John Wayne and a Dominican nun

I like to think John Wayne removed his big white cowboy hat, tipped it at her, and said in his dreamy voice, “Please to meet you, ma’am!” She would have fluttered her eyelashes at him the way she did each time she kissed the TV screen as he puckered up to kiss the leading lady (Maureen O’Hara) in his movies. Mom, my sisters and I collapsed in giggles. Up in heaven, Duke (John Wayne’s nickname) may have been confused meeting Sister Mike, not knowing the difference between a Dominican nun, and thought she was an angel. She was our angel.

Sister Mike’s official name was Sister Michael Mary Dwyer (O’Dwyer in Ireland), OP (Order of Preachers), a Roman Catholic nun, a Sinsinawa Dominican. There was nothing pious or stern and intimidating about her. Sunshine and happiness oozed out of her and not just because I was a kid, adults adored her, too. She lit up a room with her sunny disposition and her kindness and love toward everyone in the room.

My mother was about ten years younger than Sister Mike. When my mother was a child, Mom asked Sister Mike what her birthdate was. Sister Mike told Mom that her birthday was December 8 (her birthday was actually December 7) – December 8 in the Catholic Church is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception – and Sister Mike told Mom that she was another Immaculate Conception! See what I mean about the mischief within Sister Mike? I even have a letter Mom wrote to her mother asking if it was true! It wasn’t that either was irreverent – they both truly believed God has a sense of humor.

They were two peas in a pod when they were together. Laughter, silliness and plain old fun . . . an amazing thing when you’re a child and your mother and aunt shed their adult ways encouraging my sisters and me to have fun right along with them.

The best way to describe how we anticipated Sister Mike’s visits to us is think of the delight of the children in the movie Mary Poppins. Pure magic! Sister Mike brought that magic and love into our lives.

Mom and Sister Mike had a crush on John Wayne, the actor and we did, too. Popcorn, staying up past our bedtime and swooning over him when he swept the leading lady into his big handsome arms made our hearts beat faster. We never missed one of his movies.

John Way arrived in heaven years after Sister Mike died, but I’m betting she finagled with the good Lord so she could meet him as soon as he passed through those pearly gates. It made Mom mad. She wanted them to meet him together, but Mom wasn’t in heaven yet when John Wayne died. Mom had just picked up her cross battling the same disease that sent her eldest sister, Sister Mike, to heaven at the young age of forty-five years old.

This year – 2016 – marks the 50^th year since Sister Mike died. Today would have been Sister Mike’s 96^th birthday. Her funeral was what I call my first PKD (polycystic kidney disease – a hereditary disease) funeral. I wasn’t born yet when my grandmother died of PKD. We’ve had nine funerals from PKD in our family including Mom’s. My sisters and three of my cousins, (one a Catholic priest) battle the disease now. Sometimes the sorrow is unbearable.

One Christmas visit when I was quite young, Sister Mike brought us a Nativity set, made of plastic. Mom was beside herself with joy because my even younger sisters and I could touch, play and learn the Nativity story with it. Play with it we did as we learned the miracle of the newborn King. Sometimes paper doll cutouts were part of Bethlehem because one time Joseph was a cashier in a grocery store and had to get a babysitter because Mary went to get her hair done.   I’m not sure if it was the Debby Reynolds paper cutout who babysat or Veronica and Archie.

Mom and Sister Mike laughed so hard at us and we were too young to know why. We learned, though, the entire story of Jesus’s birth and we learned how much He loved us. One time when I was playing I remember Sister Mike saying, “Suzie, sometimes people write Xmas. I hope you will remember to never take the Christ out of Christmas.”

I never do. Even now when I text. I think of her and smile and give thanks for the lessons she taught me about our faith. Because without our faith, I would not have been able to handle the pain and sorrow a family with polycystic kidney disease goes through.

Fifty years ago, I learned courage, faith and hope from Sister Mike when her kidneys began to fail. I didn’t know the damn disease she suffered from would break my heart over and over and over again. Dialysis was exorbitantly expensive and a new way to treat kidney failure. Medicare didn’t cover the cost of it. Plus there were not enough dialysis machines for everyone who needed them. There was a waiting list for a dialysis machine back then. Now there seems to be a dialysis center on every corner.

Sister Mike didn’t want the convent to use the money to pay for her dialysis. She wanted it to go toward the education of the children she loved and taught. She also felt as though someone with a family should have her place on the waiting list. She gave up her place so another could live. I am in awe of her courage.

Each Christmas I set up the Nativity set she gave us as small children. I give thanks for her.