This is the Big One

Benedict Ambrose has been losing consciousness, and his tumour has to go. Today. So I am writing this for more prayers.

It will be a dangerous operation, which is why the surgeons never wanted to remove the tumour. It is sitting near some very important stuff, even as it increasingly presses against even more important stuff.

Yes, "increasingly". We were told in March it wasn't growing or was "very slow growing",  but a fall in the rehab centre early on Monday morning led to an MRI in the emergency ward and then back to the neuroscience department.

He has had the Last Rites--again.

B.A. is very hard to understand right now, but it was profoundly moving how badly he wanted to see our priest. He got quite anxious about him and worried that he would be moved before the priest came, or the the priest would be stopped from coming in. When he saw Father come in, tall in his grey overcoat, B.A's blue eyes widened and he struggled to sit up, while beating his bony breast.

"Don't get so excited, darling," I said.

But now I realise that it wasn't Father he was so excited about. When Polish Pretend Daughter and French Pretend Son-in-Law arrived at the hospital, I asked B.A. to tell them who had visited him that day.

"Our Lord in the Holy Sacrament," said B.A.

He saw his mother, and his mates in our parish Schola, too, and I feel badly that I didn't summon two of his uni pals and his best friend at work, but I thought any more than seven solely human visitors (including myself) would be too many for him.

At any rate, I don't know when I will be writing again, or what I will remember of all this. However, I want to note down while his reason is slipping, B.A.'s faith in the Blessed Sacrament--in all the Sacraments, actually--has stood firm. He loves me, he loves his mother, he loves the Blessed Sacrament and he involuntarily murmured "Yum yum" as I fed him custard.

And now I'm going back to the hospital. It feels like hurrying to Golgotha.