Sister Serendipity

With August comes the birthday month for three women who have become a bit like sisters for me.  Biological sisters to one another, these three grew up on a farm in Iowa in a devoted Catholic family.  After high school, two of them entered the Sisters of St. Francis in Dubuque, and their eventual ministries took them to various places.  The third left home to train with an airline and ended up in New York, where she met her husband and started a family.  Whatever her reasons for leaving Iowa, she seems to have found her niche with her family on Long Island.

My first introduction to the Hosch sisters was Margie, Sister Margie, the middle of these three.  I met Margie in 2010 when I attended a women's retreat that she had developed and was leading in South Carolina.  As time went on, she and I started giving retreats together and became friends.  Next into my arena came Ann, the outlier in New York, who with Margie visited me at a condo I once owned at Sunset Beach.  Ann and I connected easily and enjoyed the commonality of adult children and young grandchildren.  A year or so later, I ventured with Margie to Iowa, where I met Joan, Sister Joan, and where we were joined by Ann and her husband Sal for a few days of fun, touring the area a little and playing Hand and Foot a lot.  Joan and I had quick immersion to each other during unexpected waiting time for Ann and Sal at the airport in Dubuque.

It's a bit of understatement to say these sisters are different from one another.  They don't really look alike, except for a quick smile or twinkle of an eye here and there.  Their personalities are distinctive, as well.

Joan, the eldest, is thoughtful and practical and an avid fan of sports and horses.  Her ministry was in education before she retired to Mount St. Francis, where for some years following her retirement she delighted the Sisters and staff with treats she made in her Sweet Shoppe.  Joan is comfortable behind the scenes.

Margie can be practical, too, but she leans more toward the imaginative and intuitive.  Poetry sometimes spills from her with the ease of one who might be giving a weather report.  Full of energy and vision, she resisted retiring from her ministry in South Carolina, but has now moved to Mount St. Francis, where she enjoys proximity to Joan but continues to adjust to diminished independence.

Ann struck me right off with her sense of humor.  We spent the first morning of her visit laughing almost nonstop at anecdotes from their growing up and various goings-on with her New York family and her son's law office, which she continues to manage.  It is not only Ann who has the sense of humor.  They all can be pretty funny.  And they are not without other similarities, primarily their basic values of reverence and care for life - and especially for one another.

Unlike these three, I grew up on a  farm in North Carolina in a Baptist family that could typically be found at the little country church nearby whenever the doors were open.  Prior to 2010, I had never known a Catholic personally, except one of my hall mates in my freshman year in college.  Who could have imagined a sisterhood with Ann, Margie, and Joan Hosch?   How does this happen?

Nothing we can plan or foresee, this connection seems a matter of openness to serendipitous moments and people, and trust in how these may evolve.  All of us are connected to our biological siblings by blood and, if we are lucky, also by spirit, that elusive inner part of us that we have difficulty explaining but are somehow able to recognize when it is touched or moved.  Often with our families, we take on baggage that gets in the way of connecting on a deeper level.  With the Hosch sisters, I recognized early on a kindredness of spirit that began and continues with simple openness and care.  We respect both our similarities and our differences and are somehow able to stay connected across the miles with limited contact.

For me, it is blessing that with their birthday month, I can be part of what these three remarkable women hold in common.  Here's wishing each of my serendipitous sisters a joyous birthday celebration:  Margie on the 10th,  Ann on the 13th, and Joan on the 20th!