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John the poet in Coney Island, New York. John, who had a pet monkey from the Amazon, was instrumental in encouraging the author to begin a Master’s program in journalism at New York University.
Johnny, a regular at the Star Bar in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In photographing him, the author found her calling that would later be realized through her work with the Missionaries of Charity.
For several years I worked for commercial photographers as an assistant and then landed a position as a photographer for the New York City Police Department. Within a year, I applied and was admitted to the graduate school of Arts and Science at New York University to study journalism. Shortly after graduation in 1984, I was offered a job with Cable News Network in Atlanta, Georgia. Before long, I was also freelancing for the Associated Press and other clients, including the Archdiocese of Atlanta and the Martin Luther King Jr. Center.
Mother Teresa greets a group of volunteers at the Gift of Grace House in Atlanta, Georgia. The home is a hospice for women with AIDS. (June 15, 1995)
She was a mother to the poor, the destitute, the mentally ill, and the broken.
For fifteen years, beginning in the mid-1980s, I photographed for the Archdiocese of Atlanta and received many invitations to join the Catholic Church. I politely refused each time, but enjoyed attending weekly Masses to photograph. Having grown up in Catholic countries and attended a Catholic kindergarten, I was accustomed to Catholic rituals and culture. I felt privileged to work for the Catholic community in Atlanta, but organized religion did not appeal to me. Mother Teresa herself never asked about my faith, but twice on my trip in 1995 she told me, “Pray, my child, pray.” While working for the archdiocesan newspaper, The Georgia Bulletin, I often told the editor that the only person left in the world that I wanted to photograph was Mother Teresa. What I could always see with the help of my cameras became unimportant once I actually met Mother Teresa in Atlanta on June 15, 1995. Her presence was a holy one, and meeting her was the first time I did not need the camera to feel whole.
I found in Mother Teresa the embodiment of Christ’s teachings, and for this reason I knew that it was my calling to follow her, so that I too could develop a closer relationship with Jesus. It was the main motivation for following her to India and why I have continued my research on her life and work for over two decades. She was a mother to the poor, the destitute, the mentally ill, and the broken. In the home for the dying in Calcutta, not only those who are sick, but also the many volunteers and workers find redemption. It is where life begins — with death. It is in cutting down the ego that we are reborn — not in the evangelical sense, but in the reality of the down-and-dirty, smelly, filthy, rotten core of our deprivation, where we are invited to open our hearts and to be of service.
• • •
When I first met Mother Teresa that auspicious morning on the tarmac of Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport, the anticipation of her arrival on a small jet from North Carolina was high. Archbishop John Donoghue was surrounded by a small contingency from the archdiocese. I was poised and ready with my camera. When she began her slow walk toward me, however, I completely lost my usual precision. At her silent command, I put down my camera as she embraced my hands in her own. My will surrendered to her extraordinary presence, and for the first time I encountered the spirit of “Mother.” She gazed into the depths of my soul, and all my fears and pain dissolved in an instant. I was in a heightened state of joy and peace the entire day as I followed her with my cameras — first when she placed a garland of flowers around a statue of Our Lady of Fatima at the Gift of Grace House for women with AIDS, and then at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I sat at her feet in the sanctuary as she addressed the packed church and could only stare at her crippled feet squeezed into a pair of leather sandals. “Why don’t they buy her new shoes?” I thought to myself. She spoke about the work in Calcutta, but her presence transcended her words. That day is forever carved in my heart, and it led me on a quest not only to be with Mother Teresa, but also to experience motherhood myself.
Mother Teresa kisses the hand of Archbishop John Donoghue, who greeted her at the Atlanta airport. (June 15, 1995)
She spoke about the work in Calcutta, but her presence transcended her words.
Less than two months later, in August 1995, I boarded a flight to India with enough camera materials and money for a potential four-month trip. The last day I saw Mother Teresa in January 1996, nearly six months later, I knew that I would be bringing a new life into the world. When she blessed me for my return trip home, I felt the blessing travel through my body to my baby. One year later, I had a dream in which Mother Teresa was rocking my son Paul in her arms. I knew that he would always be protected by her intercession. Today, at twenty-two years old, his empathetic nature and kind heart are clear indicators that Mother Teresa still carries Paul in her arms.
• • •
Mother Teresa’s crippled feet, squeezed into a pair of old leather sandals.
Crowds spill out onto Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia, as Mother Teresa passes by.
The white stucco headquarters for the Missionaries of Charity are located on the Lower Circular Road — one of the busiest, most congested streets in Calcutta. In this image, police are blocking traffic because of a political demonstration. (1995)
I found in Mother Teresa the authenticity of a work ethic and desire to serve God that I had never before witnessed.
I found in Mother Teresa the authenticity of a work ethic and desire to serve God that I had never before witnessed. The Missionaries of Charity give of themselves wholeheartedly to the poor, and I wanted to be part of that by working as a volunteer and using my journalism skills to document the homes in Calcutta. Mother Teresa did not urge or command me to leave my successful career in Atlanta to commit to another calling, but an inner voice guided me to abandon everything I had known in order to respond to a deeper call. This was an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong desire to find deeper meaning through my work and to assist the abandoned members of society, people who had no voice of their own.
In August 1995, I drove up to the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity on AJC Road. I did not have an appointment and did not even know if Mother Teresa was in Calcutta at the time. I knocked on the door and asked to speak to her, and was admitted into the building. Within minutes I was ushered up the stairs and, to my surprise, Mother Teresa herself, in her distinctive blue and white sari, called me over to a concrete bench. I asked her permission to photograph the work. Instead, she sent me to work at the nearby orphanage, Shishu Bhavan. It was there that I began my volunteer service for the Missionaries of Charity. Within a month, Mother Teresa gave me rare permission to document the work.
I will never forget that meeting. She had first asked me for a written proposal of my intentions. She barely read the first paragraph before saying, “No.” I was aghast and began crying. Mother Teresa embraced me as my tears dripped onto the crucifix pinned to her sari.
