Irish author Nuala O'Faolain dies at 68

“It amazed me how quickly my life turned black. As soon as I knew I was going to die soon, the goodness went out of life”

Nuala O'Faolain, a journalist and feminist who gained international fame with her outspoken 1996 memoir 'Are You Somebody?' has died at age 68 of lung cancer, just weeks after revealing her illness on state radio.

She died Friday at a hospice for the terminally ill in south Dublin and will be cremated Tuesday after a Catholic Mass, her family said.

O'Faolain emphasized during the April 12 radio interview that she had no faith in the afterlife, and instead rued the imminent loss of her lifetime's accrual of education, friends and experience. Read more

[Iron Will]

I cannot fault Nuala O'Faolain. I wonder how many of us actually take Jesus's words to heart, "Happy are they who mourn, for their's is the kingdom of heaven." Most of us live in wistfull hope that we need not worry about losing things, especially our own lives, for now. We "hope" that what we believe will comfort us when that time for loss comes. Nuala simply refused to deal with the whole thing. Uuntil, that is, she actually had to go through it. Jesus told us, "if you want to find happiness in the things of this world, you will not. Certainly not in the having. So get used to losing. Do not hang on so tightly to the things that perish. You will be happy for it." I sure Nuala was happy having. She just had to let go. She did so reluctantly, but let go she did.