Sister Mary Dolores

I’ve got a million stories and there’s not a day that goes by when I don’t add another. They exist in conscious and unconscious form and it takes a glimpse of reality to prompt one to cognition.

I see these stories in color; they are three dimensional and I am often acutely aware of intonations of speech and nuances of manner. But it’s hard to write them the way you see and feel them.

I’ve been putting this ‘write’ off for more than a year. Just didn’t know how I was going to do it. Searching for perfection hardly prompts a finished task. It’s a Mother’s Day story and it’s dedicated to all mothers and all mothers who aren’t mothers.

Motherhood exists in many forms; you don’t have to be a mother to be a mother. Children can have many mothers because it takes a village to raise a child.

That’s how I grew up, the benefactor of the nurturance of many women. I think it shaped me and kept me from following my earliest inclinations. It was said that the mothers of the world would protect fools and Joe Puglia. Based on some hard living, they were right.

Here’s my story. It’s about Sister Mary Dolores, my eighth grade teacher, Saint Frances of Rome, circa 1960-61, Bronx, New York.

My first memory of Sister was shrouded in disappointment. The eighth grade boys’ class had too many kids; thus, three were transferred to Sister Dolores’s co-ed class. I was one of them. We heard rumors about her and none of them were good.

You play with the cards you’re dealt with, and as I reluctantly walked into Sister’s class I didn’t realize that I had been dealt a royal flush, with ace high. It would take years before I would see those cards.

It was her first year at Saint Frances of Rome and some of the boys thought that prior to teaching; she was a prison guard. Dolores was from solid, Irish stock; O’Brian was her family name, and she was a force to be reckoned with. There were a lot of rough kids in class that September, and little did we know what we were in for. She had a no-nonsense approach toward academics and behavior and with piercing eyes she could dissect the toughest boys to their most vulnerable core.

There was no way out for me and Sister gave only one choice: “I will teach and you will learn!” She had a way about her.

That year, I overheard a comment that Sister made to Professor Moore, the director of our church choir. The context of their conversation is a blur, but she said something to the effect that although she had never married, “these are all my children and I love them as though I was their mother.”

Over the years, I have struggled trying to conceptualize what powers she had over me and why her memory continues to linger to the point that I am both exalted and haunted by her presence. I still smell the fragrance of the hand soap she used.

She was a relentless taskmaster, drilling me in English, writing, reading, history, math and geography. She brought me to a level of academia beyond my comprehension. She held me accountable for every transgression and showed no quarter for the slightest infringement of character. Her mantra, “Dare to be different,” planted the seeds of individuality and deportment.

I will never know what she saw in me, but through her eyes I saw a reflection of someone I hoped to become.

Eventually, I left the eighth grade, but Sister Mary Dolores never left me. After I transitioned to high school, I never saw her again, but I followed her career as a teacher and an eventual Mother Superior of the Presentation Sisters. More than a million times I meant to call her and thank her for what she did for me. But somehow I never picked up the phone, never dialed the number. Something always got in the way.

Last year around Mother’s Day some magical force grabbed my hand and instinctively, I picked up the phone and called Saint Frances of Rome trying to track her down. I was ecstatic to tell her what she meant to me. Sister Mary Brendan answered, and I trembled and shuddered as I asked the whereabouts of Sister Mary Dolores.

There was a pause from Sister Brendan, and in a faint and shaky voice she said, “Oh Joey! We buried Dolores today.”

Somewhere, someone has been a mother to you. Call her! Do it for Sister.

Joe Puglia is a resident of La Cañada and a professor at Glendale Community College. He holds a doctorate in education with a special emphasis in the psycho-social educational development . He can be reached at https://captinjoey@yahoo.com.