When I was 41, I found a lump the size of a grape in my right breast. I ended up bald, sick and exhausted from surgeries, chemo and radiation treatments. Ah, but I got to live.

To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written.

It's easier to forgive those who hurt you than those who hurt the people you love.

Frame every so-called disaster with these words: In five years, will this matter?

For me, being Catholic was who I was and who I am, just like I'm Irish and Slovak. It's just so ingrained in us.

Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.