An Unexpected Letter of Kindness

My last random-act-of-kindness posting tells how Sister Madonna reached out to me a few weeks after I left the convent on December 24, 1966. It will make more sense if you’ve already read the following three stories, which I posted in August 2011. They explain my leaving and the confusion that swirled within me.

Seeds of Doubt Amidst Great Joy

Why I Left the Convent

Where and What Is Home

         I know that, like me, most of you are too busy to read so many postings, so I’ll briefly summarize why I left the convent: During the eight and one half years I lived there, I became more and more depressed. By the end of that time, I was hallucinating three nagging personalities; I quaked under the expectations I thought others had of me; I felt like a fake because my inner thoughts weren’t consistent with my outer actions.

         I knew I was experiencing a nervous breakdown but I was such a fine actress that I faked being normal. No one seemed to realize just how emotionally bruised and mentally ill I was. Yet I knew I couldn’t keep up the act infinitely. I was sure that if I stayed I’d end up in the mental institution in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where “crazy” nuns spent the rest of their lives.

         My letter to the Mount community asking for permission to leave was, I think now, probably rambling and disjointed. But I remember that one of the things I stressed was that Mount nuns taught and I was a poor teacher.

         In January 1967, I began working at a publishing house in Dayton, Ohio. Faking normalcy took its toil, and I’d fallen into a deep malaise. But once again, no one realized this because of my acting ability. I knew what normal looked like and I feigned it. My one certainty was that I’d failed in everything I set out to be as a nun. 

         Several weeks after I left the convent, Sister Madonna, who taught in the psychology department of Mount Saint Scholastica College, sent me a letter. She was older than I and I’d never taught with her. In fact, I knew only her name and her reputation as a woman of great graciousness, wholeness, and learning.

         In her letter, Madonna explained that she’d recently interviewed all the seniors—about 70 students—at the Mount Academy because she was writing a paper for a psychology journal. The fall of 1966, I’d taught English literature and religion to these seniors.

         Madonna wanted me to know that each and every one of them had said I was the finest teacher they’d ever had. She went on to tell me some of the things they’d shared about me and about my teaching.

         Her letter, an unexpected act of kindness, was water in the wilderness in which I wandered lonely and lost.         

         Madonna wanted to assure me, she said, that if I left because I didn’t teach well I could put that reasoning aside. I was an outstanding teacher.

         I shall never, ever, forget the kindness of this woman. She was the Good Samaritan who came upon the beaten and bruised wayfarer and cared for her. I remember taking a deep, gulping breath when I read her letter. I hadn’t totally failed. My life hadn’t been a wasteland. I’d done something well. I felt . . . peace.

PS: Next Wednesday I’ll post Part 2 of the sesquicentennial reunion. Then I’ll return to my convent postings that ended in December 2011. Also, tomorrow—Sunday—I’ll post news about my manuscript entitled “The Reluctant Spy” on my other blog—wordcrafting: a writer’s blog.

Kindness from a College Friend

Today’s act-of-kindness story takes place in September 1954 when I began college at Mount Saint Scholastica in Atchison, Kansas. Just three months before, I’d graduated from St. Mary’s High School in Independence, Missouri, a small town with a population of about 30,000 at the time. St. Mary’s was also small. Its entire enrollment was only about 140 students, of which 30 or so of us were seniors.

My senior picture, sans eyeglasses. The photographer “prettied” me up!

         Mom drove me up to the Mount in early September where I encountered a freshman class of about 140 students—as many as the entire student body at St. Mary’s High School. Many of these young women had come from small towns as had I; but many others were from Chicago and eastern states like New Jersey and New York.

         It seemed to me then that I was a true hick among sophisticates. And so I became tongue tied. To make matters even worse, I’d lost a tooth filling on the trip up to the Mount. I was going to college on a scholarship and Mom didn’t have the money to give me to go to a dentist in Atchison so I had to find a way to keep the cavity secret.

         Every time I smiled at some one in the dorm or the halls of the administration building, I kept the right side of my mouth stiff so as to cover what seemed to me to be a gaping hole in my lower right-hand canine tooth.

         In my mind, I thought that everyone must see me as that strange, cavity-ridden, acne-faced kid from the town where President Truman lived. I was miserable and after two weeks of awkward smiling and talking, of hearing stories about plays on Broadway, and about air travel, I knew that I didn’t belong in college. I was just a country bumpkin.

Mount Saint Scholastica College Administration Building—1954

         One of the freshman—Marge Tansley from Chicago—befriended me during those two weeks. Somehow she found something to like in me despite the dark hole in my tooth. As Marge and I sat in the rec room on the first floor of the ad building, I dolefully confided my decision to quit college and return home. I moaned about my gaucheness, my ineptitude, my ignorance, my lack of social graces, and on and on and on.

         Marge took me in hand. Instead of calling me “Dolores,” the name by which I’d always been known, she welcomed me into the kingdom of nicknames. Surely that meant she liked me!

         “Dee,” Marge said, “you belong here just as much as any of us do. Give us a chance. We’re already friends. You’ll make lots more. Come on! Stay! Stop thinking of yourself all the time.”

         I protested. She insisted. I moaned some more. She shook me by the shoulders. I finally relented. “Okay. I’ll stay four more weeks. Just four.”

         She hugged me. And that, my friends, changed my life. I stayed at the Mount, made many friends among the student body, got an excellent education, became involved in student government, and on April 10, 1957, in my junior year, I realized that I wanted to enter the Mount convent after I graduated the next year.

         For me two roads diverged: stay or leave. I stayed and that “has made all the difference” as the poet Robert Frost would say.

         That difference came about because of Marge Tansley, who entered the convent after our freshmen college year. We met again at the sesquicentennial celebrate this past weekend. She is yet another blessing in my life. As are all of you. Peace.

Here I am as a freshman in St. Lucy’s dorm

 after Marge encouraged me to stop thinking of myself

 and to start concentrating on my classmates.

PS:  Tomorrow, I’ll post one more story about the kindness others have extended to me. But before I do that I’d like to explain what prompted these postings. They are part of the Wayman Publishing blog fest, which ends today—Friday, May 31.

            Wayman is offering ten e-books as free downloads to you. Other books are offered at a greatly reduced press. Both of Dulcy’s e-books—A Cat’s Life and A Cat’s Legacy—are available. The first for 99 cents and the second for free.

         Almost seventy other bloggers are participating in this celebration of random acts of kindness. If you’d like to read other stories of how we gently touch one another’s lives, please click here to find information on the other bloggers and their postings as well as the names of the ten free downloads.

The Kindness of the Mount Community: Part 1

(Continuation of postings on random acts of kindness . . . )

Nearly forty-seven years ago I left Mount Saint Scholastica Convent in Atchison, Kansas, after living there for eight and one-half years: as a postulant for six months; as a novice for a year; as a scholastic, having taken first vows, for three years; and as a professed nun, having made final vows, for four years.

            Many changes took place in the Roman Catholic Church after the ending of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. One of those changes was that many nuns left the convent. I myself walked away from that life of prayer and work on Christmas Eve in 1966.

Part of a stained-glass window in the choir chapel. It portrays Saint Scholastica.

            Because only a handful of nuns had left by then, the convent had no procedure for wishing a woman well on her journey. All of us there were still wearing the habit and the convent provided no “lay” clothing or any money with which to get started in that new life.

         Of course, we had brought nothing to the convent, such as a dowry, so the convent had no obligation to give an allowance or stipend to anyone who left. In fact, I didn’t expect anything because I was the one leaving the convent; it wasn’t leaving me.

         My mom and dad drove up on December 24 with clothes my pregnant sister-in-law loaned me. For the next four weeks, I stayed at home with Mom and Dad until starting to work for a publishing company in Dayton, Ohio. The company flew me to Dayton and gave me an advance on my salary so that I could rent a room at the Loretta Home for Working Women and pay for my meals.

         Within six months of my leaving, the Atchison nuns had voted to change from their habit to “regular” clothes and to provide a basic wardrobe and a stipend to anyone who left. This was in keeping with the Benedictine tradition of responding compassionately to the needs of others. And it speaks to the generosity of the women there—a generosity that continues to this day and that was in great evidence this past weekend.

The statue of Saint Benedict at the Mount, with the choir chapel in the background.

         The Mount monastery—this designation is more in keeping with the Benedictine Rule than the word convent—is celebrating its sesquicentennial throughout 2013. As part of that celebration the Mount invited all its ex-nuns to return to be part, once again, of a community that helped form each of us into the women we are today.

         Sister Mary Grace—who is truly full of grace—headed the committee that researched which ex-nuns were still alive. She sent out 135 invitations and 45 of us accepted. Of those 45, however, only 43 arrived at the Mount on Saturday, May 25, because two had fallen ill. (In fact, one of them died this past Monday.)

         A friend from convent days—Paullene Caraher, whom you met in my Tuesday posting—now lives in Arizona. She arrived at my home on Thursday evening and we began our visit.

         Neither of us had married, so we had no pictures of children and grandchildren to share. But our friendship, which began in the fall of 1962 when we taught together, rested on a solid foundation, so there was no awkwardness despite the fact that we hadn’t seen one another since about 1985 when she visited me in Minnesota.

         We spent Friday talking a mile a minute about our former lives as nuns, what we’d done since leaving the convent, and our plans for the future. When we drove up to the Mount on Saturday morning for a day and a half of visiting with the nuns still there and the ex-nuns who’d returned, we continued to talk and laugh and talk some more about all that had happened in the past fifty years.

         Most of us had been Benedictine nuns in 1963 when the Mount celebrated its centennial. Between that time and today, so much has changed in the monastery. And it is those changes, as well as the hospitality of the nuns still there and their kindness toward each of us who returned, that I want to share with you next Wednesday when I return to my regular posting routine.  

         So my random-act-of-kindness story today is simply the graciousness of a group of nuns living in Atchison, Kansas. They reached out to those who had once prayed and worked with them and said, “You have been and will always be part of our community. Peace.”

Both photographs are from the Mount website and are shared here with the consent of the prioress.

PS: I’ll continue my five random-acts-of kindness stories on Friday and Saturday. You’ll meet Marge Tansley, who was at the Mount this past weekend, and Sister Madonna. Next Wednesday, I hope to conclude today’s posting on the sesquicentennial and the Mount. Click here to go to the monastery’s website for photographs and explanations of its prayer and work and the living of the Rule of Saint Benedict.

A Change in Plans

(Continuation from Tuesday of postings on random acts of kindness . . . )

Hello All, 

Today I had planned to write about the kindness and hospitality of the nuns at Mount Saint Scholastica Monastery in Atchison, Kansas, during my recent stay there for the sesquicentennial.

            However, that will have to wait until tomorrow because one of those Meniere’s headaches had settled in my brain and I need to lie low today. A friend was in a pickle this morning and I was glad to be able to listen and help her clarify her thoughts, but now I need to simply rest.

Matthew, one of the three cats with whom I live, lying on our bed.

            So tomorrow’s posting will be about the nuns at the Mount; Friday’s will be on Marge Tansley, whose kindness changed my life during our freshmen year of college; and Saturday’s will be about Sister Madonna and her graciousness toward me when I left the convent. Then no more posting until next Wednesday when I’ll return to my regular routine.

            Also, I haven’t responded yet to any of the comments that some of you wrote for Tuesday’s posting. I’ll get that done when the headache decides to lift itself and fade away.

            Peace.

                                                ( . . . to be continued tomorrow—Thursday.)

A Friend Recognizes My Desperation

(Continuation from Monday of a random and unexpected act of kindness . . . )

Yesterday I shared the story of the European trip two friends and I took in 1976. That posting emphasized the kindness of Evelyn, a friend I met when teaching in Dayton, Ohio. Accompanying us on that trip was Paullene Caraher. She and I had been in the convent together.

Paullene, on the right, and Evelyn in Amsterdam.

         In 1963, Paullene and I taught together in Kansas City, Kansas, and became good friends. By 1968, both of us had left the convent, but remained friends. Thus it was that she visited me during Thanksgiving vacation in Claremont, New Hampshire, where I was teaching 268 juniors during the 1972-73 school year.

         The year was being difficult. In 2011, I posted three stories about how the Claremont students and I clashed for the first three months. If you’d like to read those stories, click here. And here. And here.

         While Paullene and I prepared Thanksgiving dinner, the russet potatoes unexpectedly boiled over. The ring of fire beneath the stainless steel pan flared high, fingering a dishtowel I’d foolish left on the range. The flaming cloth reached upward toward the framed picture on the wall.

         Even as Paullene began calmly to search for baking soda to smother the flames, I panicked. “We’ll burn the building down!” I shouted.

         Grabbing another towel, I swiped the flames. The second towel caught fire in my hand. Dropping it on the floor, I stomped the flames. Then I ran to the window, threw it open, and tossed the tattered cloth outside.

         Frantically racing back and forth, I bumped into the kitchen table, the counter, the windowsill. Now the smell of gas filled the kitchen. “It’s gas,” I shouted at Paullene. “We’ll die!”

         All the while she quietly and efficiently smothered the flame, turned off the gas, and cleaned the dark smudges from the stovetop.

         Halting my frantic activity, I watched her. My breath slowed; the panic subsided. Silently, I slide down the wall to the floor and began to sob.

         It was then that Paullene said, “Dee, what’s wrong?”

         I just shook my head. I didn’t know. The students seemed to despise me. The teachers seldom spoke to me. Life had become unbearable.

         “Dee,” Paullene continued, “you haven’t smiled once since I came. You haven’t laughed.”

         I continued crying.

         “That’s not like you,” Pauline said as she sat down on the floor next to me. “Not like you at all. You’ve always been able—even in the convent—to see humor in everything. What’s happened?”

         Haltingly, I told her about coming to Claremont. About how confused I was. Lonely. Muddled.

         Paullene wrapped her arms round me and rocked me back and forth, crooning, “It’s going to be alright. We’ll get help for you. We’ll find you a psychiatrist to talk to.”

         Biting my lower lip I moaned, “I don’t know how to get a psychiatrist. I just don’t know.” I felt helpless. Totally unprepared for survival.

         “We’ll find help tomorrow,” Paullene assured me. “Now let’s mash those potatoes and have supper.”

         That night I slept as if dead. When I woke, Paullene had news for me. She’d called Dartmouth College. “I made an appointment for you with a woman psychiatrist there,” she said. “She’ll see you on Monday at 4:00.”

The Latin motto for Dartmouth translates to

“a voice crying out of the wilderness.”

         I stared at her, amazed. She made it all seem so easy. School would be out at 3:30 and I could drive to Hanover in a half hour. It was all so uncomplicated. She’d unmuddled my muddle.

         “You’re going to be alright, Dee,” Paullene said. “You’ll smile again.”

         I must have looked doubtful for she said, “Trust me. You will.”

         And I did.

         And even now my heart smiles in remembrance of her kindness when I wandered in the desert of my own despair. When she arrived in Claremont I was lost. With her great good sense and her own steadfastness she rescued me. Such is the strength of a caring friend.                                               

                                      ( . . . to be continued on Wednesday

                                                      with a Random Act of Kindness

                                                                  at Mount Saint Scholastica Monastery.)

A Friend's Kindness in Paris

All this week I’ll be posting stories about acts of kindness that have been unexpected and life-enhancing gifts to me during my lifetime. Between now and Friday, you’ll meet Evelyn Sweeney, Paullene Caraher, the nuns of Mount Saint Scholastica, Marge Tansley, and Sister Madonna. Their unexpected acts of kindness enriched my life and in one instance actually changed it.

         I’m offering these stories to you as part of the Wayman Publishing blogfest that continues from today through Friday. Wayman is offering a number of its book as free gifts to you. Other books are offered at a greatly reduced press. Both of Dulcy’s e-books—A Cat’s Life and A Cat’s Legacy—are available.

         Almost seventy other bloggers are participating in this celebration of random acts of kindness. If you’d like to read other stories of how we gently touch one another’s lives, please click here to find information on the other bloggers and their postings.

         I’ll begin my group of kindness stories with Evelyn Sweeney. I met her in 1967, a few months after leaving the convent. We became good friends, despite my initial wariness around her. In a 2012 posting I explained my prejudice and used a pseudonym for Evelyn. She is the “Jeanne” in my story about the Vietnam War protest.

         That story took place in Dayton, Ohio, in 1967. Today’s story takes place in Edinburgh and Paris in 1976.

         In that year, Evelyn and myself, along with Paullene, whom you’ll meet again tomorrow, flew to Amsterdam and visited Holland, England, Scotland, and Paris.

 Evelyn to the left as the two of us stand by an Amsterdam canal.

             Toward the end of our four-week trip, I raced toward an Edinburgh bus, stumbled, and twisted my right ankle, banging it against the cobblestones. Hurrying to catch the London-bound train, I simply ignored the pain.

         By the time we’d traveled to London, boarded the train to Dover, crossed the channel on the night ferry, and traveled from Dunkirk to Paris, my ankle looked like a baby elephant’s front right leg. As the skin reddened, pain throbbed mercilessly.         

         From the first days of our arrival in Europe, Paullene and Evelyn had talked about visiting Versailles. For them, the palace was to be the highlight of our adventure. That first morning in Paris, I’d already relinquished my highlight—seeing the statue of the Winged Victory of Samothrace at the Louvre museum.

The second-century BCE marble sculpture

of the Greek goddess Nike (Victory).

         As I opened my mouth to wish my two friends a wonderful day, I heard Evelyn speak these words: “Paullene, I’m staying with Dee. I’ve got to get her something for pain. You visit Versailles for the two of us.”

         Her words—So solicitous. So selfless. So generous.—brought tears to my eyes. I wept for the sheer unexpectedness of such kindness.

         Evelyn and Paullene left together, one to board the bus for Versailles and the other to find a pharmacy. Soon Evelyn returned with an Ace bandage and pain pills. She knelt, rubbing lotion on my swollen ankle. As she gently wound the bandage round my foot and leg, I saw clearly the woman washing Yeshua’s feet with her tears, wiping them with her hair, anointing them with the finest perfume.

         Evelyn never got to visit Versailles. Yet she cheerfully found a cane for me and helped me totter the few blocks to the Louvre. There, I gazed at the Winged Victory. My heart soared with wonder at its beauty. But even that wonder was as ash next to the everlasting flame of kindness that dwelt within Evelyn’s being. She was—she is—a blessing in my life.