“After I told her goodbye and was preparing to leave her bedside, I felt her gaze and turned around. It was her eyes—always a lovely blue—but these were different—never have I seen the like,” so said her old friend, her voice quivering. “She was a blessing, both for herself and for me.”

A member of the teaching community of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, she had devoted the last five years of her life preparing for her dying and self-publishing her findings in the booklet, When Threads Wear Thin–Souls Stirring of an Octogenarian (2019). Written with humility and simplicity, it reflects her passion for her God with whom she had spent her vowed life, often in positions of leadership. Especially was this true in the wake of the Vatican II reforms that stressed all religious communities to the max.

The bibliography also reflects her interest in like-minded seekers, especially Dr. Singh’s insights that she internalizes within her own process. She probably spent little time in the Chaos phase and moved on to Surrender and Transcendence.

But to return to her glittering blue eyes, as I call them—a manifesto of her psychospiritual transformation before death. It seems like she was practicing the moment of “Free Fall” into Cosmic Love, her sense of the dying process as found in her journals.

Her name was Sister Carol Ann Collins, SSND. We miss her.