She could not remember the barbitols from the cillins. Touching bodies made her queasy.
She prayed at morning Mass with as much fervor as her guilty mind would allow her to summon. The Chapel at the hospital was large and cold. The Priest acted as though it was a great bother for him to go through the motions of saying Mass. So it was not easy to frame the heartfelt words or to gather any inner sentiment that would set her own prayer in motion. She wasn’t even exactly sure what her petition was.
“Please, get me out of here,” didn’t say it accurately, but it was close.
“It’s just the adjustment, “ she thought. “It’s bound to get better.”
There were five Sisters in nurse’s training along with almost one hundred lay students. The student sisters didn’t fit in with the faculty nor did they really fit in with the lay students. They were a tiny island unto themselves as they hunkered in their little breakfast nook in the corner of the hospital cafeteria. The lay students called it the ‘nun booth.’ Sister Jonathan looked up to the other sisters who were in training with her. They seemed to really like what they were doing. They were good at it. They talked about the surgeries that they scrubbed in on, the drama of the night shift and which doctors they felt were the best.
Sister Jonathan wanted to talk about existential philosophy or Shakespeare or the writings of Thomas Merton. She was lost in this sea of medical jargon. As she poked at her corned beef, she could hear the constant, pleading voice over the loudspeaker, “Dr. Ryan for Dr. Livoti. Dr. Ryan for Dr. Livoti.”
After four months it was no better. She was failing Chemistry, had no idea what a CBC was, hated Pharmacology and still disliked touching bodies. She gathered her courage and made an appointment with the Novice Mistress. She was sure that once she expressed the serious nature of her situation, the course would be clear. It was humiliating to admit defeat but she had no choice. As she knelt beside her Superior, wishing she could be seated like an adult, she poured out her heart.
“I think I’m in the wrong place,” she said, fighting the tears that had been lurking behind her eyes since the first day of training. She explained her despair in as much detail as she could muster and waited with some relief for the words that would free her from this strange, impossible dream. But the words that came rocked her soul even more.
“This is a temptation of Satan…”
All the rest was a blur and Sister Jonathan heard very little of the actual words. She nodded politely, distancing herself from the tears that would have humiliated her all the more. The appointment ended with a prayer and only the fact that Winston was waiting kept the lid on her private emotional volcano. Leaving the convent was not an option for her since that portion of her life was not in doubt. She was wedded to her vows. She could see this through.
She used the steel she had developed on the Brooklyn streets, the avoidance of the gangs, the occasional drunk, the usual terror of walking home at night from the parish dance. She could walk this walk to wherever it would take her. She was not afraid and not alone.
Every day she received Holy Communion in an ecstatic meeting with the Beloved and then after a quick breakfast, fortified herself to meet the enemy - Miss Keenan, whose job it was to terrify, humiliate and badger all the potential nurses so she could weed out the timid, the probable failures. Sister Jonathan had not survived the streets of Brooklyn for nothing. She could focus. She could hang tough. At least for a while. She could deal with strokes and wounded bellies and heart attacks, at least for a while.
She watched the young women who were her classmates. They were beginning to coalesce into informal but definite groups. The foremost group included four tall, rather beautiful and smart young women. One blond, three brunettes, all sure and confident, in control of themselves and their place in the class. Next were the few who had less confidence, less beauty and less savoir faire. And finally, there were the lonely, the confused ones. These were the ones who usually sought out Sister Jonathan for comfort, conversation and advice. She had none to give. All she had was a ready ear because she understood their fear and their sense of inadequacy. She was the least adequate of them all and it allowed them to trust her.
The classes tired her and made her drowsy. She learned how to sleep sitting up with her book propped up before her, feigning attention. It was not easy and it was an accomplishment for which she was unabashedly proud.
After the first three months of classes, the freshmen were assigned more hours on the Unit, expected in that short space of time to have learned how to deal with the rigors of illness, healing, death and dying. Sister Jonathan was awed by how well her classmates handled themselves as though they had been born to this awful work. Most of them were eighteen years old. They were all young Catholic girls even more sheltered than she had been, yet here they were, managing catastrophic issues like saints and wise women.
Sister Jonathan felt herself bumbling along, her fellow students often filling in for her lack of knowledge and ability like fellow conspirators.
“We’ll foil Miss Keenan,” they seemed to say.
She was assigned to bathe and care for Mrs. Kerrigan who was dying. Mrs. Kerrigan was old, and suffering the throes of end stage liver disease, her belly swollen, her skin yellow and taut. She was in great pain. Great anguish. Sister Jonathan was terrified of her, of touching her, of doing something to make her suffering worse, of being totally inadequate to stand up to the reality of dying and death. Somehow Mrs. Kerrigan seemed to know this.
Sister Jonathan had to think through the procedure. Wash basin, soap, towel, wash cloths. As Sister Jonathan washed her arm, timidly and tentatively, Mrs. Kerrigan said, “Sister, I’m not afraid to die, you know. It’s okay. Don’t be afraid for me.”
Sister Jonathan looked into her eyes in a way she had never looked into the eyes of any human being. Time stopped. She was sure that she saw a sixteen year old on her first date, a young married woman in the thrill of romance, she saw a widow broken with grief, she saw a mature woman cradling her first grandchild, she saw an old woman who had lived an entire life filled with the diverse faces of love. And Mrs. Kerrigan knew immediately that she had been seen.
“Sister, you’re a good nurse. Don’t be afraid to love your patients.”
The rest of the bed bath was a blur of conversation. Where are you from? Where did you live? Who is your favorite composer? What was the name of your first boyfriend? It wasn’t even clear who was asking whom. They both gloried in this meeting of totally unabashed friendship. She wrapped Mrs. Kerrigan’s feet in a warm blanket and kissed her on the forehead.
At 3:30 when the shift was over Sister Jonathan went into the cold, drafty chapel and sat in her usual pew on St Joseph’s side. She just sat. And sat. And sat. She had homework and a test pending but could not move from her spot. No thought. No prayer. Finally, the long shadows of the afternoon showed through stained glass windows and she re-emerged from the deep. She nodded to Saint Joseph, left the cold, darkened chapel and walked slowly down the curved marble stairway and headed to the cafeteria where her confreres were already ensconced in the ‘nun booth,’ wrapped in delicious conversation. She filled her tray with the unnamed entree, which she recognized as goulash, and joined them.
At supper, she actually entered into the conversation.
As she poked at her food, she noticed a few new faces in the cafeteria at the long table across from them. The new interns, or maybe residents who were not yet on the level of attending doctors, took their meals with the student nurses.
