Where I work now, with the sisters, I get asked often about my Catholic education street cred: where I went to school, who taught me, do I know so-and-so, etc. very often.
I only had five years of official Catholic education (one year in eighth grade and four years at Benet), so I don’t have much of a story to tell the nuns. There were very few nuns teaching at Benet. Just Sr. Mary, our religion teacher. There were a lot of fathers and brothers, however. Both sexes belonged to the Benedictines, who are very into education.
But the very first nun I remember talking to was Sr. Carolyn, the principal of St. Joan of Arc in Lisle, where I went for eighth grade. For some reason, I remembered her as Sr. Mary. I remember a lot about her, however.
She was very kind. She seemed to grasp how hard it was for me to change schools in that year and how much of an outsider I felt like. She had a very sweet smile and, unless my memory is tricking me again, wore her habit headdress. I could be wrong about it. She remembered everyone’s names in the class, in fact, in the whole school, and greeted them all personally when she saw them.
I wanted to fill in some of the holes for when the sisters ask me who the principal was of St. Joan, so I sent an email to Sr. Carolyn, who was listed as principal, asking who was principal in 1988 when I graduated, and if I could get in touch with her. I totally used by nun cred on that one, hoping not to seem stalkerish. Sr. Carolyn was my principal! She had been the principal there for 43 years. As soon as I heard her voice on the message she left me, I remembered her. She said she remembered me well, mentioned that I was only there a year but made a big impact which was almost exactly what she said to me when she handed me my 8th grade dipolma. “Wow! Only one year, but what a contribution!” I felt really great. We chatted for a while, I thanked her and she encouraged me to stop by.
It was the first time I was in a class that was larger than 25. So! Many! Kids! And the boys! The boys were taller than me. I have been 5′8″ since 5th grade and was the tallest person in the school, including teachers, for a long time. I fell in love with the first boy who was taller than me and cute. He was real cute, and real dumb. I joined the basketball team. I joined the track team. I joined debate team. I joined the softball team. I got the lead in the school musical. I had my first official boyfriend and my first break-up. I was “popular” for a while. We didn’t have popular in my other school, there were only six girls, no point really. I wore a uniform for the first time. I remember on my first day of school my mom insisted that I wear a slip, but when I got there, it was obvious I was the only one who was doing so, so I took it off in the bathroom and stuffed it in the trash. Then I rolled my skirt up, like the other girls did. I wore the white/pink frosted lipstick that was popular. I made my first communion and my class threw my a surprise party, during math class, and got me a cross necklace that turned my neck green in two days. I got all C’s except for English, because I had already learned that stuff, and I was bored, and had SO. MUCH. FUN!
It all went away in high school. My dad grounded me from extracurriculars for my first year because my grades were so bad in 8th grade so no softball, no swim team, no drama club. I didn’t click with anyone for a while. It was lonely. It was what 8th grade could have been, but miraculously, wasn’t.
The idea that Sr. Carolyn remembers me is bewitching somehow. I think if I went back to ACS, where I spent 8 years and if anyone was still there, they wouldn’t remember me at all. Clearly Sr. Carolyn’s memory is something special and she uses it to make the children and alum feel special as well.