There’s a common saying that “everyone has a story to tell,” and it’s often surprising to discover that so many persons have had such amazing lives. Sometimes all we need is time—to be interested, to listen and to be amazed.

My oncologist, Dr. Charity Viado Gorospe, is head of the Cancer Institute of St. Luke’s Hospital. She is compassionate, bubbly, cheerful, positive, and has a gazillion patients. Aside from that, she travels to conferences abroad, and is in so much demand that the waiting room of the institute is often packed. She looks well off (of course) and comes across as very confident, yet she struggled to become what she is now.

Her parents had a vehicular accident while she was in medical school. Her father died and her mother was severely injured. They weren’t that well off, and her father’s death affected them gravely—he was the breadwinner.

Charity had to pull her mom out of the hospital as they had run out of funds, and took care of her mother at home and studied at the same time. They were so hard up that they couldn’t afford electricity.

To finish meeting her requirements and read the thick tomes on medicine, Charity bought candles to study by. She marked them at certain points and had the discipline each night to finish chapters and books by the time the candle had burned to the marked point. She graduated at the top of her class, and not only became a doctor, but also supported her sister through school.

Now she does charity work (no pun intended) and goes out of her way to help patients get financial assistance for their staggering (and it really is staggering, let me tell you) medical expenses.

Years ago, when I started chemotherapy, I refused to start the IV until she was around. Then, when she arrived, I would ask her to pray the rosary with me until we had passed the critical part of the drip.

At times I would ask her to lead, but she would shake her head and indicate that I should just continue. At the end of our rosary I would invoke our favorite saints (I always tell the kids that when we call upon them, they come, and the room is filled with their presence) and would invite “Dr. Cha” to invoke her saints. She would always just call upon Padre Pio.

Only after five or six chemo sessions did she finally reveal to me that she wasn’t a Catholic! Which is why she didn’t know how to pray the rosary. She had heard about Padre Pio from me, so that was why he was the one she called on. She is a Protestant Methodist who has now learned to love Mama Mary, prays the Divine Mercy with me, and has invited the visionary Emma for healing Masses for her patients—which, incidentally, we hold at the Protestant cathedral in front of the hospital. With the permission of both Protestant and Catholic bishops, of course.

I have given her books to read (no longer by candle light), and told her about Marian apparitions. She called me very early one morning to say that she was in Lourdes to check on some nuns who were her patients, and that she was standing on the spot where Bernadette had knelt, and was praying for me.

I do not expect her to convert to the Catholic faith, but I am sure that because of her compassion and sacrifice for the suffering, there is a special place for her in heaven.