By Sr. Andrea Koverman, SC
Federation Temporary Professed
Today is International
Midwives Day! Did you ever think about how much in common we religious sisters
have with midwives? If you are a fan of the popular television show, Call the Midwife, you no
doubt have seen the shared mission of bringing love to birth in the world
played out in episode after episode. Like Sister Julienne who says in one of my
favorite scenes, “Let’s see what love can do,” women religious are called to be
the loving presence of God in whatever circumstance they find themselves in,
and to witness what that love can do for the people whom we serve.
I was very surprised
recently to be asked to be on a panel of parents sharing their unique
experiences of parenting as part of the Cincinnati Storytellers series
organized and hosted by our local newspaper, The Cincinnati Enquirer. One of
the reporters, Mark Curnutte, has covered many of the events hosted by the
Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center, where I am a program manager, and we
have had the opportunity to share some of our personal journeys and experiences
with each other. Even so, I was surprised when he called and asked me to be on
the panel of storytellers sharing unique experiences of parenting. There was a
blind man, a same-sex couple, a single mother, a single father, a woman whose
husband struggled with serious illness as she became pregnant, and me. A nun.
Never married, no children. He explained
that I came to mind as soon as he heard the topic for the panel because of the
many stories I had told him about the students I taught. Though I have no
children of my own, he said that I had mothered and helped raise hundreds of children
during my years of teaching and continued to nurture people as a sister, and he
wanted people to hear that story, too.
On this International
Midwifery Day, I thought I’d share the story I told them with all of you. I
hope you will see the connections between midwives and those of us who don’t
deliver babies, or have our own children but dedicate ourselves to bringing
love into the world, nurturing the people we encounter who are most vulnerable
and in need of “mothering.”
Here is what I shared with
the audience:
I know you all are surprised
to see me up here as part of a panel on parenting since I’m a Catholic sister--a
nun, because even if you know little else about Catholic nuns, you know that we
make a solemn promise not to engage in the activities that produce a baby!
But, sisters are also called
to be life bearers, to nurture and love not children we bring into the world,
but the wider circle of all God’s children--and in particular those who are in
most need of it. How I came to realize that I had a call for that kind of love
is my story.
It was a gradual
realization, and I started out like most little girls assuming that I’d grow up
and have kids--and I wanted bunches and bunches of them! But looking back, I
remember that I always preferred playing school or Sacagawea to playing house.
I found that game kind of boring and wanted something with a mission or some
adventure.
The first time I ever
considered that I might not follow the typical trajectory of marriage and
children was when I was in the fourth grade. I was at the Sisters of Charity
Motherhouse in Cincinnati where two of my great aunts lived. We had our summer
family picnics there because the aunts were told old to go elsewhere. I loved
going to the “mount” and was fascinated by all the ancient-looking but
sweet-as-pie old sisters. As I was running around in a game of tag with my
siblings, one of the aunts, ancient and growing more and more senile herself,
reached out and stopped me in my tracks. I stood respectfully in front of her,
red-faced and sweaty with my messy long braids and skinned knees that let
everyone know what a tomboy I was. I expected her to tell me to stop running
around or some such thing, but instead she took my hand and leaned forward from
her wheel chair. She looked closely into my face and said, “Darling, I just want
to welcome you to the community and tell you not to worry about a thing. You’re
going to make a fine, fine sister!” I should have been surprised by what she
said, but somehow I wasn’t. It resonated somewhere deep inside me, and it just
felt right and true. So I turned to the rest of my family and announced, “Hey!
Aunt Mamie says I’m going to be a nun!”
My proclamation was followed by a round of hearty laughter, which was
more confusing than what Aunt Mamie had said. What was so funny?
Through all the years of
Catholic schooling that followed, and despite the fact that I had two
additional sister relatives, no one ever brought the topic of religious life up
to me again. I assumed that Aunt Mamie was wrong in thinking I’d make a good
nun, or simply that people just weren’t doing that anymore and let go of the
idea.
What I didn’t let go of was my
love of children and my desire to help them--especially the ones who were
struggling. I still felt called to mission and adventure and dreamed of joining
the Peace Corps, but couldn’t afford to. I got a special education degree from
Miami University and landed a teaching job in a little town in South Carolina
called Beaufort. I realized on my first day of school, that this was God’s
answer to my Peace Corps prayer and I didn’t need to leave the country to get
it. When I got to school on St. Helena Island that first day, I found that I
couldn’t understand a word the children were saying. It was absolutely a
foreign language. I came to find out that I had been assigned to teach in a
school within the Gullah community. I had never heard of that before, and
quickly had to educate myself about this unique and amazing part of our
country.
The Gullah people are direct
descendants of people who were brought to America as slaves from Africa. They
were intentionally selected from countries that did not share a common language
to reduce the threat of revolt on the plantations. Over the years, the people
developed their own unique language that was a compilation of individual languages mixed with English words. When they were emancipated, they were
allowed to purchase the land on the Sea Islands, off the mainland of Beaufort.
The intercostal waterway provided a natural barrier between the white community
and the African American Community. They remained isolated for almost a hundred
years before bridges to the islands were built, which allowed their language
culture to remain in tact.
But years of isolation and
lack of access to quality health care, education and employment resulted in
many of them living in really impoverished conditions. It was shocking for me
to see people living without electricity or running water, and I found it hard
to remember that I was in my own country. I never felt so needed and I was
determined that I was going to be a good teacher and to give them every chance
in life that I could.
The room I taught in came
equipped with exactly one partial piece of chalk. That’s it, so we were
starting from scratch. The children were in grades kindergarten to six, but
many of the older children had been retained multiple times and were much older
than expected. They had a range of types and severities of learning disabilities
and came to me for special instruction from one to three periods a day. I had
learned that the best way to teach children is to figure out how they learn,
so we spent a lot of time getting to know each other. I asked lots of questions
and as they opened up to me and shared what their lives were like and what they
dreamed of, they became comfortable with me and learned to trust me. We created
a community in which they felt valued and appreciated, and loved. And I really
did love them. I was excited to see them each day and felt so privileged to be
with them. Despite the hard lives they were living, they were full of
enthusiasm, energy and hope. I saw in them the potential that they had and the
innate goodness and dignity that all people are afforded simply by being created
in God’s image.
My students felt loved, and
they began to flourish. By the middle of the year, I knew they had made
progress, but I was a nervous wreck as the first parent-teacher conferences
came up. I wondered whether I had taught them well enough or fast enough to
make their parents happy. I’ll never forget my first conference. I could hear one
of my first grade students named Leona dragging her mother down the hall
towards my room. She was saying, “Come on, Mama! Come on, Mama!" When they
burst through the door, Leona said, “See Mama, see my white teacher? I told you
she was white!” I didn’t quite know what to say standing there in all my
whiteness except, “Hello, I’m Andrea Koverman, Leona’s teacher. And I guess you
can see she was right, I am white.” She laughed and we sat down and began to
talk about how much progress Leona had made. Leona leaned up against me while I
talked about her with a sweet smile on her face. I was taken aback when her
mother began to cry and said, “Miss Koverman, they told me my girl was retarded
and she wasn’t never going to be able to do nothing.” I was shocked and didn’t
know what to say. I couldn’t believe that someone had already put such cruel
limitations on such a limitless possibility of a child. I said, “Well, I don’t
pay too much attention to what the papers say, and you can see that they are
wrong about Leona. She can do and be whatever she wants to be.”
As the year went on and the
students continued to improve, I began to have other teachers come to visit my
room on their breaks. I came to understand that my students were considered to
be the “bad” kids by the rest of the school. But in my room, they weren’t bad.
Like a child who wants to please their parents who love them, my students did
not want to disappoint me and they did their best to do whatever I asked.
Children with disabilities will often distract others from noticing that by
misbehaving, but in our room where they felt safe and accepted, they didn’t
need to. Because they were so eager to come each day, I think their regular
teachers thought I just let them play. But when they saw them working, they
wanted to know what my secret was. They couldn’t believe that the same students
who gave them such a hard time were working so hard for me. It took me quite a
while to figure out the answer to that question because there wasn’t a secret
method or teaching strategy that I was using. The “secret” was simply that I
loved my students and they knew it. I only grew more passionate about teaching
each year that I did it. I believe education is a justice issue and the only
real leveler of the playing field. Despite the poverty and other challenges
they had, I was devoted to making sure my students were able to be as
successful as any other students were.
I had a couple of close
calls with my versions of Prince Charming or in my case, Captain Von Trapp, but
the little seed that my Aunt Mamie had planted so long ago kept reminding me
that my passion lie somewhere else. With all the pressure from family and
friends, it was a scary and sometimes really hard decision not to get married
and have kids, but I’m glad that I was able to follow my heart not to. When I
was reintroduced to the Sisters of Charity as an adult, I found a whole
community of women who were called to love in this broad inclusive way, and so
I joined them.
I am now a program manager
at the Intercommunity Justice and Peace
Center where we educate and advocate for peace, focusing on ending the
death penalty and human trafficking, immigration reform, and nonviolence
initiatives. Though I am not teaching children anymore, I am still teaching and
hopefully helping people understand that we are all sister and brother to one
another and that our circle of love needs to include the most vulnerable and
marginalized people in our society.
When people who don’t know
I’m a sister ask like they usually do, “Do you have kids?” I feel very blessed
and privileged to be able to say, “Not my own, but yes, I have had many.” And I
have seen what love can do.
