It is strange the way life comes full circle sometimes.
When moments like this strike you've got to wonder if this was the way it was meant to be all along.
It was 1980 when this woman first came into my life. She was my first-grade teacher and to be honest, I couldn't have asked for a better one. She was everything a six-year-old could want in a teacher. Sr. Carol was kind, gentle, pretty, fun and of course very smart. She made me look forward to going to school, made me excited to learn and influenced my thoughts on what I wanted to be when I grew up.
Yep. I wanted to be a nun and I wanted to be a teacher.
I loved to go home each day and play school. But, what little girl didn't? I would imitate Sr. Carol's teaching style and recreate the lessons taught each day.
Although I loved school, first grade was a tough time for me. I started full-day school just a few months after my sister was born. My mom was at home giving her attention to the new baby and I was jealous. I didn't quite know how to express my feelings so I guess I was looking for validation at school.
Sr. Carol noticed I was in need of some extra encouragement and support and even took the time to point this out to my mom. My mom was doing the best she could, raising three kids, but the talk with Sr. Carol was a little wake up call. I needed some extra mommy time too.
When I first started attending St. Nicholas School in McKeesport, the Sisters of the Order of St. Basil the Great, from Uniontown, Pennsylvania, made up the teaching staff for 1st through 8th grade. By the time I graduated from 8th grade, the students were taught mostly by lay teachers with two nuns from another order based in Warren, Ohio.
The number of vocations to the sisterhood had started to decline and the Basilian sisters could no longer commit to the number of nuns necessary to staff my school.
But even though the Sisters of St. Basil were no longer teaching at St. Nicholas, I still managed to see Sr. Carol each year during their annual Pilgrimage in Uniontown.
Each Labor Day weekend, the sisters welcome the public to enjoy a prayerful experience on the grounds of their monastery, which by the way is the largest annual gathering of Byzantine Catholics in the United States. Sr. Carol is always very busy during this particular weekend but my mom and I would seek her out just for a few minutes to spend time with my beloved first-grade teacher.
Fast forward to 2012, my church was assigned a new priest. As he started to acclimate to our parish, a familiar face started showing up to events. It was none other than Sr. Carol. She and my parish priest were very good friends with a history that predated my meeting her in 1980. What a small world indeed.
During her priest friend's time serving my parish, it was nice for her to get reacquainted with my parents and to also meet my children. Seeing her more than once a year was especially nice since it didn't involve an hour ride to Uniontown and it allowed for more time to talk and catch up.
Although we have had more time together over the past couple of years, I have never really taken the time to tell Sr. Carol what a great influence she was on me growing up. Despite a few twists and turns, my life came full circle and I ended up working in a school teaching kids. I also have been teaching Sunday school for the past 12 years. I hope that her gentle, kind and fun ways are something I emulated with the students I have worked with.
Now I know what it means to have a job where you might never see the fruits of your labor. When you work with kids you don’t always see how you have made a difference in their lives. Most days working in education is a thankless job but hopefully, one day, I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing, my efforts helped a little one during their formative years.
My priest recently retired, so I may end up back to the once-a-year visits with Sr. Carol in Uniontown but I am ever so grateful for this time to have her more present in my life and especially thankful for the wonderful start she gave me so many years ago.
| Sr. Carol and I this past April. |
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