The Healing Journey

March 17, 2025

‘But your light still shines; it’s one small star to guide me. And it helps me to hold back the dark …’

John Woods was the love of Patricia’s life. They met at a wake when she was 18 and got married shortly after — two kids of Irish immigrants, who grew up in the South Bronx and marched every year in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, she with County Kerry, and he with County Clare.

“St. Patrick’s Day was the biggest day of the year for us,” she said.

Then, in 2002, he was diagnosed with melanoma, and although Patricia told him it wasn’t a good idea to march, he didn’t want his illness to deter them. That morning, he told her, “I’m marching in the parade today.”

But he didn’t know how sick he was. That same morning the phone rang, and Patricia took the call from Memorial Sloan Kettering and was told his cancer had metastasized, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him.

What had always been the biggest day of the year for them became “the worst day of my life,” Patricia recalled.

The next day, she gave him the news, and he started treatment at New York-Presbyterian of Queens, where she was Director of Psychiatry. In June, he was admitted.

“He went into the hospital on Monday, and on Tuesday I was talking to my colleague who said, ‘It’s pretty much over now.’”

John never said, “I’m dying.” Instead, he told her, “It looks like I’m exiting.”

“I’ll never forget those words,” she said. “By Wednesday, the doctor paged me, and I went over to his bed and said, ‘John, it’s OK. Go with God, and I promise I’ll take care of myself and the kids.’”

He squeezed her hand but didn’t speak. When John’s first cousin, Father Pat, arrived to give him an apostolic blessing, John’s last words were “Patrick.” He died Wednesday evening at 9 p.m. on June 18, 2003.

“John was so sick, and he was always there for everyone,” Patricia says. “He was such a good person. I couldn’t bear to see him suffer, and I was thankful that God took him.” But being left behind after 35 years of marriage was an unrelenting ordeal for her.

“I was living alone,” she said. “My daughter was married, and when I came home at night, I grieved. I mourned. I cried. Those months were dreadful.” Day after day, it was the same.

Then, four months after John’s death, when Patricia felt she could grieve no more, something happened. God touched her.

“I was sitting at home on a Sunday, and I was crying, and all of a sudden a song, ‘One Small Star,’ came on that was so beautiful I knew it was a gift from God. He sent it to me,” she recalled.

The lyrics said, “But your light still shines; it’s one small star to guide me, and it helps me to hold back the dark. Your light’s still shining in my heart.”

The pain didn’t go away, but she found a measure of peace because she saw things differently. “I do believe John is in Heaven,” Patricia says. “And he’s watching over me and our daughter.”

The words “When I need to feel you near me, I stand in this quiet place” touched her heart.

“The more I listened to it, the more I felt John near me,” she recalled. “And it comforted me. After I heard that song, I thought of him as a star up there, and his soul was in Heaven. I felt very near to him. And it helped ‘hold back the dark’ … because there were some days that were really dark.”

Today, even in the moments of grief and the sadness, she looks up to Heaven … and believes.

Hear John McDermott sing “One Small Star,” https://youtu.be/mBmy3T7aHXw?si=YMknyKD2Bnfi4guy.

One Small Star
When I need to feel you near me,
I stand in this quiet place
Where the silver light of countless stars
Falling on my face.
Though they all shine so brightly
Somehow it comforts me to know
That some that burn the brightest
Died an eternity ago.

Chorus
But your light still shines,
It’s one small star to guide me
And it helps me to hold back the dark;
Your light’s still shining in my heart

I’m learning how to live without you
And I never thought I could
And even how to smile again
I never thought I would,
And I cherish your heart’s memories
’Cause they bring you back to life
Some caress me gently
And some cut me like a knife

Chorus
Can your soul be out there somewhere,
Beyond the infinity of time;
I guess you’ve found some answers now
I’ll have to wait for mine.
When my light joins with yours one day,
We’ll shine through time and space,
And one day fall on a distant age
Upon some stranger’s face

But your light still shines
It’s one small star to guide me
And it helps me to hold back the dark
Your light’s still shining in my heart
Your light’s still shining in my heart.
©Eric Bogle

***