The Unstaged Life
Lessons from a lifelong nun nestled in the comfort of a convent, wandering the road of dementia.
Photos by Obscura Studios
It started when I realized there were no pictures of her…
Not that she wasn’t in our family photos, but of her life, her solo essence, her natural environment, nothing existed. I knew Sister Marise only as the aunt who would travel to and fro frequently for birthdays and holidays, always with a story to tell of our family history.
She is the last of her siblings to walk this earth and ironically, in spite of her vocation, now the oldest “matriarch” figure among our clan.
The keeper of histories, memories, and genealogies, that are quickly fading with her memory… a story of a lifetime I will never know.
Sister Marise Fabie is a nun of the religious order Sisters of Mercy.
She deserves a memoir, or at least a half decent recap of the many years of service extended to countless individuals (especially women). At present, all I have to give is a recollection of how I’ve known her, and why I so desperately felt the need to capture her spirit before it carried on.
I came to know her spark— that’s how I fell in love with her.
I would always stifle a laugh as she rolled her eyes at my mother, or threw a wink at me when she wasn’t looking. It was our little secret, the bond we shared and I liked it that way. It seemed as though we were too many decades apart to ever deeply understand each other, but we found little pockets of mischief, and mischief speaks any language.
The last time she came to visit, I knew it might be the last and suddenly felt a great responsibility to drive a few hours to her convent and take the photos I’d always wanted to see of her. It didn’t seem right that her being was only attached to our families. I wanted to know her.
Of course she forgot we were coming, but nonetheless welcomed us with open arms into her room.
I could tell she wasn’t grasping why we were there, or why we’d want pictures of just her. Luckily she has never been one to snub progress from what I’ve seen and we were given the benefit of the doubt along with full access to snoop around her room with a camera.
No fusses. No frills. No fixing her hair like my mother demanded. *eyeroll of solidarity included of course
The finger hold… I can’t even. She told me to hurry up on this one because she would fall flat on her face in about 10 seconds without her walker.
We made our way to a quiet, cool, dark Mercy Hall where Aunt Marise had apparently come to first as a young novice. It was off school season so not a single soul emerged.
I felt as though I was disappearing into shadows alongside other figurines while Marise shuffled through the halls, unspeaking, looking up with clouded searching eyes. At home, yet missing something.
I can only imagine the strangeness of knowing you don’t know something.
And eventually you just accept what is.
I sat with her, in the second sanctuary of the day. So still, stiller than any stillness I’ve known. Like all the air was sucked out of the room and filled with “being”.
She had learned the discipline of being disciplined. Of sitting in silence, of sitting in really anything with anyone I suppose. Trauma, disappointment, tears, pain, joy, expectation, all wrapped in a pregnant quiet.
Though there may be less and less words exchanged between us these days, there is always love. I’m not sure if I will ever amount to the woman she is (outside of the eyerolls about my mother)… but I felt a piece of me resonate with a piece of her.
The women in my family have passed down a mantle to all of their offspring. Be strong. Care for others. Embrace change. Fight evil. Love God.
If anything I will tell myself we have the same blood in our veins. But I know there’s something more, something deeper, something rich that I don’t deserve.
Aunt Marise, I wish I had known you before you forgot who you were, but I know I still had the privilege of seeing a part of you, and I hope you felt honored in spite of those humility vows.
