YAHOO!! Road Trip!!

Sister Dorothy Schmedinghoff, SHF

What kinds of things do I do with other Sisters when I leave the hermitage for the day?? Well, yesterday it was a Road trip (yay!!!) and a BBQ!! And a lot of sharing!! So, here is a really brief introduction to some friends who are a joy to me even though we see each other relatively infrequently.

The last time I announced a road trip here, it was almost exactly two years ago when I went to the Fremont Motherhouse of the Sisters of the Holy Family. There I got a chance to see the changes accomplished to the SHF campus. Yesterday Sister Marietta picked me up and we went for a BBQ there, something we have been trying to do for several months. In particular, I wanted to see and have lunch with a couple of friends, Sisters Dorothy Schmedinghoff, and Ann Marie Gelles (aka Annie, along with her guide dog, Earhart)!! 

Dorothy is a terrific photographer and musician (among other things!!), and we met just three or four years ago because of a photograph Marietta shared with me. After a number of email exchanges, and because of the pandemic, I was able to visit with her face to face in the Sisters' oratory rather than in her own room or cottage for the first time just last year -- which was extra special because she celebrated her own 75th jubilee last Summer and only family could attend. In my earliest road trip with Marietta, also during the pandemic, I had only been able to speak to Annie (and meet Earhart) by standing outside her bedroom window as we visited through the screen. 

Despite Covid still being prevalent, yesterday was different with hugs and kisses (including several from Earhart!), a brief tour of Annie's computer setup and Braille equipment (book readers, braille printer, etc) in her new room, and then a really terrific meal of BBQ chicken and tri-tip, with corn on the cob, beans, watermelon (including yellow watermelon I had never even heard of before! I had picked up a piece of it thinking it was a pineapple wedge. I discovered it tasted exactly like regular watermelon), cookies, iced sodas, and iced water. (I'm grateful someone at our table noted what the yellow watermelon was before I took a bite of it while I was fully expecting to taste pineapple!! Instead of shock and disappointment, I experienced anticipation and a very pleasant surprise!)

Sister Ann Marie Gelles, SHF with Earhart

It was a good experience to meet Sisters I have mainly or only known by name, newsletters, jubilee books, and/or pictures, including the Holy Names Sister who will be taking over canonical matters as a trustee once the final leadership team's time in office is complete. Some of the Sisters knew of me, either because they worked at the chancery, or through other contacts, but for all of us, it was a chance to tell our stories and share and expand our connections with SHF and allow a few more pieces of our lives to come together in the incredible way God does that! Annie and I have known each other since around 1983 through Marietta and Holy Family Center. She had been Marietta's novice when it was still particularly unheard of to accept a legally blind person into the convent. 

Annie is a braille specialist teaching only part-time now at the California School for the Blind and volunteering to tutor students as needed. We heard one story about Marietta watching out for Annie's safety in the MH kitchen with huge industrial ovens whose doors were sometimes left open, and another one where Annie said her veil impeded her hearing causing her to keep walking into some poles. (I need to hear more details about this!) I tend to always be the last one finished at any dining table and yesterday was no different. When I commented on this having always been true (I was really trying to get to desert!!), Annie told the story about the way her family used to prank her when she was a kid. Not particularly fond of peas (they were okay, just not Annie's favorite), Annie would eat those first; later she would discover someone had quietly filled her plate with more peas!! Apparently, they did it with other things too which meant she too was often the last one done! Meanwhile, Dorothy reminded me I had been busy talking with Sister Annamarie with Marietta when most of the rest of the table had started to eat. Good point! I appreciated the sensitivity!! Marietta had the real solution though, and boxed the remaining chicken up to take home --- along with some second helpings for dinner last night!

Sister Annamarie Colapietro, SNJM

In particular, I was pleased that Sister Marietta introduced me as the "creator" of the Holy Family Center Logo/Sign to Sister Annamarie Colapietro, SNJM --- not because of the sign per se, but because of Sister Annamarie's place in the future of Marietta's congregation. We shared a bit of laughter though because while the signage is present at the entrance to today's Motherhouse, it began its life for a different Holy Family Center, a former SHF convent turned retreat center in 1982. Thus, Annamarie, who, upon seeing the sign for the first time in its Fremont location, had wondered at the fact that the child Jesus was missing from the tableau she assumed was a version of the Holy Family (the source of our laughter). Marietta and I explained the Logo was really a kind of snapshot, of a moment from when Sister Marietta began working with me as my spiritual director at Holy Family Center. Sister Margaret Diener, OP (another friend from HFC and the San Raphael Dominicans), and her dad took the picture I had drawn and translated it into a large steel sign by cutting it out of a sheet of metal with an acetylene torch; the Diener family placed it in front of Holy Family Center on the feast of the Holy Family in 1984. Since Annamarie is soaking up the SHF story and will be responsible for important parts of it in the future when she assumes the role of canonical trustee, it was good to help share some of the story of this chapter of their history.

Sister Marietta Fahey, SHF

Because I don't drive, these kinds of trips are both too few and too far between and I celebrate them big time when they are possible. It can be a lot of driving for whoever is giving me a ride, but we do have a good time, and at least yesterday the heat was down a bit and freeway traffic flowed pretty freely!!! Summers have always tended to be full for Sisters: there are retreats, chapters,  jubilees (Holy Family's is next weekend -- the San Rafael Dominicans' was last weekend), community days, and BBQs like yesterday's where friends and family can come completely casually, meet one another, and relax together. I skipped class to do this and, though I love teaching on Thursday mornings, I had a terrific time. I was especially grateful to touch base with Dorothy and Annie again -- not least because Dorothy ended up briefly in the hospital (1 day only, thanks be to God!) at the same time I did last month; although we've both written to check on one another and send best wishes, visiting was important. We'll try to do it again before too long.