Catholic Agitator. 7 pp.

On Good Friday 2002, while in Lubbock, TX caretaking his 93 year old father, our dear friend Ladon Sheats discovered that he had become strangely jaundiced. On April 15th, after exploratory surgery, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I immediately left the Word and World School that was taking place in Greensboro, NC to join Catholic Workers Dennis Apel and Tensie Hernandez and several of Ladon’s family and friends at his bedside.

It was an intense and difficult week in the Lubbock hospital. We were in shock. The last time any of us had seen Ladon he had been in good health; now we didn’t know whether he’d make it out of the hospital. Then, when it appeared he’d be able to leave, having decided not to try any further medical intervention, a small group of us had to make quick determinations about how and where to take him for hospice. We were ill- prepared, but not half-hearted; this man was so important to us that we would do whatever it took to give him a space to die.