Home

Denis Murphy's Story

1. The Nun

by Denis Murphy

Letty waited till our children were grown and through the first years of their marriages when a mother might still be able to help. She waited till my pension came in regularly and our house near the golf course in Antipolo was finished, and broken in, as it were. And then, when I was as content as I'd ever been, just after Christmas when the mornings are clean and fresh as if the fine spray of a fountain blows through the streets, she told me she wanted to be a nun, a contemplative nun. I'd only see her through an iron grill in the shadows.

Letty was never religious, meaning novenas and all that. We were Catholics but she would have been a good Buddhist or Hindu, too, if she had been born one. She went to mass, I thought, not so much for her own needs but because it would help me and the children. Like the Mafia wives.

She told me her plans one Sunday morning after she had been to early mass. I sat outside watching her take care of her orchids. She talked to the flowers the sprigs of bright yellow flowers and the older ones that hadn't bloomed that year – as she sprayed them with pesticide and removed the dead leaves: Off you come. Now you'll feel better, It's only hurts a little bi Conversations like that. When she finished she sat in the canvas lawnchair near me. I remember everything about that moment: the music from inside the house, a piece of urgent chamber music the sun concentrating on the flowers. Don't say anything right away, she said. I'm going to ask you something.” I thought she was going to talk about the sink in the yard. We often talked about it and a closet for her tools. I have been accepted by the Carmelites, Tim. I need your permission.

I thought she was talking of a retreat or something. She'd spend a few days sharing the life of the sisters and then come back. Very stupidly, I asked if there was enough food in the house to last me, as if food was my only concern.

Tim, I'm going to stay with the sisters, I'm going to be a nun. She rushed the last words as if she were afraid she might cry before she got them out. The sadness in her voice more than words reached me.

Are you sick? It was a nursing home, I thought. You don't have to go. We can manage.”

She squeezed my hand: Tim, listen to me. I'm not sick. I want to be a sister. I'll stay there for good. She looked at me closely to see if I was following her. We've been so lucky. I must give something back. Finally I knew what she meant.

When we told the children, they were surprised of course, but all three said something like, Good for Moma. This is not going for a doctorate, I told them. It's forever. Yes, they said, as if they knew all about forever. They asked if I would be all right, but when I tried to explain how Letty's absence would mean the end of life as I knew it or could imagine it, they seemed confused and maybe embarrassed, and I stopped. They were married with children but still too young to understand what people become to each other with the years. Sometimes you get impatient with each other, like she always had me waiting outside stores while she shopped. I don't know how many hours, days I've spent outside Unimart and SM. If it's so bad, come in with me,” she used to say. That was worse. I was the Michael Jordan of waiting husbands.

She was to report to Carmel on the Feast of the Purification of Our Lady, February 2. I gave my permission in writing, as Canon Law required. I never thought of doing anything else. I had no peace of soul, however, and the fact that I wanted her to be happy didn't mean I wouldn't look for some way to change things.

One night I told her if she stayed with me, we'd build a chapel in the yard instead of the sink and closet and we'd spend hours there side by side. She smiled sadly as if I were a small boy making impossible promises just to stop his mother's tears. She explained over and over that her decision to leave had nothing to do with me, that it was God's plan for her, which she heard deep in her heart when she prayed in Church. I cannot not go, Ben.”

I was willing to give her to God and spend the rest of my life in a bloodless demimonde, like Homer's netherworld where the dead, be they good or bad, wander lost and hopeless. However I wasn't going to let her sail off without a struggle, even to fulfill God's plan. I wouldn't be Dido on the beach at Carthage watching her lover sail off to Rome.

I went one Sunday afternoon to the Jesuit faculty house to meet an old friend of mine, Father Bill Steinmiller. I found him in the woods near the faculty house collecting fallen branches, chopping wood, and stacking it in neat piles near the path. Cleaning up,” he called it. He was perspiring so much his glasses were fogged and had slipped half way down his nose. He had bad eyesight even with his glasses, so I stayed well back when he used the ax. I told him about Letty's decision while he chopped and swept the ground using a branch of leaves as a broom and picked up the food wrappers and soda cans the students left. I helped him carry the branches to the neat piles by the path. He could take care of her orchids, I thought.

Are you asking should you let her go?” he asked. I already did that.”
God loves a cheerful giver.”
I'm doing the best I can.

But you still want her to stay with you. You want God to think it over. He brought his axe down so hard it cut through the branch he was working on and deep into the ground. How he avoided hurting himself I couldn't imagine.

Bill, you're on my side, aren't you?
Of course, Tim, but what's really good for you.
To have her home. Jesus, that's clear isn't it?
Humanly speaking it's hard to argue with that Luckily he didn't go int“super-humanly speaking. Instead he stopped working and we walked to the faculty house and drank cold beer in the dining room.

You can complain to the archbishop, Tim.

I don't want to stop her if that' s what she really wants. I was sure of that, but I also wanted her with me.
Talk to the mother superior. Maybe Letty can wait a little longer; in the meantime anything can happen.

That's tricking her.
Not really. It's being practical.
She'll blame me.
You can't have it both ways.
Revolution is not a tea party?

When Bill got two more beers, I saw a forest of brown beer bottles in the refrigerator. It's strange, Tim. Why would a 60-year-old woman who seemed to be happy want to be a nun? Lots of people will have questions. That was Bill. Sometimes he gave you more problems.

I walked home through the campus. Night had fallen. Bats or swallows dove and careened over the dark playing fields. I knew it wasn't strange she would want to be a sister. An intelligent woman might want more in life than myself. A lovely half moon sailed in its deep purple pool as if it knew everything there was to know about us.

I asked myself, if the roles were reversed and I were leaving, would Letty let we go without a struggle? I hope not, though I needed her more than she needed me. I watched the moon rush along behind dark clouds. It made me dizzy.

It would be a whole new way of life for Letty, one of prayer and study of the great spiritual writers, the mystics John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, and the Divine Office. There would be work on the farm and time for walking in the woods and recreation. My own life would be even more upside down, different entirely in every way, totaliter aliter as the old theologian used to say of God Himself. I remembered words of the Psalms: Turn from me awhile, that I may find relief before I die and am no more.

Orchids are different than other flowers, she told me. They don't need soil, but grow out of wood and compost, even out of stone. They don't sink roots. They aren't more beautiful than the other flowers, just different. Aren't they beautiful bobbing in the wind? She looked at me till she had my full attention. You will always be with me, she said and began to cry.

A few times I caught her packing. She would stop when I came into the room and pretend to do something else. As we grew older, it was the small actions and gestures that were weighed with meanings. Everytime I came on her packing or heard her on the phone saying goodbye to her friends, my stomach turned over in realization she really was going. The dog followed Letty around the house and lay at her feet if she sat down. He too, didn't want her out of his sight. I listened for her all the time; I always knew where she was in the house. The dog and myself waited like visitors in a hospital, hoping against hope for our patient's recovery. Love is rewarded with pain; the more a man and woman love the harder is death or separation.

I was downtown one day to co-sign a loan our oldest daughter was getting to repair her roof. When I finished and came out of the bank, I saw the cathedral. I walked over and went in the side door on Solano Street that was open even when the main doors were closed. I was alone in a gray stone world. High up the faint blue light flowed from stain-glass windows and drifted down to the pews. It was cool, though there was no air-conditioning and I smelled incense. It would be like this for Letty, I thought, gray stone cloisters and silence. The stillness of the place settled in and slowly eased my soul.

After a few minutes I felt better. I walked down the east side to the rear of the church and up the west side. The cathedral was built after World War II on the spot where the Manila cathedrals had stood from the late 16^th century. I walked till I came to our Lady's chapel. The statue of Mary was of a young girl with Filipino features done in white stone. Almost as soon as I sat down, a powerful river of sunlight streamed through the chapel window; perhaps the sun had moved from behind clouds. The light was in shades of blue, and in it thousands of tiny gray motes drifted, sailing wherever they wanted, millions of them lit by the sun, created by the sun, moving serenely. I watched for some time and then it dawned on me: I was watching ourselves. We are drifting and held by God, lit by God. What difference if two tiny motes drift apart for a while? Still I asked, Can she stay with me?” I waited and repeated my question. The sunlight disappeared with the motes. No answer.

Connie left our home February 2. Life without her was worse than I imagined.

I returned one night from Cubao where I bought socks and razor blades. Letty used to take care of all that. Holding my small package on my lap on the jeepney coming home I felt a wave of loneliness. When I opened the gate, I saw the light in our bedroom. I hurried in. My daughter was at the small desk Letty used, going through the papers and lists Letty had left.

She cooked dinner and then we watched a video movie, one she thought was good for me about a dog who goes off with wolves, but returns when his owner is caught in a trap and saves his life. Why had she chosen it? Was she the faithful dog? Did she think I was roaming with wolves?

Mornings I watered the flowers and trees, especially the orchids, till the smell of the wet earth and the bobbing happiness of the flowers saddened me. Friends had me for dinner in turn once. I started books, but after a few pages I’d find the book lay unread in my lap and I was remembering instead her glee as she ate her green mangos with salt or her efforts to swim, she could manage about 15 meters, or something else about her.

And then one night when I came from paying our land tax at City Hall, Letty was back. I smelled her cooking, the clouds of spicy smells that filled the house when she had her heart in the cooking. There was fish frying that smelled as good as bacon and roast chicken that smelled like the ones my mother cooked life times ago.

That smells good, I said quietly.
I'm trying something with ginger. We'll see. Go on and sit down.
Have you been here long?
I just missed you, the guard said.
I was paying the land tax. Why did I have to go to City Hall? You never did.

I give it to the Barangay Captain, he takes care of everything.
I see.
I'll do it next year. Don't worry.
It wasn't nice without you, I told her.
It wasn't nice without you, too.
What happened?

She took a last look at her cooking and sat down.

You remember how you used to wait outside the stores for me to come out? When I came out, I looked for you and if I saw you waiting I was very happy. Everything was good then and I thanked God. There were tears on her cheeks. She wiped them away slowly. When I came out of the chapel with the sisters in the line we formed, I looked for you, habit of course, and when you weren't there I felt so sad. In the old days I knew you were waiting outside when I was shopping. You were there ready to carry all my packages and that made me happy – woman's happiness. I missed you in the convent. I thought it would go away but it didn't. There were awful moments when coming out and not seeing you, I felt you were dead. I told mother superior and we talked things over several times. In the end mother told me it was right for me to leave. She said I had done God's will.

I hate to tell you this, but I've made plans to be a Jesuit brother.
What? She was never good at getting jokes.
I'm only kidding. Welcome back!

She dropped spices into the fish; the smells rose in praise. All that waiting while she shopped had paid off.