Snow Falls Softly...

The thoughts still with us from yesterday were the ones experienced while waiting for Sr. Tess as she visited her mother. There was a parlor across from the front door and hall. We sat down in a firm overstuffed chair after nodding our hellos to the three older ladies who were also using the parlor. I learned later the one liked to offer coffee to the passer-byers.

One of them had said that it had stopped snowing, then the other two without insulting the first explained that it was still snowing.  Then the one who had noticed the book I was reading got up to scout out if it weren't lunch time. She met three different people in the hall. One of them wondered out loud if lunch weren’t served at noon. Then one volunteered more positively, "Lunch is in 5 minutes."

Then she came back for her friends and they all wandered off. After what seemed like a pretty quick lunch, the lady who had read my book cover and another came back and sat on a bench closer to the door. The new lady made it known that she was the one to deliver internal mail (she knew the room number of someone who’d come up in a conversation with a visitor waiting for a cab).

It turned out that the two ladies who lived at the home were both retired nuns. The first floor was primarily for nuns and priests and the second floor was for lay people. One nun mentioned there would be ice cream served at 1:30, but then that seemed to be a confusion too, because the time wasn’t sticking in the mind of her friend.  The one with a short memory did recall that Vespers were at 4.

After a while of listening politely to the visitor discuss her Aunt, (the one she’d come to visit), the visitor’s cab came and the two nuns decided to leave as to prepare for the ice cream event.

Soon after another woman appeared in a wheel chair. I giggled to discover that she is 86 years old and smokes.

I went outdoors with her as she smoked, camels. She said she's smoked since the war.  We discussed the weather.  She prefered the spring when benches and friends came out to sit. Sister Tess came out and stood a moment to talk with the two of us.   

Sister said her name is Mary.  I heard the gentle snow fall.  I thought, "How pretty."

Picture - http://www.silentwords.com/Paint.html