To some degree, life in Maria Center validates Ecclesiastes, one of the Old Testament’s books of Wisdom, which states there is a time to live and a time to die, a time to embrace and a time to let go . . . a time for every purpose under heaven. All is vanity or pointless, the book concludes, since nothing is permanent. We might add that for MC residents, there is a ”time for arriving and a time for departing, a time for ending and a time for beginning.
‘And the process has meaning; it is not all pointless and in vain.
Certainly change is inevitable. A Maria Center group photo from 2017 shows 23 residents and staff. Today, fifteen of that group have moved on, eight to other locations, seven to the next world.
More recently, the past eighteen months have brought significant changes at Maria Center. Here are some sad ones. Residents Dave Burke and Lily Braun have died. Phyllis Barnes and Gladys Tesnar are in nursing homes, Keith Jeffries, Antoinette Condo, and Cathy Pavlina have moved closer to family. As I write this, Diana Anderson is preparing to leave MC for a new home in Breman. During her four years with us, Diana became known as an advocate for the lives of butterflies, primates, flowers, cats, and ailing residents. Her quiet and reliable support of several residents and their pets will be missed. In addition, the departure of Sisters from the Motherhouse to the CKC building next door has been felt as a loss, even though these sisters come and go in the Motherhouse.
Three Sisters continue as residents, Sister Melanie Rauh who retired here after a full life with music and choir, Sister Coletta Wrasman continues her management of the Ancilla Library just down the hall from her apartment; and Sister Shirley Bell, American Provincial, stays close to her office and shares an apartment with her birth sister, Gloria Miller.
Tiffany Hardy and Christine Lehiy have joined Rhonda Overmeyer as MC management and support (thank God). Former activities assistant Tawn Kizer stepped away for several years, but has rejoined TCAD caring for Sisters in Catherine’s Cottage.
Maria Center has also been blessed by new arrivals, folks who are closing one chapter in their lives to begin a new one here. As poet T.S. Eliot wrote, in my end is my beginning. That is, closing one door opens another. Loretta Kania now lives in the apartment once belonging to the late Richard Davies. Carola Wolf has moved from one independent living facility to MC, enabling a closer family bond, as her son Jim is a driver for transportation services. Claudia Hawk’s arrival is a return to her beginnings. As a child, she moved here in 1966 when her father managed the chicken farm. Her mother and daughter and now her son-in-law have all been TCAD coworkers. Claudia worked in reception from 2003 to 2017, retiring to care for her husband in his last year of life. All that family and personal history carries into her new life as a resident of MC. Our newest resident, Sara Rising, was born and raised in Indiana. Ten years ago she moved to Texas, and now, widowed three times, she is back to her Hoosier roots. Much of her life is wonderfully dramatized in a book of poems she has written, Lumps of Coal and Paradise. She has donated a copy to the Avita library.
With its refrain that all is vanity because all things change and perish, Ecclesiastes has been called the most pessimistic book of the Bible. However, Ecclesiastes also says that two are better than one, for if one falls the other will pick her up. Here, residents are continually picking fellow residents up. If one doesn’t show up for mashed potatoes at dinner, another will check up. Residents receive superlative help from staff and coworkers. We see families arrive here to care for and comfort loved ones, to celebrate jubilees and birthdays. The spirit of human bonding, of love, abides in all these changes. It is expressed in the Maria Center motto, a haiku written by Dave Burke:
Maria Center
caring for body, mind, spirit
what a loving place.