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The woman I Knew as B

by Patti Birdsong

By October 17, 2022November 23rd, 2023No Comments

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I never knew “Catherine.” Not the official Catherine of now. Or the world class woman of yesterday.

My experience was of the courageous woman who had, in coming to Combermere, once more and for the final time, picked herself up and began life again.

A woman rich in the best of her Russian heritage, a woman who had followed the leading of her radiant and crucified Lord on a life’s journey filled with rejection and other suffering. A woman whose capacity for love seemed formed in the furnace of God’s own love. This woman I knew as “the B” … as “B.”

In her seventies when I first came to Madonna House, B was a large and creative presence in our daily lives. Sweet and perfect, no. Alive, persevering and engaged, yes. The memories I share here are fond recollections from this daily life with her.

***

B was not a skilled driver, and it was late winter. She and I were in a car together, and B was driving. We got caught on a patch of ice just before entering the road from the Madonna House yard. Zoom. Zo-o-o-o-o-o-om. B kept gunning the engine.

Sitting there with her, it seemed inevitable to me that when we finally burned through the ice, we would shoot across the highway at something near the speed of light. But, no. Soon we peacefully made the turn and lived to see another day.

***

“Tvit, Tvit. Come!” said B in her Russian accent. “Twit Twit” was the nickname she gave me because my last name is Birdsong. “We are going to pick mushrooms.” Basket over one arm and the now necessary cane in her other hand, we made our way through the forest. This cane, a recent addition to her life, proved to be an able mode of communication. Whenever I missed a mushroom-sighting, it poked me in the back!

***

On one occasion, near the end of a particularly long and dark winter, incredibly, we received a donation of live lobsters sufficient to feed the whole bunch of us!

The daily fare was temporarily suspended for this amazing gourmet event. Two staff, both of whom had grown up near the ocean, prepared the feast.

And though we were still a relatively small group, as we ate, the noise level of laughter and talking in the dining room soon rose to a phenomenal level.

Then into this loud, gourmandise event there appeared at the door a group of nuns dressed in full habit. B rose to receive them. But we, mostly not noticing their arrival, maintained the level of noise undiminished.

Having tried unsuccessfully several times to get our attention, B finally bellowed, “QUI—I—I—ET!” Startled, we did.

B introduced the nuns, welcomed them to her table, and proceeded to explain to them the massive gap between what they were witnessing and the Gospel-without-compromise daily life we were attempting to live.

***

Then there were times when her eyes would light with a beautiful radiance—a light shining from within that would occasionally break through.

***

But the memory of B that changed my life forever happened before I even knew there was a Madonna House.

While on vacation and passing time waiting for someone, I wandered into a room which I had absolutely no business to be in. Sitting on a window sill behind an audience, I saw a short, not svelte, beautiful Slavic-looking woman giving a talk.

Her hair was in a bun near the top of her head. She wore large, colorful earrings and her generous-size lips were done in brilliant pink lipstick. She was talking about God.

She was talking about God in a way I had never heard before. A God terribly close, alive, present. A Fire. A God who did not need our excuses or reasons for his apparent failures.

And then into this whirlwind of new information she said, “If you want to know about God, go put your face to the ground … and wait. And God will reveal himself to you.” This posture she proceeded to demonstrate … holding us in silence … waiting.

***

Those few years I had in Madonna House with B as a daily feature were for me a precious and marvelous gift. Hers was a life forged and shaped in Fire to the end, and I was given to share in a small portion of it, and I was mercifully changed forever.