Few stories could be more poignant or tender than this tribute to a Trappist nun who passed away just before Christmas:

When did Jeannie go to bed, not to get up again? I know she was there during the Chapter in September, when we were praying she would not leave us until I got back from Assisi. Little did we know.

Jean’s life was, more than ordinarily, a litany of loss. Over-brimming with warmth and affection, extremely religious from the get-go, she sustained the early death of her father, her mother’s confinement to a TB sanitorium, and the resulting stay in an orphan home that was distinctly inhumane. Her stories about it gave me the creeps, and it was a wonder her religious allegiance got over the behavior of the nuns in charge.

At home, she helped with the chores on the family fruit farm, and hated pears for the rest of her life from having had to harvest them unendingly.

After I came to this monastery, I asked her to write the story of her life, since she enjoyed telling it, and her stories were lively and detailed. But they left out the dark side, of which there was plenty. She spent WWII as a secretary in the army in India, came home to college and a kind of sparring match with her future husband. He got the better grade as a result of a not entirely objective system, and when she was asked whether it wasn’t fair for the man to prevail, shot back a four-square “No!”

She used to say her husband’s family was pretty straight-laced and didn’t quite know what to make of this small bombshell of affection, hugs and kisses. Which was probably the reason Al was determined not to lose her. She had only one tiny photo of him, and he was very good-looking. He was also tall and she was tiny. She loved to tell the story of their trek west for his medical internship—in a cheaply purchased hearse, with cartons of bottled preserves in the back, on which they placed a mattress for naps. When Al would sleep and she would drive, only her eyes showed through the wheel, drawing a series of amazed looks from passing drivers who were at least momentarily convinced that the vehicle was driving itself.

The mother of three boys, she suffered a number of miscarriages, and leapt at the chance to adopt a newborn girl who needed a home. Mary made four, and that was it. When their oldest son was 12, Al died, quickly and without warning, of an unsuspected heart condition. The unfair treatment she received from his medical partners was part of the tale she never wrote down. She didn’t want to fight (“I’m a lover, not a fighter”). But her advisors told her she must, for the sake of her children, and so she did. Affectionate she might be, but did she ever have a backbone.

Mom then went to medical school, Ted became a Responsible Adult at the age of twelve, and all the kids chipped in. It worked. The grown Ted went into family medicine, eventually partnering his mom. Paul’s gifts are in sales, where he truly cares for his clients, and really he could sell me a motherless zebra. Mary is an invaluable aide to the billing department of her company, and Mark was a deeply loved teacher who died of cancer while Jean was in the monastery. Another loss.

Monastic life was not easy for Jean, though she told Mother Cecile that if she wanted her to leave, she’d have to carry her out. She was quiet about pain and inner dislocation. Her life’s griefs had pooled at the bottom of a personality that was essentially buoyant, childlike, and determined to be good. She gave bone-crushing hugs, and you had to be prepared for the strength of her hand’s grip in order not to yelp with surprise. She seemed to live to give affection. “Have I told you today that I love you?” she would say, and mean every word. Many guests were attracted to her, encountering her as portress or rose-gardener at the retreat house.

When I came to Santa Rita in 2000, she was still engaged in the usual monastery chores. She loved her gardening, was less enthusiastic about a day as dinner cook, filled in as evening portress, was part of the Mass reader rotation. She managed the community laundry and took her turn at feeding the dogs—at which task she was not exactly observant of the rules. They got over-fed on her watch.

Then one by one, her duties diminished as her Alzheimers progressed…

Read the rest and whisper a prayer for this beautiful soul, and all those who loved her.

H/T Elizabeth Scalia at Inside Catholic.