Madre mia! A nun’s story

(First of two parts)

The whole of Friday I was so pleased with myself because I was able to stick to my diet of ginisang monggo at every meal – until I realized over the weekend that the monggo dish I had eaten all throughout had slivers of meat in it. No, I don’t find meat unhealthy because we also need it in order to have a balanced meal. But it was a no-meat Friday and I had always observed abstinence in this season of Lent.

This wouldn’t have happened with the helper I had before. She was aware of all the holy days in the Roman Catholic calendar and all the church rituals because she was a nun. Yes, a nun – a madre from a fast-vanishing religious order that had a mother home south of Manila. Okay, an ex-nun because she had officially left the convent before coming to my employ.

Friends refused to believe me at first – until they came over to my house and she told them herself.

After confirming the veracity of my story, the curious became even more bewildered with the unfolding of further background information about the nun-turned-helper – about how she had spent 12 years in a nunnery in Italy, how she speaks florid Italian and – for friends who love to stay over for dinner – how she specializes in Italian cuisine.

Behind her back, I would always get questions like: How and where did you find her?

"At the gym" — would be my casual retort.

"At the gym?! What was she doing there – lifting weights?" – that was always the follow-up question, often asked with disbelief.

"Yeah – doing a 200 lb. chest press," I would reply.

Actually, except for that part where she was supposed to be doing a 200 lb. chest press, I wasn’t lying about my having found her at the gym. The truth is, I really met her at the gym and she was there dressed in the old and traditional nun’s habit that would have met the approval of St. Teresa of Avila.

What was she doing at the gym? Well, her sister was the receptionist and she came over to visit.

A month after I met her, I happened to ask the gym receptionist if she knew anyone who would want to work as a housekeeper. The job wasn’t all that difficult because she only had to look after a halfway house. Back then, I was still dividing my time between this condo unit and the family home in La Vista and there were times when I’d even stay in Baguio.

Studying the job description, the gym receptionist promptly recommended her sister. Her sister-sister (what a pun!) was leaving the convent anyway and was in dire need of a job. I had guilt pangs at first because I felt like I was taking away someone who was in the Lord’s service, but this nun was really determined about giving up her vocation and I felt I could help her get on with life outside of the convent walls.

The first thing I thought I could do was to give her a decent place to stay. I actually had this unit that had a separate entrance from mine. I had two rooms: The smaller one I had reserved for the helper, while the bigger one I had originally intended to rent out to anyone interested so that I may have extra income to cover the monthly association dues. At first I was offering it to Juliana Palermo, except that the actress’ career suddenly picked up and she was able to afford a fancier place for herself.

When the ex-nun came to my service, however, I decided to give the entire place to her. She got to sleep in the bigger room, while the small one was converted into a laundry area. She also had a bathroom all to herself.

From Day One, I knew she was a gem. She was hardworking (without me telling her, she would scrub walls from floor to ceiling until the paint turned white), cheerful (she had great PR – if only they had a Miss Vatican pageant among nuns when she was in Italy, she would have won Miss Congeniality) and most important of all – honest. She never lied to me, confessed even her little faults and even assumed the fault of others. I guess that was the nun in her.

Among my friends, she was extremely popular because she could prepare a complete dinner: from appetizer to soup to salad – all the way to the main course (her pasta and pizza were fantastic). The only thing she was unable to do was dessert – but that was my fault because she was assigned to a halfway home and the complete kitchen equipment (oven, mixer and other baking needs) were in the other house.

The only problem with her was that she was restless. She always needed something to do and there wasn’t enough work to keep her busy because those dinners at home were few and far between. Putting a TV set in her own room didn’t ease her boredom. She needed somebody to talk to and I was the most unlikely candidate for that because I am basically a very quiet person who doesn’t say much. When I speak in public and even among friends, there is an effort on my part to do that because I know that is expected of me – being a talk show host.

Sometimes, when I would sleep in the halfway house, she would call me in the intercom and make conversation. I thought that was so thoughtful of her to be checking on me, but, frankly, I’d rather be left alone. In time – and this was so mean of me – I learned how to shut off the intercom (the control box was in my room) and she was unable to call me anymore.

One day, maybe out of sheer boredom, she knocked on my door while I was deep at work and asked me: "Sir, are you going to Italy?" Huh! Where did that come from? Somehow I knew she was just bored and wanted to make small talk.

To solve this problem, I agreed to let some of the runaway nuns from her convent stay with her at my place. It started with one person – and the agreement was for only a few months until they’ve found employment.

This one ex-nun eventually became two – and then three.

One of them found employment as a teacher in JASMS (the sister school of PWU). From Monday to Friday, she taught. The whole of Saturday, she took up her masters at Adamson U.

When this went on for months, I realized that I was already running a dormitory in my house. No, no, no. This can’t be. I value my privacy so much I didn’t relish that idea of bumping into my hallway people I hardly knew.

Since this ex-nun-turned-teacher was already earning, I thought it was time for her to leave and look for a place of her own. I wasn’t going to wait for her to finish her masters before I let her go. At the back of my mind, I was probably getting insecure over the fact that she was going to finish her masters before I got mine. So out she had to go. But hell, that was bloody because she was stubborn and insisted that she didn’t want to leave the place because she liked it there. I made my ex-nun-turned-helper take care of that and I believe they’re now the worst of enemies.

But there were two more left. One of them turned out to be pregnant and – madre mia! – you can just imagine the kind of headache I went through during that period of my life. (To be concluded)