Maternal Figures

When I was sixteen years old, my mother left my father. I never saw her again. To be honest, it didn’t shock me. She was never emotionally present even while she was here. My dad was the one who raised me. Even though my mother was the way she was, I became very depressed when she left. All the girls around me had a strong female presence in their lives, granting them both steadiness and affection which carried them through their lives. I always had a dream of having the same. My mother, with even her slight presence in my life, let a few rays of light into the little room where I kept my dream. It streamed in through a crack in the door; the same door that my mother walked out of. When she left, she sealed that crack, and my dream was left in the dark.

I was a true wreck. It became so obvious that my dad knew he had to do something. I imagine that he felt very guilty for marrying my mother. He clearly saw the hole in my life that a maternal figure needed to fill, so he sent me to a Catholic girls’ school: St. Mary’s. I was kind of shocked when he told me. I mean, he had always been a devout Catholic and raised me in the faith, but St. Mary’s was a boarding school. It was unbelievable to me that he would be willing to send me away from him. First, I had been abandoned by my mother, and now by my father. Luckily, I was already completely shrouded in darkness, so it was very difficult for me to lose any more hope.

Coming into the school, I experienced nothing short of a miracle. It was the first positive thought I had had in months. I looked at the sisters and thought to myself, they’re glowing. Why were they glowing? For a reason that my sixteen-year-old self couldn’t define, they seemed to be surrounded in Heaven’s own light. They were the opposite of what I expected from nuns running a Catholic girls’ boarding school. I had never met someone that shone in real life. Before I attended St. Mary’s Catholic School, I had only seen that glow in supermodels. The models I had always seen were beautiful, with designer clothes and an artificial sheen on their faces from professional makeup artists. That’s why the sisters confused me so much: they didn’t wear makeup and their habits were simple. Even with all the knowledge I had accumulated in my sixteen years, I was still confused by their glow. They fascinated me.

The first sister that spoke to me was Sister Marie. It seemed to me that the school must’ve been named after her and not Our Lady because of how she filled it. She was young; I found out later that she was only six years older than me. However, there was wisdom in her eyes that still baffles me to this day. I doubt I’ll ever have that same look. When she looked at me, I shivered with a sort of thrill that someone like her would ever speak to me. But when she spoke to me, I felt the sun’s glow lighting up my face.

“Can I help you bring your bags to your dorm?” she asked.

I agreed and we talked while we carried my bags. On the way, we made our introductions and a bit of small talk. My dorm was on the third floor. The school was old, and the stairs narrow. We were completely out of breath when we finally made it to my room. Sister Marie sort of tripped into the room and her rosary got stuck on the side of the door. She fell over, laughing while I helped her up.

“I have to imagine that happens a lot, what with always wearing a rosary on your hip,” I noted.

“Not as often as you’d imagine,” Sister Marie responded, still laughing.

We got to talking about the rosary, and she said something that stayed with me to this day. She told me that all the sisters wore rosaries on their left hips because knights used to wear their swords in the same place, and the rosaries were the weapons of choice of the sisters. I can still see her swelling with pride as she told me that. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine her as a knight holding her sword up to the light as she ran into battle. She was the first true warrior I knew.

As the weeks went by, I became more and more enamored by the school, but particularly the sisters. They were loving and tough, gentle and strict, kind and steady. I had never known what a woman was. Sister Marie taught my English class, which, while illuminating, wasn’t my favorite class. My favorite class wasn’t a very popular one. It was taught by perhaps the oldest woman I had ever seen in my life: Sister Martha. She taught theology with brilliance. I wanted to soak up every bit of illuminating philosophy she would drop in class, but also something deeper. I knew that she had the answers I wanted. I stopped by her classroom after class one day. She had been teaching about the Immaculate Conception, and I was fascinated by Mary as a character.

“Why would God ever want to create a woman without sin?” I asked her. She looked at me and told me that it was hard to say exactly what God’s designs were, but she had speculations. I told her that I understood that, and I was curious about what she thought.

“Well, God creates each person with a purpose, and inputs unique traits into every individual. Mary was a particularly unique case. Her vocation was to motherhood, but in a very specific way. She was to be the mother of God Himself. She needed to be without sin to live up to this, her vocation,” she answered me.

I thanked her for her honesty, but I was confused. If God creates people with a purpose, how could my mother have left me? Why had she never been there in the first place?

The next day, I continued contemplating what the answer to my question could possibly be. In Sister Martha’s class, I had trouble focusing, and she pulled me over on my out of the room.

“I couldn’t help but notice that my lecture today seemed rather uninteresting to you,” she said.

“No, Sister, I’m just a little tired today. I won’t let it happen again.”

“I’m not particularly worried about today’s lecture, dear. As long as you start to feel better tomorrow, that is fine with me. And if there’s something that you would like to talk to someone about, you know the way to my office.”

I nodded, and left the room. The next day’s lecture was again about Mary. Sister Martha was connecting the Old Testament with Mary in the New Testament. It was interesting, but what was more interesting was how Sister kept looking at me while she was teaching. Without saying anything, I knew she wanted me to speak with her after class.

When class was over, she looked at me expectantly while the other students were leaving the room. I came over to her desk, and waited for her to say something. She just kept looking at me. We stayed in silence for about a minute. Suddenly, the clouds blocking the sun blew away, and a single ray fell on Sister Martha. She seemed wizened by the light, and I felt that she knew what I was going to say before I ever said it.

“I don’t understand how, if God makes every person for a purpose, my mother left me. And I don’t understand why you seem to love me more than my own mother did.”

“I think it’s time for you to head back to class.”

I looked at her confused in tears, and she just repeated herself.

She sat back as I took a second to compose myself and take a deep breath. As she handed me a tissue, I left her room and came to Sister Marie’s room for English. My eyes were still red and puffy, and I tried to hide them from the rest of the class. Of course, that means that I had to look exactly at Sister Marie. She looked at me with concern, but let me be. After about fifteen minutes of class, she let us have the rest of the time to work on our essays due next week.

I look down at my paper, when I suddenly hear, “Miriam, can you join me in the hallway for a quick writing conference?” I get up and join her outside.

“So, how’s the paper coming along?” Sister Marie asked.

“It’s coming along fine,” I said, my voice rather hoarse.

“Miriam, what’s going on here?”

“I’m sorry, I just had a talk with Sister Martha,” I responded.

“I see. I had a few talks with her myself when I was a student here. I always left with a renewed light in my eyes. I think I can see it in yours,” she said.

“You were a student here?”

“Yes, I was,” she told me, with a smile.

“I just can’t imagine there’s a light in my eyes right now. I was rather annoyed with her when I left. She’s never ignored a question of mine, but the most meaningful question I have ever asked her and the most vulnerable I have ever been in my life, she just ignores me. I’ve been crying for like twenty minutes,” I say. She laughs.

“Go back to your seat and think for a second. Sister Martha wouldn’t leave you empty-handed for no reason,” she says.

I sit down, still a bright red, but I look up right as another ray of light enters the classroom, settling right on me. How could my mother have abandoned me? I look back at Sister Martha, and she gives me an encouraging smile. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Her smile was more than encouraging, it was downright maternal. The sisters were the ones who had guided me, and shown me what a woman was, and were the only mothers to ever show me any love. Finally, that little room where my dream had lived in the dark for my entire life was filled with the light of day. But this time, it wasn’t through a crack, but through the open door to the fulfillment of everything I had ever wanted.