Sidecar

This afternoon, as we do every day at Evening Prayer, we remembered the sisters who died on this date. Today it was Sr. Anne Marie Nolan who died on July 22 in 1995 at age 83. I only knew Sr. Anne Marie in the last couple years of her life but even then I could see how she lived up to her "reputation" as a dickens, loads of fun, and a little bit of a character.

The two events that stick with me are these: 1) whenever you'd be on portress/switchboard duty at the front door, Sister Anne Marie usually came through and asked if Sister Patricia was home yet. Sister Patricia, it turns out, was a longtime friend. She had died in 1967. It was very touching to all of us that even in her semi-dementia Anne Marie was looking for her friend each evening. 2) I guess that in her days in ministry at Glinodo (especially summer camp) Sr. Anne Marie had a car and would tear around in it going hither and yon on errands and outings with the sisters! In her last years she continued this tendency as she rode a motorized scooter around the Mount--however, the tearing around took its toll indoors. One day we heard this terrible scraping sound in the front hall. Sure enough Anne Marie's scooter had hooked onto a little hospitality desk we had for visitors to sign in, and she was dragging it with her down the hall--oblivious to the newly attached sidecar.

It's a lovely experience to hear these sisters remembered and to share all sorts of memories of life with them.