From Dead to Doctorate - Mary Elizabeth McCue

This September I have the opportunity to live at a Cistercian abbey (monastery) and work on a book. This is incredible to me since 12 years ago I had a subarachnoid hemorrhagic brain aneurysm so bad that I died. Though everyone said it was great I was resuscitated, when I thought that I was asking for a cup of water, I'd in fact be saying, "Leaf/floor/table/truck" and getting blank stares in return. In short, I was neither speaking nor walking, and the medical prognosis was that I'd sit in a hospital bed staring into space for the rest of my life.

So, yes, I had to start from scratch and relearn every single thing. But I did it. They called me 'The Miracle Patient' at Mass. General Hospital in Boston, though the experience shook every level of my existence, including the professional. And while I have regained much of what was cognitively lost, I cannot regain the income from those years. One minute, I was a Harvard-educated hospital chaplain and the next I was relearning to tie my shoes!

Now I am picking up the pieces where I left off intellectually and academically and slowly earning a doctorate at the Graduate Theological Union - Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA.

As a contemporary mystic myself, I will be at the abbey for a month, living on its grounds and participating in some of the monks’ daily offices of prayer and chanting. At the same time, I will be writing and researching in their well-regarded library on mystics worldwide and related subjects.

Funding will help me achieve this final piece of recovery. It will assist me in traveling back and forth to the abbey and also help me pay for studying this year. When these goals are achieved I will indeed be a rare medical case - having gone from death to a doctorate, thanks in part to the kindness and generosity of you.