Nun Better

 I have often shared how I think the best thing that happened to us since we came to the USA was the opportunity to discover the Queen of Peace nursing home in Queens Village. A nun from the home visited our parish back in 2015 and gave what may have been the least coherent but at the same time the most powerful speech I ever heard. My wife was entranced and we started volunteering at the home soon afterwards.

 

The home is run by resident nuns and is co-located with a novitiate. There are about a hundred elderly lay residents, with the expectation that this will be their final home on earth. Some survive only a few months after arrival while others soldier on for ten years or more. The intensity of care increases as residents move from the fourth to the second and ultimately the third floor.

 

Before the pandemic there was a whole army of volunteers visiting the home, helping the nuns and employed staff in a variety of ways. Our initial task was to help to serve the evening meal on a Saturday evening. My wife and I were assigned to the second floor, while the kids served on the third. We quickly realised that the staff could quite easily serve the meal without us, and our real function was to befriend the residents, giving them somebody else to pass time with. Over the years we have struck up lasting friendships with many residents, and many of them look forward to our visits and truly value our company. It can help them to stay healthy for longer and to find additional peace in what remains of their lives. In turn that love rebounds on us, filling us with joy and companionship. We always return from the home in a great mood.

 

After a year or two I expanded my service to include visiting to cantor a mass for them one weekday, and then to be a driver for residents with medical appointments around Long Island. Visits stopped abruptly when the pandemic struck and residents needed to be isolated from each other and inessential outsiders. A nun confided in me that she thought the pandemic aged residents on average by about five years, though mercifully there were few Covid deaths there. Cautiously, life has been returning to normal during 2023, and we are proud to be welcomed as part of a much smaller (so far) cadre of volunteers. Now we serve Sunday dinner, and I have just restarted going back there to sing occasionally too. Sadly, driving is off limits now as my condition means that I can no longer drive.

 

Over the years the home has offered us some of the funniest moments we can recall. My wife still tells the story of our very first visit, when one resident had the cheek to ask me what floor I resided on. The sad afternoon when I shared the news of my tumour with the residents was punctuated by a very deaf lady at one table replying to “I have a brain tumour” with a cheerful “Is it raining?” One centurion introduced the state of her bowels into virtually every sentence. Another insisted repeatedly that in earlier years he had been saved from a shark attack by a passing dolphin taking a ride on the back of a whale.

 

A large part of the mission of the order of nuns at the home is service. At Queen of Peace, that translates into helping the residents (including several retired nuns) to be as contented as possible during their final years and to prepare for a peaceful death. They perform this job magnificently. We have seen many miracles there. A common pattern is for a resident to be quite disturbed when they first come to the home but to become noticeably more at ease the longer they live there.

 

With my diagnosis, several of my thoughts are about being ready for death as well. I have listened carefully to the gospels of the last few weeks, seeking inspiration, not necessarily divine. I have never before thought of the advent message so clearly in this way, an d I have found that It makes more sense to me using the message as being ready to die in peace rather than anything concerning second comings or final judgements.

 

So my mind is on this morbid readiness, and the nuns I am privileged to meet every week are paragons of carers of people at the end of life, so surely there are some useful points to learn here. They might help me or my carers as the illness progresses. In fact they might help anybody, as we never know when illness may strike or when an elderly relative may require such care.

 

The primary way the nuns do their work is by example. You don’t hear long sermons from any of them. Their faith is clear to see, but they don’t ram it down anyone’s throat. Instead, they demonstrate lives of simplicity, humility, prayer, companionship, acceptance, generosity, kindness, compassion, and self-discipline. They each have their foibles, and no doubt there are disputes behind the scenes. They might not all like each other and certainly some of the residents are hard to like, but loving is more powerful than liking.

 

The toughest time for many residents is when they first arrive at the home. That stage of life can seem like a series of defeats, and moving into assisted living may be one of the biggest defeats of all. When we first meet a resident, they are often angry and rather disorientated. But the nuns make sure they have companionship and care, and soon friendships are struck and most come to embrace their new lives. This is achieved via example, sprinkled with a bit of smart cunning.

 

Then comes the time when life ebbs away. The important work has already been done, and most residents have some peace before the final days. But the nuns organise a 24 hour vigil to ensure a resident is never alone in their last days, and you can almost touch the love in the room. Occasionally we have had the privilege to be a part of that magic: one of my proudest achievements was to sing the favourite spiritual hymn to a dying priest in his last hours and to sense his appreciation.

 

The nuns don’t go around talking about death, but they don’t run away from it either. Their demeanour is designed to help the residents understand that this can be a peaceful final transition, whatever they believe. When a resident dies, there is respect and solemnity, but usually little wailing.

 

It is harder for the nuns to be able to provide much help for the families and carers of the residents because they usually have less chance to get to know these people deeply enough. But, for those family members and carers who can find time to visit, the same example is offered to them. It is surely a great comfort to know that one you have cared for and loved can find a peaceful end in the company of abundant love.

 

I am so fortunate to have Queen of Peace and its nuns and residents as role models. That list of seems like a pretty good set of attributes to aspire to. An interesting one is acceptance, because at first glance it seems in conflict with something else that people often urge me to do; that is fight. I don’t see any conflict. Of course we should fight our illnesses, not in a military or angry way, but with some steel and persistence and attempts to follow healthy practices and trust in medicine. Acceptance is the other side of the same coin. We are all unique but none of us are so unique as to be immune. Our best bet is to humbly accept what the fates have in store for us, and to find peace with that fate.

 

Thank you sisters, you are my greatest inspiration. I hope I can live, and die, showing something approaching the wonderful values you espouse. If I can, the primary beneficiary will be myself.