Does life end the day you are diagnosed with cancer? How do you combine illness, work and a strong spirituality?
In December 1992 Ana Gonzalo Castellanos (Velliza, Valladolid, 1955), who was in Brussels, was advised to return to Spain to say goodbye to her mother for she will not be able to do it afterwards.
There began her "stoppage time". But how many things she was able to do before she died which happened 19 years later!
Sent by the European Commission, this woman formed in the spirituality of Opus Dei and a numerary in that institution, traveled to many different countries in "misiones de cooperacion" and took down her personal impressions on some notes which were in the form of letters she wrote to her family and friends.
Ana Gonzalo met Asian opulence and poverty in Brunei, Islamic and mediterranean countries in their entry to the 21st century, the communist stronghold in Vietnam, the intense Catholic faith of Filipinos ...
Her sister Blanca, fascinated by these travel stories, put them together them in the book Una prolongada carta de familia. Mi hermana Ana... un testimonio de coraje en las instituciones europeas (Ediciones de Buena Tinta) and explores the life of a person with an amazing and optimistic attitude, someone who struggled with illness while still enjoying her profession and hobbies.
Read the rest in the original Spanish here.
1 comment:
I find this testimony very relevant, when someone is told he is only going to live for few more months, normaly one would think in a shortsighted way. I think she was a real practitioner reason why she didn't stop doing her work, but she kept on for 19 years propagating the word of the Lord.
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