Chapter 4

THE cold bleak winds of March affected her, and she got paler and thinner, and her cough became more persistent. She began to lose her energy and spent most of her time in bed except for a short time on Saturday evenings when she would get up in order to sit on my knees in the common day-room. For the first part of each Saturday evening I used to sit near her bedside and play games with her and tell her stories, all of which had to have a happy ending.

She loved to win in the various games, and sometimes I would purposely lose so that she could win. And then her merry laugh could be heard through the nearby wards. It was often a dying patient who smiled on hearing that merry laugh.

But no sooner was tea ready than she announced that instead of taking it in bed, she would like it in the day-room with the other patients who were allowed up. I would not be long sitting at the fire in the day-room when she would enter, and in the pocket of her cardigan I noticed the small, blue-coloured, tightly corked sputum bottle. She was obliged to carry this bottle so that if she got a fit of coughing, all sputum coughed up had to be put into it.

After eating a few pieces of already buttered bread and drinking a few sips of insipid tea, she would get up from the table, come towards me at the fire, and with a bounce she was on my knees, and the dark brown head rested against my shoulder. It is nice to remember these evenings of long ago when one felt so close to a saint.

She was always fond of prayers and the Rosary was her favourite. With her beads hidden under the bedclothes, her eyes closed, and her lips silently moving, she said rosary after rosary. The other patients in the ward with her said that they could not count how many rosaries she said each day.

“I never saw such a person for prayer,” was how one of the patients expressed it, and it took me some time to understand what she meant. Inspired by her example they also tried to say as many rosaries as they could. In Scotland she was a daily communicant, and one of her disappointments at Creagh was that she was not allowed to assist at Mass which took place on Sundays only. She was not considered strong enough to leave the heated ward and go to the colder chapel, which was at the nurses’ section of the establishment. But while Mass was being said at a distance, she sat propped up in bed and, with a simple prayer-book in her hands, she tried to follow with her full attention the particular part of the Mass that was being said at the time.

She received Communion in bed every Sunday morning, but to be present at one more Mass was what she ardently wished for, but God did not give her that privilege. She was very particular with regard to the truth and she could not understand how anyone could tell a lie. One day she called another patient, as she wanted something, and the patient pretended not to hear her call.

“That isn't the truth,” Kathleen said seriously. "Oh, Mary how could you?"

While Kathleen was on my knees I felt I was near a saint and that she was a real saint who liked to play games, get letters and presents, and who loved to nestle close to anybody who was fond of her. When the other patients had finished their tea they left to do various jobs in their wards, and we were left alone, with no sound to break the silence in the home of the sick and dying, while the trees outside began to lose their shape in the gathering dusk of a spring evening.

On one occasion while we were alone a nurse entered and jokingly remarked, "Look where her ladyship is sitting. Don't you know he walked all the way out and has to walk back again, and you are too heavy."

In a flash she was on her feet and all contrition. “I forgot,” she exclaimed, “you must be tired out.” However, in a short time she was back again, and I noticed she tried to sit as lightly as she could.

At this time I knew for certain that she was to die, as I had been shown her X-ray film which showed perforation extensively, and the doctor and the nurses had no hopes of her recovery. But she did not know this until some time afterwards.

On these occasions we rarely spoke. There was no need, as she was quite happy as she nestled close to me and stared into the fire. This is a characteristic of those who are to die young, to be dreamy and thoughtful, the next world seems to be calling them.

Sometimes as she nestled close I could see only the top of her dark brown head with a blue ribbon tied in a large bow. Whenever her ribbon got worn she asked me to get her another. "Wide and blue" she used to advise me. “And,” she added on one occasion, “blue is the Blessed Virgin's colour.”

I knew then that this was her tribute to the Blessed Virgin. And even during the last few weeks of her life when her pain was so great that she could not bear anything, not even the bedclothes, to touch her body, without hurting her, and when she was so weak that she could no longer say her rosaries, she always wore her big blue ribbon as a continued silent prayer to the Mother of God. (2)

Every Saturday before leaving I had to promise that I would come out again on the following Saturday, and this expectation helped to pass the long weary week for her. In a sanatorium, every day seems the same and all count of time is lost, except on a Sunday which is the saddest day of all as it reminds the patients that it is the day on which those in health go for walks and enjoy themselves.

I did not realise how much my visits meant to her until one Saturday I was unable to go out, and I sent her a note telling her so. But through some mistake, the note was not given to her until the following morning. All that Saturday afternoon she sat up in bed watching, always watching the long path that led to the sanatorium. At last she lay back and the patients in the ward were surprised, not knowing why she hid her face in the bedclothes. But if they looked carefully they would discover that she was crying. It would have broken her little heart if she thought there were no more visits and no more games, no more stories and no more happy times together. But when she got my note the following morning she understood, and then I had my first letter from her saying that she expected me out on the following Saturday, and that my note was one of the few she had ever got since coming to the sanatorium.

That gave me an idea, and immediately I had a letter written and posted to her. On the following Saturday a patient said to me, while Kathleen was not listening, "You will never understand what you have done for her. You would pity her every morning watching the nurse handing out letters and no letters for her until she got yours, and then she started bouncing up and down in the bed.” Every week after that she got a letter, and sometimes two, and then she was a happy little girl because she got more letters than any of the other patients.