By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The military mantra of “suck
it up” and an intense love for the Catholic faith drove Cheryl Tobin to
reach new heights — the cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica and a personal blessing
from Pope Francis.
Despite having stage 4 cancer, undergoing chemotherapy
and missing a section from both thigh muscles, Tobin traveled to Rome, climbed
corkscrew staircases and did “the big wave” balanced on top of a
plastic chair in order to catch the pope’s attention.
“We were in the back of the crowd” at the
pope’s weekly general audience May 11 in St. Peter’s Square, her husband, Jim
Tobin, told Catholic News Service.
“I told her, ‘You need to stand up on the chair and
suck it up.’ People were looking at me, like, ‘What a thing to say.’ And then I
told her, ‘Don’t just wave. You’ve got to do the big wave.’ That’s when (the
guards) pointed to her” to indicate she could come out from behind the
barricades and meet the pope.
“Everyone around us cheered. They only let her go
up” to the pope, Jim said.
Cheryl said the pope held her hands and then blessed her
head — bald from chemotherapy and misshapen from repeated skin grafts and
operations to remove a tumor at the base of her skull.
She said she didn’t want to wear her wig because she
wanted the pope to see her like she was, but she did add some sparkle with a
gold elastic hairband.
The pope then warmly embraced her as Cheryl cried on his
shoulder. “I started crying when I saw him. I was overwhelmed with
emotion,” she said.
“Suck it up” is also what got Cheryl up the 200
marble steps to reach the top of St. Peter’s dome, she said.
Like her husband, “I was in the army — a master
sergeant,” airborne division, and “you just suck it up, and pull
yourself up by your bootstraps” when facing any kind of hardship or
challenge, she said.
An elevator took Cheryl and Jim most of the way up, but
getting a bird’s-eye view of St. Peter’s Square required taking the stairs the
rest of the way.
Extreme fatigue from treatments meant Cheryl used a
wheelchair during most of the trip, but she steadied herself with her hands
along the narrow spiral stairway, hoisting her way up, noticing many visitors
around her complaining about the climb and getting discouraged.
“Then they saw her and got quiet,” Jim said.
Soon, Cheryl said, “we were like a group, pushing
each other on” and cheering, “We’re almost there.”
“My legs were like rubber,” she said,
explaining that sections of her quadriceps had been removed to add muscle
tissue to her face.
Cheryl’s pilgrimage began in 2015 when her name was
picked from a random drawing of listeners of Lino Rulli’s “Catholic
Guy” show on Sirius XM’s Catholic Channel. Only a few spots are available
each year to join Rulli and other listeners on a pilgrimage to Rome and other
cities in Italy.
But surgery and aggressive cancer treatments forced her
to cancel that trip with an agreement to have a guaranteed spot on this year’s
trip, she said. Radiation therapy again interfered with those plans, but Rulli
organized a personalized itinerary that Cheryl could take on her own with her
husband when she was between chemotherapy sessions this spring.
With her daughter’s urging, Cheryl had started a GoFundMe
page to pay for the costs of the trip — reaching the bulk of her goal in 15
months. She also curates the “Cheryl Tobin’s Fight Against Cancer”
page on Facebook as a multimedia journal chronicling her medical and faith
journey.
“I’m not ashamed to show people what I’m going
through,” she said, adding that people tell her that her posts are
inspiring.
Cheryl said the Catholic Channel’s satellite radio
programs were instrumental to her joining the Catholic Church, because she had
“always believed in God,” but her parents didn’t take her to church
when she was growing up.
“I was always looking for something but never found
it,” she said.
Living near Nashville in Clarksville, Tennessee, Cheryl said
there were many Protestant and Evangelical Christian communities in that part
of the “Bible belt,” but “every church believed in something
different. If you don’t agree, you start your own church. So it never felt
right.”
She said she started reading about the Catholic Church
and “liked the structure,” the “set laws” in church
teaching, and the fact that the order of Mass is the same wherever you go so
you always feel at home. “Mass is heaven on earth,” she said.
Rulli’s show had a particular impact on her, she said.
“I never felt good enough, not worthy enough, not
perfect enough” to be welcomed by God, she said, “and that held me
back.”
But Rulli and his guests “were normal” with
their humorous banter about life and frank talk about their struggles. Their
being upfront about being imperfect helped Cheryl feel there was a place for
her, too, in the Catholic Church, she said.
After she became a Catholic in 2010, it “seemed to
be a load off her chest,” Jim said. It also marked the start of her dream
to go to Rome someday.
When she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 2013
at the age of 45, she tapped into her faith to pull her through and the
Christian faith of her friends and co-workers in receiving prayers and
blessings.
With her poor prognosis — from three to nine months to
live — all of her doctors said, “‘Do what you enjoy.’ So we decided to come
here” and “pray for a miracle,” Jim said.
Reliving her papal embrace from that morning, Cheryl
said, “I’m relieved. I feel like no matter what happens. I’ll be OK. It’s
like not having any fear. It’s closure in a way.”
– – –
Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.
