the hospital. She told her sister, “I don’t eat as well as I did in Montreal, especially the meat. There is nothing but beef and chicken. On the other hand, we eat lots of vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, red peppers) and fruit (oranges, bananas, grapefruit, mangoes, papayas, which are a sort of melon which I don’t like). At mealtime, we drink water with a touch of orange juice added. The one thing I really miss is milk. Oh yes, and maple syrup. And every night at about 10 p.m., we must turn out the lights since the electricity is cut off from 10 p.m. till 7 a.m.”
On weekends, she and Piero went for walks in one of the national parks. In another letter to her sister, this time written by the glimmer of an oil lamp, she wrote, “On our last trip to the park, we stopped for a Coke and suddenly, just a hundred metres from where we were standing, there were about twenty hippos! They were splashing about in a pond and making so much noise with their huge mouths. We also watched in wonder as many giraffes and rhinos and several elephants loped past us.”
While Lucille was adjusting to her new life, Piero spent much of his time seeking funds to build a new pediatric ward and an operating unit. He wrote dozens of letters in which he badgered friends and family, governments, and voluntary agencies to donate money and equipment. After almost six months his efforts paid off, and four military cargo planes arrived carrying ten tonnes of equipment into Uganda for the hospital.
Lucille became so caught up in her new life that her two-month stay stretched into four. Time passed quickly as she was enjoying her work and felt she was making a significant contribution. And she was growing accustomed and attached to Africa and its people.
She also enjoyed the time she spent with Piero. She loved driving off with him on weekend hunting trips, which in those days were a popular pastime, or going on safaris to one of the game parks. Everything was so new. So exciting.
However, Lucille still planned to finish her course in Marseilles, and she finally decided it was time to return to France. As the day of her departure approached, she realized more and more how much this new life had meant to her. It was also becoming clear to her that she had become very fond of Piero.
On the night before her departure, Piero took her aside and, holding her hand in his, he asked her to consider returning to Lacor. He had been looking for years for someone to share his dream, he said, someone to work with him in Africa and help him build a hospital that would be the finest in Uganda. “There’s a lot of work to be done here, and we make a good team,” he said. He paused, and added:“Besides, Lucille, I love you. I love you very much and I want you to marry me and stay here with me forever.”
Lucille was stunned. Her first reaction was typical. “Are you mad?” she asked. “You cannot ask me to marry you just like that! It is much too quick. Anyway, remember that we had a deal. I came here for two months and it’s already four. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“But Lucille,” Piero begged. “If you do not know after four months, then you never will. Lucille, I love you.”
Lucille needed more time to think. She had fully intended to finish her term in Marseilles, and then work for a period in child surgery in Paris so that she could obtain her diploma. She had even contemplated returning to work in Canada. Did she want to give this all up for a MAN? No, she thought. She would keep to her plan and return to Marseilles.
It was mid-September when Lucille packed her bags and prepared to leave. She walked through the wards for one last visit with some of her patients. She greeted a small child she had operated on the week before and offered a comforting word to his mother. She waved to a group of tiny children whom she had brought back to health and who would soon be returning home. Then, with a lump in her throat, she said goodbye to all the Sisters, hugging each one in turn. She climbed into the waiting car, and drove away.
Piero had decided to return home because his father was undergoing an operation in Italy. He suggested to Lucille that she meet him in Italy on her way back to France. She agreed to stop off in Rome so they could spend a few days together. Piero met her at the Rome airport with a bouquet of red roses. They spent three days visiting the famous sights of Rome before travelling together to Besana to visit Piero’s family.
The family welcomed Lucille like one of their own. Piero was now thirty-five and his parents had almost despaired of his ever marrying. They saw in Lucille the perfect wife for their son. For her part, Lucille felt much more comfortable with them than she had on her earlier visit. But she was still not ready to commit herself.
At the station platform in Milan, Piero took Lucille’s hands in his and said:“Lucille, I want to offer you my thanks for all your help and support these past few months.” Then he paused, gathered his courage and asked her again, “Will you marry me?”
As she stepped aboard the train, she gave him a cryptic reply. “I promise you that one day we will see each other again in Gulu.” They kissed goodbye and she left for Marseilles.
Sorrounded by the Comboni nus, Lucille and Pierio Cut their wedding cake following their marriage in December 1961.
We are the only doctors here and we work with outmuch rest from morning till evening. The needs are so great. We do just about everything, from pediatrics to malaria and wounds inflicted by elephants and lions – Lucille Teasdale, January 1962
Lucille was glad to be back with her friends at the hospital. Yet as she slotted back into her earlier routine, she found it hard to concentrate on her work. Every minute of the day, she found herself thinking about Piero and about the time they had spent together in Uganda. She missed him terribly and finally admitted to herself that she had fallen in love With him and wanted to share the rest of her life with him.
Piero was still in Italy but about to leave for Uganda. Lucille telephoned him the night before his departure. “I am calling to give you my answer,” she explained.
There was a brief pause while Lucille tried to remain calm. “The answer is yes,” she said. “Yes” she would marry him and “yes,” she would return to live with him in Africa. Piero was ecstatic.
Lucille had never been happier. She was deeply in love and thought about Piero constantly. She wrote to him almost daily in carefully penned letters written on flimsy aerograms.
“How can I carry on without you?” she wrote. “… I have decided I do not want to do anything without you. I love you, Piero. I need you.” And later, she said: “Do you remember the day I left you at the station and you thanked me? Well, it is I who must thank you for having saved me from myself, from a life of solitude. You have given me so much happiness. You are such a good person, much better than I. I hope that, with time, I will become worthy of you.”
In order to feel closer to Piero, Lucille began to go to Mass again. “I did it, not yet by conviction, but because it brought me closer to you. It was also very nice to sit and think of you without any distractions.” In a later letter, in a surprising revelation of her feelings of inadequacy, she confided: “Piero, I am not the strong, independent and cold woman that I have given the impression of all these
