Hong Kong, December 2, 1960
Dear Father Hesburgh,
They’ve got me down. Flat on the back . . . with plaster,
sand bags and hot water bottles. It took the last three instruments
to do it however. I’ve contrived a way of pumping the bed
up a bit so that with a long reach, I can get to my typewriter
. . . my mind . . . my brain . . . my fingers.
Two things prompt this note to you, sir. The first is that whenever
my cancer acts up . . . and it is certainly “acting up”
now, I turn inward a bit. Less do I think of my hospitals around
the world, or of 94 doctors, fund raising and the like. More do
I think of one divine Doctor, and my own personal fund of grace.
Is it enough? It has become pretty definite that the cancer has
spread to the lumbar vertebrae, accounting for all of the back
problems over the last two months. I have monstrous phantoms .
. . as all men do. But I try to exorcize them with all the fury
of the middle ages. And inside and outside the wind blows.
But when the time comes, like now, then the storm around me
does not matter. The winds within do not matter. Nothing human
or earthly can tough me. A wilder storm of peace gathers in my
heart. What seems unpossessable I can possess. What seems unfathomable,
I fathom. What is unutterable, I can utter. Because I can pray.
I can communicate. How do people endure anything on earth if they
cannot have God?
I realize the external symbols that surround one when he prays
are not important. The stark wooden cross on an altar of boxes
in Haiphong with a tortured . . . the magnificence of the Sacred
Heart Bernini altar . . . they are essentially the same. Both
are symbols. It is the Something else there that counts.
But just now . . . and just so many times, how I long for the
Grotto. Away from the Grotto Dooley just prays. But at the Grotto,
especially now when there must be snow everywhere and the lake
is ice glass and that triangular fountain on the left is frozen
solid and all the priests are bundled in their too-large too-long
old black coats and the students wear snow boots . . . if I could
go to the Grotto now then I think I could sing inside. I could
be full of faith and poetry and loveliness and know more beauty,
tenderness and compassion. This is soggy sentimentalism I know.
Cold prayers from a hospital bed are just as pleasing to God as
more youthful prayers from a Grotto on the lid of night.
But like telling a mother in labor, “It’s okay,
millions have endured the labor pains and survived happy . . .
you will too.” It’s consoling . . . but doesn’t
lessen the pain. Accordingly, knowing prayers from here are just
as good as from the Grotto doesn’t lessen my gnawing yearning
passion to be there. I don’t mean to ramble. Yes, I do.
The second reason I write to you just now is that I have in
front of me the Notre Dame Alumnus of September 1960. And herein
is a story. This is a Chinese hospital run by a Chinese division
of the Sisters of charity. (I think) Though my doctors are British
the hospital is as Chinese as Shark’s Fin Soup. Every orderly,
corpsman, nurse and nun know of my work in Asia, and each has
taken it upon themselves to personally “give” to the
man they feel has given to their Asia. As a consequence I’m
a bit smothered in tender loving care.
With a triumphant smile this morning one of the nuns brought
me some American magazines (which are limp with age and which
I must hold horizontal above my head to read. . . . ) An old National
Geographic, two older Times, and that unfortunate edition Life
. . . and with these, a copy of the Notre Dame Alumnus. How did
it ever get here?
So Father Hesburgh, Notre Dame is twice on my mind . . . and always
in my heart. That Grotto is the rock to which my life is anchored.
Do the students ever appreciate what they have, while they have
it? I know I never did. Spent most of my time being angry at the
clergy at school. . . . 10 p.m. bed check, absurd for a 19 year
old veteran, etc., etc., etc.
Won’t take any more of your time, did just want to communicate
for a moment, and again offer my thanks to my beloved Notre Dame.
Though I lack a certain buoyancy in my bones just now, I lack
none in my sprit. I must return to the states very soon, and I
hope to sneak into that Grotto. . . . before the snow has melted.
My best wishes to the students, regards to the faculty, and
respects to you.
Very sincerely,
Tom Dooley.
(Tom Dooley died on January 18, 1961.)
