Theresa May de Vera facilitates a support group that doesn't have regular meetings, isn't confined to a set location, and where participants might not get to know each other.

The Los Angeles native operates Faithfilled Decisions, a ministry that helps parents whose children are on life support. As a survivor who spent four months in a coma, Theresa reaches out to parents, offering her experience as an example and answers questions about what coma patients need.

"The first thing I tell them is that 'Your child is not hurting,' but they always ask, 'Are you sure?'" de Vera says with a smile. "I tell them, I was there, I know." She pauses in thought. "That gives them a sense of relief."

"I also tell them to talk to their children as if they can hear. Because they can," she recommends. "Carry on a normal conversation. They can hear you. Trust me. I heard."

Giving relief and listening to parents struggle with life and death issues is what she feels is her calling. Assisting with the ministry is her family, especially mom Ruby de Vera, who wrestled with similar questions seven years ago.

Theresa, then 20, had come home for Easter break from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and woke late one evening with an especially difficult asthma attack.

Rushing her to the hospital, Ruby noticed her once cheery daughter was slumped in the car and not breathing. "She was blue by the time I got to the hospital," remembers Ruby. "She was clinically dead --- no heartbeat, no blood pressure."

Theresa did jolt back to life but fell into a deep coma that lasted four months. During that time, the de Vera family grappled with life-and-death questions but remained steadfast in their belief that God would provide.

Doctors presented the de Veras with many options for Theresa, including harvesting organs. "They kept telling us that she wasn't going to make it," says Ruby. "But we weren't ready to give up on her."

As parishioners at St. Dominic Church in Eagle Rock, the de Veras found strength and support from their church family. "That little lobby room at the hospital became a meeting place," says Ruby. "We were all in prayer; our priests would come often to give us and Theresa a blessing."

Theresa eventually woke up. Her slow reconnection with consciousness proved her doctors wrong and brought her family and friends a deeper faith, a profound appreciation of life and an undying belief in miracles.

Today, while confined to a wheelchair, Theresa is celebrating life in many ways. She's graduating this May from LMU with a degree in political science --- something she's been dreaming about for many years. She's contemplating continuing her education at LMU with a degree in pastoral counseling.

But it's her connection to parents of children on life support that gives Theresa a distinct feeling of purpose.

"I see my experience as one way to help other families so they don't have to go through what my family did," says Theresa. "I see other families finding hope in a once hopeless cause."

Theresa isn't sure exactly how people find her, but they do. She communicates via e-mail, telephone and, on rare occasions, in person with parents she has counseled. She's helped families in Colorado, Australia, Hawaii and Ohio.

"I finally met a family who I had been talking to in Florida," says Theresa. "We had been e-mailing for so long and meeting them was so wonderful."

But most families are anonymous to Theresa. "We don't ask for names," she says, "We know them by their stories."

Undoubtedly, families struggle with their faith but Theresa is confident that any anger or frustration with God is understandable but passing. "Sometimes I questioned, 'Why God? Why me?' But as time when on, I learned to accept my disability and what good can come out of my disability," she says, "I see my ministry as a way to those who have those same questions."

Ruby agrees, saying these experiences test one's faith. "I prayed a lot," she says. "I cried a lot. And I would hear some music and that would do it --- I would cry some more. But it's up to you to decide whether to give up or keep on going."

Indeed, Ruby understands the power of determination. When she was pregnant with Theresa, the doctors warned her against bringing the baby to term. Ruby's high blood pressure concerned the doctors who advised her to abort.

After thinking the matter over, Ruby came back to the doctors and remembers saying, "God give me this child and God will take this child away when it's time."

Faith and hope entwine would entwine again for the de Veras.

In addition to her FaithFilled ministry, Theresa wants to write a book about her experiences, and is also interested in doing a children's book. "I want to write a book about hope and living your dreams," she says. "I am living my dreams."

Above all, Theresa sees life anew. Every day. "I have been granted a second lease on life and you appreciate the smaller things," she says. "Before you know it, your life can be taken away. Every morning when I see the sun, I say, 'Thank you, God, for another day. I'm alive.'"

To contact Theresa at FaithFilled Decisions, e-mail her at tisamay@earthlink.net. LMU will hold its undergraduate commencement May 8, 10 a.m., and its graduate commencement on May 9, 10 a.m.