The nun in charge of his floor was a tartar, tyrannizing the other nuns, the lay nurses, the patients. She burst into the bishop's ward as I sat by his bedside - and caught him eating some contraband candy. The nun went purple, and the tongue-lashing that followed was long, savage. The old man weathered the storm with closed eyes, but when the tartar finally stopped for breath, he opened them. Then the bishop skewered her with an icy stare that must have worked well, back in the classroom.
Every grave here raises a voice and a clutch of memories.
Here's Alphonsus the tailor, a gentle anarchist at heart. And here, Elzear Matthew, whose father had been Todd Lincoln's dancing master. And G. Francis, professor at La Salle College, who loved to slam and lock the classroom door in the face of late students. And, dear Lord, here's young Frank, dead far before his time in a car crash. I taught him chant when he was a novice.