Holy Holy Holy…

Recently on a run…

The scene: The med/surg floor of a local hospital.  The patient’s room is decorated with flowers, bags labeled Patient’s Belongings, and “Get Well Soon” balloons, complete with obligatory smiley faces.  A cross hangs on the wall behind the patients bed.  A rosary is on her side table

The cast: Myself, my partner for the day, the patient, her son, and her sister.  A Sister, literally and Cathically.  Is that a word?  My spell check says no.  Let me spell this out.  She’s a Nun.

We follow the patients Nurse into her room, I take the opportunity to introduce my Partner and myself to our patient. “Hi Ma’am, I’m Epi, I’ll be in the back of the ambulance with you, this is my Partner For the Day, J, we’ll be taking you to *generic NH of the day*.  He’ll be driving…feel free to throw things at him…”

Our patient smiles.

Fairly typical beginning to a fairly typical transfer.  There’s just one thing nagging at me.

I may or may not know the Nun.

She may or may not have been the principal of the grade school I attended.  She may or may not have scared my eight-year-old heart into significant periods of tachycardia.   I may or may not have sat in detention with her several times.  She may or may not have bounced a chalkboard eraser off of my head once or twice for sleeping in class.

Okay, so I deserved having an eraser thrown at me. Once or twice at least.

Maybe she won’t recognize me.  It has been 19 years since I’ve seen her. I busy myself with assembling the patient’s paperwork and gathering belongings.

“Epi? Could you grab her bear?  It plays God Bless America.  She likes to sing with it.”

“Yes, Sister.” My answer came without thought.  It wasn’t until I was handing our patient her small stuffed animal that I realized that my patient’s sister, Sister Marie,  remembered me.  Even after nineteen years.  My hardened memories of her, formed by the mind of a trouble making kid instantly softened.

When my eyes met hers, they were greeted with a kind smile.

“How have you been, Epi?” Her tone was considerably softer than the strict authoritative voice that I remembered.

“I’ve been very well, Sister.  I heard that they closed the school… Very sad.”

My partner elbows me in the ribs.  “Who is that?” he mouths. I shake my head.

“Yes, it certainly was sad,” Sister Marie says, her voice trailing off.  She seems to collect her thoughts and reintroduces me to her biological sister, our patient.  “This is Epi, she’s a former student of mine.  She’s going to take excellent care of you.”

In my head I hear her whisper under her breath, “Or I’ll stick her in detention and throw erasers at her!”