much about the personal life of Rosa except that she was a very religious woman. I saw her come to Church almost every Sunday. She was a member of a "Why Catholic" group in our parish, where they meet regularly with the group to pray, reflect and study our Catholic faith. She was a native of Peru but has been living here in the United States for some years now. Rosa is an expert on web design and computer graphics. Actually, according to her, she studied computer graphics in school but never web designing. She learned by her own effort to design and build websites after she got laid off from work. In fact, she let me borrow her book about SqL and PhP programming, so I could learn it myself. She told me that she learned everything about web designing, servers, web hosting, etc. just by reading the book, and so I could learn it too, she said. When I tried to read the book myself, I could hardly understand anything. I told Rosa that she was very smart to learn from the book so easily. When I told her that, she just looked at me with a smile on her face.

Two weeks before the end of August, I wrote a little Ad in our Sunday Bulletin asking for volunteers to help me build a parish website. The next day, Rosa emailed me immediately and was volunteering her services. Two days later I called her and told Rosa that I wanted to meet her. We met a few days later and we started planning about building our parish website. She showed me some of her current work and designs and I was elated. Her designs were very elegant and professional, and I wanted her to build something similar. So, after our initial planning, Rosa began to work immediately on our parish website. After a few days, we met again because Rosa wanted to show me the progress of her work. At this second meeting, she was very happy to show me the progress of her work. To my surprise, she really did a good job building our website,although it was still at its initial stage. The structure was quite intricate.The design was simple but elegant. I was very happy myself about the result of her work. In that meeting she told me that in a few more weeks the website will be done and running. She promised to update me every now and then about the progress of her work. After this time I went out of the country on a pilgrimage to Europe. When I came back from the pilgrimage, I learned that Rosa was in the hospital. I immediately went to see her. When I saw her in the hospital, she told me that she was so sorry that she was not able to finish yet the parish website because she got sick. I told her not to worry about it. I told her as well that her health was more important than anything else at this time. She was already two weeks in the hospital when I went to see her. According to Rosa, the doctors were not yet able to diagnose what her sickness was in spite of the series of tests that they did to her already. She was feeling sick and dizzy. There appeared some rushes on herskin. After two weeks, Rosa went home from the hospital. At home, she was not getting better. So she got back to the hospital in a few days. I went to see her again in the hospital later in the week. This was just last Saturday. Even at that time, the doctors were not yet able to determine what was really wrong with her. At first they were telling her that she had low potassium, and then, they said that there was something wrong in her gall bladder.And, according to Rosa, they would be doing more series of tests in the coming week. During the past week, I never heard anything from Rosa since I saw her last. I just assumed that she was already well. Yesterday morning, three of Rosa's friends came to the rectory looking for me to inform me of the sad news. Rosa passed away yesterday morning. The doctors were finally able to determine her illness - the big C.

Rosa's friends were so worried because Rosa has no family here to take care of the funerals services and other incidentals. Rosa just had a daughter, a cousin and a few friends, who are all trying to help in some way. Sarah, Rosa's daughter, just started college and is not working. Rosa's mom, by the way, arrived from Peru last Thursday, just in time to see Rosa for the last time before her demise. Her mom is about 80 years old, who could not speak English. Now we are trying every way possible to help out the family, especially for the funeral rites. The family is in dire need of help. Her body still lies at the morgue in the hospital. At this time we are trying to make arrangement with the funeral home and the cemetery, if they could possibly extend free services and help for Rosa's funeral and internment. It's a very sad story with a very sad ending. But I hope and pray that Rosa will now find her peace.

Please join me as we pray for the repose of the soul of Rosa, and for her daughter Sarah whom she left behind. May God reward her for the good things she has done, and may she now rest in peace in the bosom of God.