Rhode Island TV celebrity Judge Frank Caprio ( diagnosed with pancreatic cancer ) and Leo Tolstoy's " The Death of Ivan Ilyich "

What reminded me of this Tolstoy classic " The Death of Ivan " Ilyich " was the news of Rhode Island's world celebrity judge Frank Caprio being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I like the Old Catholic tradition of lighting candles in a dark quiet church for ANY troubled soul or in loving memory of particular dead ones.

Ivan Ilyich is a high court judge in Czarist Russia " who has never given the inevitability of his dying so much as a passing thought ".

The good judge Frank Caprio asks for fan club prayers for WHAT ? More LIFE ? What happens " at the hour of our death " to the hope of ETERNAL Life ?

My dear departed woman friend with late stage bone cancer inquired about treatment at some national cancer center.I was in the bedroom with her when they told her over the phone that they do not accept "Medicare Only "patients. Dorene Rousseau passed away in " comfort " at the Hope Hospice Center in the spring of 2017.

She was an " Old Catholic " too and my sister Adrienne and I recall taking her to a local Catholic Church for " Confession " some months before she died.

I am sure good Judge Frank Caprio does not have to worry about " Medicare Only " restrictions. How effective are fan prayers for celebrities ?

But I will light a candle in some dark quiet Catholic Church for both my Dorene and Judge Frank Caprio.

[ There is a picture of a much younger Frank Caprio in my brother Rick's ( RIP ) 1964 Hope High School Year Book.]