2026 Column

“You’ll notice a change in her,” the nurse said as my father and I made our way up to the continual care ward. “When was the last time you saw her?” My dad and I looked at each other. “Two months ago,” my dad said. “A year ago,” I replied. I tried to visit my 80-year-old aunt at her convent every time I went home to Connecticut for a visit. But this trip was only a quick three days. Should I still try to squeeze her in? I wondered. Plus, would she even remember me? Things had changed drastically since the summer of 2022 when she was zipping across the freeways of New Haven, meeting us for lunch at Pepe’s pizza. Not even a year later her license had been taken away and she could not answer questions coherently. But she still remembered who I was at last year’s visit. When we got off the elevator my aunt was already approaching us at the front gate. She looked at me first. Nothing. But then she saw my father and immediately her face lit up. She recognized him fully. “Look who I brought,” he said, “It’s Deana….Deana!” She turned back at me and a look of recognition came across her face. We all hugged and teared up as we made our way into the communal room. “I’m just so excited,” she kept saying, looking from me to my father. “What a surprise!” I thought of how rarely my aunt gets visitors. My dad is 83-years-old and can’t make the hour plus drive as easily. As we talked, my aunt was so positive, never complaining. Always a work horse, she showed us how she had set up tiny Easter baskets along the window’s edge, even though it was the end of July. “Sometimes they fall, and then I pick them back up,” she said, laughing. Her heart was so pure. So full of gratitude. A couple of times during our conversations she would become confused, then she would pause and look down to the table and, as if reassuring herself, would say, “Everything will be okay.” Yes, just as she had taught me all these years whenever I needed her wisdom. “Don’t worry, Trust God. Everything will be okay.” “Show me your room,” I said after we had been sitting for a while. She walked me down the hallway and went straight for her door. Once inside I was surprised by how stark the room was. There was a bed, a reclining chair, and a desk with a couple of pictures. The walls were bare except for a large crucifix to the right of her bed. That crucifix was her everything, it always had been. On the way back to the communal room she introduced me to all the nuns and nurses. It was interesting to see the contrast between who my aunt had always been—the ‘Mother Superior,’ the one in charge—and what she was now. She had been the head of a school for decades, and in her later years she took care of the older and dying religious sisters. She had also tenderly cared for my grandmother, who had Alzheimer’s, and for my uncle when he was dying of prostate cancer. Now she was the one being taken care of. I could see how all the love and care she had given to others was now coming back to her full circle. That thought gave me peace. Before we left that day, I asked her if she remembered the Our Father prayer. “Oh yes,” she said. She didn’t, not fully. But we still said it together. She, my dad and I stood in a circle, holding hands as we prayed. As I left, I thought about how I had almost skipped the visit, but was so glad I didn’t. In our culture of business, I have to remember that we have choices in how we spend our free time—and it is never wasted when we spend it being present with others, especially our family. A couple of weeks later, after my dad saw her again, I asked him if she had remembered seeing me. She hadn’t. But I will not let that stop me from visiting her in the future, God willing. Because for that 90- minute visit she had remembered me in the moment—even if it was just her soul recognizing mine. And I have no doubt it was still recorded in her overflowing heart.