By the time she entered first grade at St. Brendan's School in San Francisco, Kate Hallisy had already lost an eye to her cancer.  That didn't matter to Kate.

"From the very beginning, she jumped headlong into everything," recalls Msgr. Edward McTaggart, who was pastor at St. Brendan's during much of Kate's illness.  He was there when she made her First Holy Communion.  He anointed her before she died.  And he gave her funeral homily.  "Anyone who knew her will never forget her," said Msgr. McTaggart, who is now retired and lives at St. Gregory Parish in San Mateo.  "She was so upbeat and interested in everything that was going on."  Kate was very brave, he said, never complained, and "she really looked forward to receiving the Eucharist.  She knew what it was about."

Kate's parents, Julia and John Hallisy draw strength today from remembering their child's uncanny ability to see good even when things looked bad to everybody else.  When Kate died, her mom and dad saw the tragic event as a fork in the road.  "We could either despair or honor our daughter's life.  We chose to not be bitter, and to help other people have great lives," Mrs. Hallisy says.

Such are the reasons Mrs. Hallisy, a dentist, has sustained the energy to speak and write articles for the California Nurses' Association on behalf of the Patients' Bill of Rights.  Memories of Kate have motivated Mrs. Hallisy to complete her book, entitled "The Empowered Patient."  It is dedicated to helping people successfully wend their way through the maze of HMO regulations and to win.

The book is based on Mrs. Hallisy's own experiences from dealing with insurance companies, when they tried to deny Kate essential medical services.  During 10 years, Mrs. Hallisy and her husband, John, had $10,000 in out-of-pocket medical expenses.  Considering Kate's protracted illness, it could have been much more.

Whenever Julia Hallisy would lose heart, there would be her little girl, offering gems of wisdom, which, at the end of her life, could have filled a velvet treasure chest.

"Even as a toddler, she had the ability to see beauty in simple things," said her mother.  "After it rained, she would always stop to delight in the small rainbows in the street caused by the oil from cars."

Once, when Mrs. Hallisy said that she preferred clear skies "because I liked to see the stars," Kate said, "The stars are always there, Mom.  You just can't see them for awhile because they're behind the clouds."

Kate saw the stars behind the clouds even when she lost her leg to the illness.  When she came out of the anesthesia, she told her mom cheerfully, "Just think, Mom, I still have another leg and two arms."

At the outset of Kate's cancer, when she was five months old, her mother wondered if her child would live long enough to go to school.  "I told John how much I was looking forward to seeing Kate in her little red school uniform.  John promised me that we were going to see that day, and his faith was so strong that I started to believe it could happen.  But we saw so much more than we ever hoped for," Mrs. Hallisy said in Kate's funeral eulogy.

Kate lived to wear that little red uniform at St. Brendan's.  She enjoyed a four and a half-year remission, wonderfully happy times when she kept active and busy, participating ina speech contest and reading from the scriptures at her First Communion.  In her short life, Kate received a love letter from a little boy, and a marriage proposal from one of her brother Kevin's pre-school classmates, said her mother.

When the cancer returned, Kate never lost her sense of vitality, her sense of wonder, or her compassion for others.

Throughout her illness Kate ached for the sufferings of others.  One day, her dad, a San Francisco police sergeant, received a minor injury at work and had to have stitches.  When she saw him, Kate started crying.  "It would have been so easy for her to dismiss the pain of others because it was so much less than her own.  But she never did," said her mother.

Julia Hallisy remembers an incident in the hospital when her daughter had just awoke in great pain from a biopsy.

"We were in the recovery room next to a four-year old girl who also had undergone a biopsy.  The little girl was sobbing.  Although we were having trouble managing, Kate's own post-operative pain, she asked who was crying.  We moved the bed slightly so she could see the child.  As we were being wheeled out of the room, she turned to the little girl and said, 'I'm so sorry you have to go through this -- I'll pray for you.'"

As memories of Kate have sustained Mrs. Hallisy, so have the two parishes.  Both St. Brendan's and St. Cecilia's school have been sources of strength.  Both schools have created safe spaces for Kate's brothers, she said gratefully.

The teachers at St. Brendan's were always there for her older son, Daniel, when his sister would get sick again.  They would allow him to just be himself, when he felt sad.  He was old enough to understand what was going on.  Through it all, the Hallisys made sure he stuck to his class and sports routine.

Kevin, their youngest, who is now eight, attends St. Cecilia's School.  He wants to understand what happened to his sister, "He still talks about her and sleeps in her room, to feel closer to her."

Did Kate think about eternity?  Yes, but without apprehension, said her mother.

"She was a very happy child.  Once she asked us if she would have her eye and leg back when she went to heaven."

"We told her yes, and that we would all be joining her one day."

Would it be long, Kate asked?  No, answered her mother, saying, "I think that when we're in heaven the waiting goes by very fast because we're so happy."

Source: Catholic San Francisco, Vol 3, No. 26, August 10, 2001. Republished with permission of Catholic San Francisco, official newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco