Saving Grace...and Judy

8.
Despite my minor transgressions during the early years of grammar school, my mother had already become a favorite of all the nuns in St. Pete’s convent even before I started first grade. But the way she found herself in their good graces was not a path she would every want to take again.

Earlier that year, my little sister Judy developed pneumonia at only three months old. Sue and I did our best to keep out of the way - we knew something terrible was happening, just by looking at the worried looks on our parents faces. Judy's crib was brought into the dining room and the doctor came to the house, spending a long time examining her and talking to my mother. He determined she had to go to the hospital as her fever continued to climb and, being the smallest baby my mother delivered, she didn't have a whole lot to fight with. It was during this time that my mother looked to her faith and her family for comfort and support.

Judy’s condition grew worse; her breathing became difficult and she needed to be in an oxygen tent. My mother spent as much time as she could at the hospital in Oak Park and it was not easy to make the trip everyday, with Susie and me still at home. Oak Park was a bit south and west of our home. If my father was working, my mother had to depend on cabs to get back and forth. The trip didn’t take more than twenty minutes, but considering that she had to arrange for our care, call the taxi in advance and only guess at when she would be home, the whole effort was unwieldy and time consuming. Both my grandmothers helped out as much as they could, but Nonna Amabile worked each day and Nonna Ma had to be picked up by my dad or driven by my grandfather. It just wasn’t possible for my mother to get to the hospital inside of twenty minutes if she had to. As a result, she stayed as long as she could once she got there.

The experience at the hospital became particularly difficult one day, as, upon her arrival, Mom encountered student nurses surrounding Judy’s crib. As she got closer, she discovered they were using my baby sister’s tiny bottom as target practice in their efforts to learn how to give injections. It slowly dawned upon her what they were doing to her seriously sick baby. Their giggling and ineptitude, in addition to all the stress of the situation, was finally more than my mother could handle.

“Just what do you think you are doing???” she demanded. Judy’s weak, kitten-like cries were ignored as the young nurses had attempted and failed at the injections. My mother literally grabbed the primary offender by the neck and pushed her against the wall. The other stood by motionless.

“Touch her again and I’ll kill you,” was all that my mother could gasp out of her throat as she glared into the eyes of the young student. It was a threat that both nurses firmly believed would be their fate as they quickly dropped the hypodermics and fled the hospital room. My mother then made it clear to the head nurse that under no circumstances were the two offenders to step foot in Judy’s room. Returning to her baby daughter, she tried to soothe her and comfort her until it was time for her to leave. She did manage, after the difficult experience and nearly a week of very little sleep, to get to church where she could light a candle and pray for Judy’s recovery.

Hers was a prayer of desperation and the pain that only a young mother with a seriously ill child could know. No doubt, in addition to innumerable supplications and prayer, she offered her own life in return for her baby’s health.

It was a late Saturday afternoon. Some of the nuns from the parish convent walked into church, bringing in laundered altar cloths for Sunday Mass. As they neared the communion rail, they found my mother unconscious on the floor in front of the Blessed Mother’s statue. She was very pale and weak but they managed to get her over to the convent where they let her rest while they contacted my father. Fortunately, he was only two blocks away from the apartment building where his mother and sister lived.

When he came to pick up my mother, he had good news. Approximately an hour before, Judy had made considerable improvement and the doctors guardedly told my father that they thought she would be fine. My mother felt this turn for the better happened at the precise moment she was praying to the Blessed Mother. At that point, she made a vow that she would do something for the sisters in the convent every year for ten years on Judy’s birthday - it was a vow she never failed to keep.

From 1956 to 1966, my mother prepared a complete Italian dinner for all the sisters on December 13. She prepared everything from the antipasto, meatballs and pasta to the wine, dessert and coffee. As we got older, we were able to help her with this meal for anywhere from 16 to 30 nuns, and even as she was busy with all the preparations and transporting of the feast, she didn’t forget to get a cake for me and Judy as we celebrated our birthday with the rest of the family later in the evening.