November 13 Sister Nicholas Hinkes 1966. Age 93
This is what greeted me yesterday morning as I looked at our Congregational “Pilgrim Book” which lists birthdays, feast days and death anniversaries of our Sisters. I know that I always smile a bit each November 13, noting Sister Nicholas’ death anniversary. We had a ‘history’.
During my two years of initial formation before my novitiate,
each Sunday afternoon (weather permitting) we postulants and candidates went
over to St. Joseph’s Hall, our “infirmary” with an assignment. Janet Griffin
and I were assigned to Sister Nicholas.
We helped her into her wheelchair and made our way outside. Janet and I
wheeled Sister Nicholas over to our beautiful Lourdes Grotto with its flowerbed
of roses nearby. We often walked the path of the outdoor Stations of the
Cross. After an hour or so each Sunday,
we would make our way with Sister back to her room.
Sister was an amputee and her getting into a wheelchair with
only one leg took some maneuvering. I remember Sister’s eyes big with
apprehension while Janet and I helped her into her wheelchair, and until she
was carefully, safely seated.
What did we talk about? I don’t remember. I do know that
neither Janet nor I ever asked her about her earlier life, ministry, community
experiences, or the family she left in Germany.
As I looked at her notice yesterday morning, I realized that she knew Mother
St. Andrew, was just a young woman in her late 20s when Mother St. Andrew came
home from her patriarchally imposed exile. Oh, how I wish I had asked her for
stories about Mother St. Andrew! It is a
regret that won’t go away.
There is another reason I smile and it is in recognition of
and gratitude for the intentional intergenerational relationships these Sunday
afternoons provided. I am reminded of a
workshop I attended some years ago when the speaker asked us to share the first time we ever went into a nursing home. I told the group it was when I was in my
40s and my parents were moving from their home into a nursing home. But I had
to correct myself. I remembered Sister
Nicholas. I remembered the times we Junior Sisters took our hour keeping vigil
with dying Sisters. “Wait,” I told the workshop speaker. “My first visit to a
nursing home was when I was a teenager.
It was at our convent, but I didn’t think of it as a nursing home
because it was home; it was part of our convent home. The Sisters were part of
our home.”