A Change Of Habit

A CHANGE OF HABIT

BALBOA PRESS

Chapter One

Choosing my own clothing that day was the last decision I made for myself. I selected my blue and gray plaid skirt with a matching blue cashmere-like sweater for Sunday church.

After arriving home from Mass that morning in September, I had just enough time to fold the last of my new clothing into the black suitcase. We had purchased all the items on the nun checklist—even down to the industrial black shoes that I'd picked out with seven of my girlfriends on a shopping trip. The convent had sent a list of items to bring with me the day of entry—kind of like getting ready to go to summer convent camp.

While my high school girlfriends crammed trunks with new colorful fashions for their first year of college, I packed the nun list of drab, dire, black skirts and blouses for practical use, not adornment. I left my pink lacy bras and panties in the drawer, bringing instead the big white cotton granny-type underpants. Those and a few long-sleeved white blouses provided the only deviation from prescribed black. I pushed the black out of my head, assuring myself that the happiness the nuns exuded would make up for the dour lack of color.

No sooner had I latched the suitcase lid, than my sister Penny waltzed into my bedroom. With hangers of skirts draping over her arms, she aimed to claim my closet.

"Can't you wait just one more day? Get out of my room!" I shouted at the invader.

"Make me," she taunted, poking her boney finger in my arm to up the confrontation. "It's going to be my room soon, so you'd better get used to it."

"Out!" I hissed, grabbing her arm and leading her to the door. She kicked me. So I pounced on her, taking us both to the floor.

"What's going on here, you two? Break this up right now," Mom intervened. Despite the nun clothes folded in my suitcase, I displayed far from nun-like behavior at that moment. But Mom sided with me, most likely due to my imminent departure.

"I think it's time to go, Pat," Dad called up the stairs, a forced cheeriness in his voice. Glancing around my bedroom for the last time, I took visual snapshots of all the record albums, pictures of girlfriends on my bulletin board, my stuffed dog, and my closet jammed with a rainbow of color. With an inkling of regret, but knowing that the road to holiness was lined with sacrifice, I took my first step down the path to religious fulfillment by parting with my favorite things. I picked up the suitcase to face my final farewells to the family.

I tiptoed into Robbie's bedroom and kissed my three-month-old brother. I remembered that day when Dad came home from the hospital looking exhausted but delighted to say we finally had a baby brother. He and Mom had been raising kids for eighteen years, and they were just starting over with diapers again.

One by one, the family assembled in the living room. I hugged each one of my three sisters, even Penny. I muttered quick good-byes for fear of breaking into sobs. Nothing had equipped me to face the finality of leaving my family. My friends all marched off to college, knowing they could call or come home at the first holiday, but my future held no such promises. While the convent sat only twenty-five minutes across town, it might as well have been on a different planet.

Fulfilling my role as the responsible firstborn, I handed the reins of oldest sister to Penny: "Now you will be number one. Take good care of them." That did it. Both of us burst into tears knowing that our family unit would be forever changed.

To avoid prolonging the pain, I ran to join Mom and Dad in the car and huddled in the back seat. I buried my teary face in my arm propped on the window.

On the drive to the convent, no one spoke. Dad stared at the road ahead. Mom rubbed her hands together, fixing blank eyes out the passenger window. Over the past several weeks, my parents had grown quieter, oftentimes staring at me for no apparent reason. Dad's eyes held a tired, sad cast, while Mom seemed to run on super octane to avoid facing the fact that I had chosen to pursue a life married to God.

"Patty," Dad broke the stillness, looking in the rearview mirror at me. "You know how proud we are of you for doing this. If there's anything you need in there, just let us know." Words were at a premium. Dad, usually the more emotional one of my parents, kept himself in check. No one wanted to open the floodgates.

"I think I have everything I need," I managed to eke out without gushing into more tears. Mom, businesslike, nodded her head in agreement.

We turned into the big circular driveway of my all girls' Catholic high school and the convent. Arching elms graced the roadway, which swung first past the two-story high school. I peered at the building as if its familiarity could ease my tenseness. Voices from my high school days seemed to drift from its brick walls.

"Next," thundered Sister Mary Cleopha in my tenth grade algebra class. Up and down the aisles in round robin fashion, we sought out "X" as the unknown in algebra equations. As my turn approached, my stomach knotted into a familiar tangle. I flipped ahead through my steno notebook searching to find the exact problem I'd have to answer. "Oh shit, not this one," I whimpered when I saw it. My tongue swelled in my parched mouth as I began my oral performance. With shoulders hunched over my tablet, my eyes fastened onto the problem at hand, I read the formula: "3x plus 8 (9 subtract y)." I paused, stumbling at my stupid error. "3x plus," I began again in a weak, quavering voice, knowing that starting over was strictly forbidden.

"Dora Dumbhead," Sister Cleopha screamed, slamming the desk with her red plastic ruler, almost shattering it. "Do you want to be boiled in oil, hung by your thumbs, or shot at dawn?" I cowered in my desk. The other students tried to stifle grins, while their eyes empathized with me. No one escaped the wrath of Sister Mary Cleopha; she had targeted each of the girls in my class at one time or another. Her tirades appeared with such frequency that they became her trademark. I slunk lower in my seat, trying to make myself invisible as my head hung. Sister Cleopha set her teeth and locked her jaw. "Well, Dora, what's it going to be?" she demanded, pushing me to answer her question as she pounded her palm on the desk. Silence hung over the class like a stifling humid night. Tears welled into my eyes, as I sniffled in hopes of randomly choosing the correct answer. "Boiled in oil?" I whispered. I could almost feel the piercing glare of Sister Cleopha and picture orange flames shooting from her nostrils. "Skip!" she pronounced and dropped me from her mathematical clutches to move to her next victim. After school, I had run home to beg my father to let me drop out of Cleopha's class. Wincing on the couch, I faced Dad who sat upright looking straight at me. "Patty, our family has a strong faith. We believe that God will take care of us, in good times and dark days. God leads us through his representatives—the Pope, bishops, priests, and nuns." He spoke to me as if speaking to someone in elementary school, not in high school. "God wants me to suffer in Cleopha's class?" I glared at him. Dad's eyes softened with understanding, but he resumed his litany with steadfast determination to make me understand. "Our Pope is infallible in leading the church. The priests and nuns have a special calling to act as His ministers. We must obey them as we would obey God Himself. God speaks to us though his priests and nuns. They act in His behalf as His spokesmen." I soaked up his words. "I know this is difficult for you to accept right now," Dad attempted to comfort me. "Just accept God's way as shown through Sister Mary Cleopha. We owe obedience to the church and its representatives, even though it may be a challenge and we don't understand it sometimes. It's our responsibility as Catholics to follow the will of the church." "You are the oldest child," Dad continued, launching into a familiar tune—one that ran as a theme throughout my sixteen years. "You have to be responsible for your siblings. They look up to you to lead the way by always doing the right thing." "I know. I get it," I mumbled through tears. "I'll stick with the class." I wiped my salty face with the back of my hand. I would submit to the church and its representative nuns and priests. I would do what was necessary to please them all, for that meant pleasing God. As I stared at my high school building that served as the educational preparation for 400 of us girls, my eyes watered. Unlike my girlfriends with their carefree spirits, obedience ran in my mind like a tape recorder on continuous play. When my dad swung into his obedience lecture, I always knew the words before they spilled from his mouth: "We have high expectations for you, and we know that you will make us proud." The same words resonated through the Catholic homes of my friends, too, but the message seemed to hit me harder.

The words—laden with the weight of responsibility as the first-born—worked as they always did on me. They whittled me into an obedient daughter, ready to do the bidding of my father, the church, and God, pleasing everyone and making them proud.

As we drove under the elms, I remembered how they looked last winter, festooned with white toilet paper. Sister Constantine, our principal, had railed at us over the intercom demanding that the guilty party come forward to confess. Scowling to reinforce high behavior standards, she meted out punishments for minor infractions in demerits that culminated in detention and other punishments. Gossip said that one girl who committed a major infraction had to clean the lavatory with a toothbrush. I hadn't been responsible for the Charmin decorating the elm trees, but the principal's command carried religious power: "We know who did this, and we want to you to come forward." The thought of her words still shot a bolt of guilt through me as if I had.

I absorbed the guilt thrown out by the nuns. Their mantras rang in my head at every turn: "Don't be selfish. Always think of others' needs before your own. You can always be better. Aim for being holy. Strive for perfection." I wanted to please them, so I soaked up the guilt without question. They expected high standards that left no room for failure.

As the driveway curved further, the school slipped from my vision, and the convent rose giant by comparison. My stomach dropped to my feet. The convent stood, an immense, intimidating, towering mass of red brick with small uniform windows. No curtains, no color.

I had driven up this circle many times to school, but never given much thought to the massive convent. Most of it had been off-limits to students. We were only permitted to go in the convent chapel and downstairs auditorium via the closest entry from the high school.

The goings-on inside the convent held mystery. The black-draped nuns floated into school or the chapel in their habits, appearing legless, their ethereal gait hinting at serene joy. They gave nary an inkling to what they did inside. We never saw them go on a walk or eat.

Other than the chapel and auditorium, I had never before pierced the sacred veil of the convent. The double glass doors, while appearing airy and friendly on the outside, bore a reflective privacy coating blocking inquisitive eyes. Contrary to the familiar warmth of the chapel interior, the cold brick convent exterior looked more like a factory. A wave of panic rose as I realized that this formidable building would be my new home.

"Is it too late to change my mind?" the words flickered through me, threatening to unravel my composure. I wanted to ask to my parents if I could change my plans, but I kept silent. I had been called by God to be a nun. I couldn't say no to God or His special calling.

As Dad pulled up to the imposing convent entrance, I knew I couldn't reverse my decision. I couldn't disappoint my family, the nuns, or God. Dad retrieved my suitcase from the trunk. The three of us looked at the cement steps, hesitating for a brief moment, each of us knowing what walking up the steps meant. We climbed up the steps without a word, Mom and Dad flanking me to the double glass threshold. Setting the lone bag on the cement, Dad rang the bell. Its shrill sound reverberated down the empty convent corridors.

An unfamiliar nun opened the door. Anticipating the recognizable features of one of my high school teachers, I stepped back, jolted by the stranger.

"Come in," the sister offered a polite invitation. "We were expecting you. Come this way."

We walked through the doors. On the inside, a steel panel barred the door's middle to prevent anyone escaping from the inside. Bile rose in my stomach, which I squelched by looking ahead into the hall.

The nun led us down an unlit hallway into the stark receiving parlor. She deposited us in the parlor to wait. As she departed, she announced in a voice aloof with control that the Novice Mistress would soon join us.

Mom and Dad sat on one of the two couches. I took a seat on one of the adjacent four Queen Anne chairs. We looked around in spellbound silence. Wavering on the edge of sobs, I felt safety in the silence, unable to count on my voice to speak. To divert my attention, I inventoried the room.

The wooden floors shone like they had been spit-shined by a Navy crew. Two small glass-paned windows filtered light through lacy curtains, illuminating a well-worn oriental rug on the floor. The wall held paintings—one of the Annunciation of Mary and another showing her receiving the dead body of her Son after his death on the cross.

"Pretty somber," I thought, wondering what the rest of the convent looked like. I hoped the nunnery proved a little homier than this bleak room that could pass for an alcove in a museum, so silent, so eerie. My stomach churned at the contrast with our warm family home, where the walls cluttered with photos of our childhood and relatives.

Looking at my dad's resignation, I felt submission fall over me, too. "God picked me," I reminded myself. My mind flashed back almost two years earlier. Father Damian had framed my decision to be a nun during a three-day junior retreat in the chapel.

As Father Damian stood before us, robed in a long brown Franciscan tunic cinched by a simple white rope, he stared down at rows of identically clad girls. We appeared as little soldiers waiting for orders, clothed in the mandated, nondescript, blue school uniforms—serge skirts with matching plain sleeveless jackets, crisp clean white shirts with the approved collars, and blue or white hair ribbons. Jewelry was a no-no, except for religious medals. He'd already exhorted us with a long list of religious dos and don'ts. We were told to pray, obey God and His church, and sacrifice ourselves. He'd emphasized shunning mortal and venial sin, lecturing us on the evils of steady dating, which were punishable by expulsion from school. We inwardly rolled our eyes. On the third day, he readied to conclude the retreat. "My dear students in Christ," he began his standard sermon that dripped with routine. "Today we are going to explore the special calling from God, a vocation." I groaned inside at the annual lecture to think about being nuns. "A vocation is a very special gift from God Himself only bestowed upon a chosen few. These specially selected children of God are called to serve Him as a priest or nun," Father Damian prattled on. He swept his eyes across the mass of girls as he began to itemize what was expected: "First of all, a girl needs to have a committed love to God Almighty." I guffawed inside. No one would admit to not loving God. That would be stupid. Father Damian's second requirement—a deep devotion to the church—seemed equally as obvious. After all, our parents made sacrifices to send us to Catholic school where we learned about the church. We all went to Mass, where I loved hearing the lofty music and smelling the heady mix of flowers and incense—a heavenly perfume—that catapulted me into a prayerful silence with God.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from A CHANGE OF HABIT by Patty Ptak Kogutek Copyright © 2011 by Patty Ptak Kogutek. Excerpted by permission of BALBOA PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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