A Highlight in My Life

Fifth grade was an awesome academic year for me. I was tutored by the Sisters of Charity in Newton MA where they had a convent of retired nuns. Three of them accepted the job of tutoring me three days a week for three hours in the morning. After classes Mom walked me over to the parish which was right around the corner for noon Mass. I LOVED going to the convent for classes because the Sisters were always so kind and welcoming. In a sense, they let me be a part of their religious life by inviting me into the kitchen for coffee cake and juice and sharing their lives with me. It was a really special time in my life to get to know each of the sisters because they had each given their lives to God and to the Church in their different ways. One of the nuns was close to 100 years old and suffered from the typical deterioration of old age. Yet, she had a strong spirit and nothing ever really got her down. She always came down for Mass when Mass was offered in the convent. One of the other nuns in the convent who was quite a bit younger than her devoted her life to caring for the senior sister but she had more health problems than the one she cared for. Anyhow, it was beautiful to see the close relationship between the two - they each loved one another so much. My teachers Srs. Margaret, Rita Vincent and Mary Celine were wonderful teachers and they really put their all into teaching me. Sr. Mary Celine taught me Language Arts which basically consisted of poetry. She was a free spirit, very generous and kind. Boy, did she try hard to get me to appreciate poetry! Well, I was a punky ten year old at that time and poetry did NOT interest AT ALL. To me, it was just a bunch of fruity dribble so in my mind, I didn't see why I needed to read it. Sister tried her best to broaden my intelligence to see the beautiful expression in poetry and all I could think was "She's gotta be nuts to like this dribble!" Now, I do have some appreciation for poetry but it has taken me quite awhile to acquire this appreciation. I have to give special credit to my fifth grade math teacher, Sr. Margaret, who (in my opinion) was a saint for teaching me. An absolute saint! She managed to take me who is a total dummy in math and get me to learn fractions perfectly. Math is my WORST subject but if you give me problems with adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing fractions I can solve them with no trouble. Thanks to Sr. Margaret! I have never had a math teacher like her since; her perseverance in teaching me fractions is something that I will never forget. Her patience, kindness, love and perseverance to stand by me until I learned those fractions is truly inspirational.

Sr. Margaret made an impact on me and I will never forget her. At one point, I was ready to give up and I thought "Why doesn't she give up on me? I'm never going to get fractions!" But she didn't. She wouldn't give up on me, even though I probably caused her much frustration. She is an example of a truly great teacher because instead of calling it quits, she took another approach to drum those fractions into my head. For me, she represented Christ through her selfless love for just as she didn't give up on me, so Christ never gives up on us. We may fail in the lessons He tries to teach us in our lives but He keeps calling us or reaching out to us to try again and not to be afraid.