Some years ago, my cousin was in the intensive care unit of a local hospital. She had a history of asthma, and had developed pneumonia, which progressed to Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome. It finally killed her. My Aunt and Uncle were at the hospital constantly. By this time Audrey was on a ventilator, and heavily sedated to keep her from fighting the ventilator.
It was a Saturday, and my wife, Dawn, and I were in the family waiting area trying to give my Aunt and Uncle some support. My cousin Mary and her husband Joe were there too. The family waiting area was two rooms, in an L pattern. My Aunt and Uncle were in the room closest to the corridor. Dawn and I and Joe and Mary were in the rear room. While we were there, two of the nuns from my Aunt and Uncle’s parish came to visit. I didn’t know one of them, but the other was frighteningly familiar. Sister Mary Audrey.
I had Sister Mary Audrey when I was in fifth or sixth grade at St Titus School, the school that is part of my Aunt and Uncle’s parish. Sister Mary Audrey hated me. She was always on her moral high horse, lecturing us about our shortcomings as human beings. In what I now consider an anticipation of Yoda’s admonition that anger fear and aggression lead to the Dark Side of The Force, Sister Mary Audrey condemned sneakiness. In her mind, being a sneak led to being a thief, and if one was a thief, one inevitably had to lie about one’s thievery. The triple crown was becoming a sneak, a thief and a liar. One of the wittier guys in the grade ahead of me asked if I had yet been admitted to Sister Mary Audrey’s Sneak, Thief and Liar Club. Feeling somewhat ashamed, I admitted I had. He gave me a look of commiseration, suggesting I was in good company.
I’m not entirely sure why Sister Mary Audrey disliked me, but at over 30 years’ remove, I can now think of several valid reasons. First, I didn’t work at anything near my ability. I didn’t want to. Second, I had become a bit of a class clown. Once I discovered I could get laughs, it was all over but the crying. One of my favorite approaches was to provide a running commentary to whatever we were hearing from our teachers that day. I could get my friends to giggle, and my parents were told I was slick enough to avoid being caught red handed, but there was always ‘that undertone.’ Finally, at age 13, most of the boys were beginning to experience the awkwardness and confusion of puberty. It’s well known, at least to cynics like me, that nuns in Catholic schools take out their own sexual frustrations on their male students, and the nuns at St. Titus were no exception. They were not above smacking us with their rulers or any other weapon that was at hand. Most of us hated them back.
For some reason, they didn’t seem to mistreat the girls as they did the boys, even though some of the girls had developed obvious breasts and were not above using their newly acquired feminine wiles to get us boys to do all manner of stupid things. Perhaps the nuns held out hope that some of the girls would enter the convent. Obviously, no member of the Sneak, Thief and Liar Club was material for the priesthood. The girls even called Sister Mary Audrey “S.M.A.” with something like affection. I didn’t get it. Bottom line, Sister Mary Audrey hated me (or so I believed) and I hated her right back. There’s something about an old, celibate woman with a ruler tucked up her sleeve that didn’t sit well with me.
Fast forward 20 years to the family waiting area outside the ICU. My Aunt and Uncle were glad to see the two nuns and conversed with them for some time. As soon as I saw ‘S.M.A.’ I made sure Dawn was between me and her at all times.
Dawn, who is no one’s fool, caught on quickly, and soon cornered me and said “You’re hiding, aren’t you?”
“You’re damned right I am!”
I don’t know if Sister Mary Audrey saw me, or if she did, whether she recognized me, but I sure saw and knew her. And I was afraid. I was thirty odd years old and in the prime of life, and she was a frail old woman, but I was afraid.
I’ve heard she has since passed on, and I hope she has reaped her heavenly reward. God knows she suffered enough in this life, what with students like me, celibacy, and all. I promise you this, however. If I see her in the next life, before I say hello, I’ll make sure she’s not packing a ruler.
