We begin
a series of essays about the sisters of mercy and the patients of the Visiting
Nurse Service of St Elisabeth Convent. Each of them has their own remarkable
biography — their unique path that they would like to share.
The sisters and volunteers of the Visiting Nurse
Service do an extremely demanding and often invisible work on a daily basis:
they look after severely ill persons who have no one else to turn to.
Sister Joanna has been helping those in need since her
early years. She worked in a residential care facility for the elderly, in an
intensive care unit of a large hospital, and in a children’s surgery unit. She
came to our Convent fifteen years ago. First she worked as a painter and a
plasterer. Later, she dealt in church supplies and visited the ill. Finally,
she came to serve God in the Visiting Nurse Service. She learned about her own
illness — the 2nd stage of cancer — five years ago. Right now, her cancer is
progressing again. Having survived an extensive operation followed by
chemotherapy, she knows better than most other people what illness is like and
how to fight it.
Sister Joanna is an orphan. She does not remember
where she was born. She was raised and educated first in a Baby House in Pinsk,
then in an orphanage in Kobrin and a boarding school in Dyvin. She was known as
Snezhana at that time. She saw her biological mother for the first time at the
age of 25. Before that meeting, she had got to know her brother Sergey and her
sister Xenia, who had also been brought up in an orphanage. Xenia now works in
our Convent.
Sister Joanna told me her life story in an open and
calm manner, although I was about to cry during the entire interview. She says
that whenever she wants to recall her childhood, she thinks about Ivanovo
International Boarding School. It was the first place where she was called by
her name.
— No one had ever called my name in the previous
orphanages. They would kick me and mock me all the time. Generally, the
antagonism among the children was very cruel. Little by little, one would
inevitably become cruel, too. Might was right. It took me a while to learn that
I could treat people in a different manner, too. However, I have always liked
animals and I liked looking after small children.
When some representatives of the Red Cross were
visiting our orphanage in Ivanovo, our counsellors advised us to answer the
question “What would you like to be?” with “I’d like to become a doctor or a
nurse.” That answer could give orphans from Asia or Africa the only chance not
to return to their home countries riddled with hunger and poverty. I answered,
“I would like to look after the elderly or abandoned children.” Apparently, it
didn’t suffice, and I was sent back to Belarus.
No one was waiting for Snezhana in Belarus. She was
sent from the boarding school in Russia to the Red Cross branch in Brest. It
was in the 1990s. The Soviet Union collapsed. She did not find the Red Cross
branch in Brest.
— I spent a week at the railway station in Brest. I
was hungry. I did not become desperate, though. I was sitting with a woman,
opened my bag, and it was full of worms: all my food was spoiled. People had
been thinking that it was me, the homeless girl, who was reeking so badly. When
I started cleaning my bag, photos of my classmates and friends from the
boarding school fell out of it: black, white, and yellow faces. The woman was
curious and asked me who all those children were. She bought me a ticket to
Pinsk. That was how I came back to the local boarding school.
The school board took pity on Snezhana because she did
not have any rights in Belarus according to the law: as a former student of a
boarding school in Ivanovo she now was a Russian national. Anyway, she did not
have anywhere to go, anywhere to live, and anyone to ask for help either in
Russia or Belarus.
— Now I know how hard it is when you have no parents
around: no one cares about you; you don’t have money, you don’t have a home;
you cannot go to any college. I am grateful to the boarding school
administration for letting me stay in Pinsk. They gave me some food and checked
my health. A week later, Zinaida Chaikovskaya, the principal of Pinsk Boarding
School, told me, “Do you know that you have a sister? Would you like to get to
know her?”
Sister Joanna says that she was completely maladapted
to life. She did not even know how to peel potatoes. Her cycling coach in Pinsk
suggested her to go to a culinary college.
— Well, I can’t describe to you what I had to go
through… I was hit in the face for being an orphan during my first day in the
college. I didn’t fight back. I simply stood and looked that person straight in
the eye. I did not respond. Still, I was so freaked out because of that
bullying that I even wanted to jump under a train.
I graduated from the college. In fact, I was convinced
that I would get the 4th Grade. I bought flowers. They gave me the 2nd Grade,
the grade of a dishwasher, so to say. I had studied well but I was stupefied
during the exams, I couldn’t utter a single word. I just couldn’t. My surname
was in the very end of the list. I was so upset that I went to a pond and threw
the flowers into it.
Joanna had to leave the Pinsk boarding school after
her graduation from the college. She found relatives in Čavusy, MA.
— My relatives helped me at first. Then my uncle lost
his temper, “If that bastard comes here again, I’ll kill her with an axe!” I
had to run away.
The world is full of kind people. Joanna got to know
Taisia Makarova, a police officer, who helped her with Belarusian citizenship.
It was her who advised Joanna to go to the local residential care facility for
the elderly and ask for employment.
— When I came there, I saw a man peeling beans. I
asked him how I could find a job in the facility, “I don’t need money, I will
work for food.” The man turned out to be the director of the residential care
facility and employed me, first as a cook, and then as a hospital orderly. It
was there that I realised how physically robust I was.
It was there that I recalled my mum who had had a
mental illness. I started learning about mental disorders. It made me realise
that my mum wasn’t really guilty of abandoning us.
Raisa Strukova, the superintendent of the Čavusy
Residential Care Facility took Joanna into her family. Joanna helped her look
after Vitya, her youngest son. Today he is thirty. He has three children.
Joanna was a godmother to one of Vitya’s kids.
Raisa Strukova and I have remained friends even now.
Here is a gift I have prepared for her. She keeps calling me “daughter”.
Of course, I saw a lot while working as an orderly.
However, if this terrible life is the only life that you know of, when you have
no idea that a different life is possible, you won’t break down. Now I know
that there can be a different life, and if I had to return, I would certainly
break down. I keep thinking about it. Lord, don’t let me forget my past
dreadful condition and the basements I had to live in!
I decided to travel to Mahilioŭ. I simply went on the
road and hitched an ambulance car. On my way to Mahilioŭ, I was chatting with
the doctors. I told them about my life. One of the male doctors asked me:
— What skills do you have?
— I know how to look after people.
— Do you want a job tomorrow? But I’ll get you a job
only if you come to the regional hospital by 10 AM.
Sister Joanna came to the hospital on time. She got a
job in the intensive care unit. The male doctor in that ambulance turned out to
be the surgeon-in-chief of Mahilioŭ Regional Hospital. She says that it was in
the hospital that she learned literally everything she now knows.
— The ICU taught me everything I know. It was there
that I began thinking of God for the first time. Nurses kept telling me that I
was so strong. I thought, “Well, probably, if there is a God, He must have
given me this physical strength for a reason.” I could turn and wash a very
heavy person, do his or her bed, and do a massage at the same time. Sometimes
patients would be indignant: “I feel that it’s not Snezhana’s hands! Take your
hands off my body, it hurts.”
Then I was transferred to the children’s surgery unit
and spent a year working there. Suddenly, I fell seriously ill with pneumonia.
I was unconscious for ten days. When I came round, the world looked so new. I
was lying in my bed, looking out of my window, and thinking, “God, if You
exist, please make anyone bring me a guitar… I would like to play the guitar…”
Guess what? A friend of mine came to visit me on that day and brought me the
guitar. Unbelievable! So… is He real? It was my first sincere and childlike
prayer.
When Sister Joanna was discharged from the hospital,
she decided to go to Minsk. She came to Novinki by sheer accident. Now she
knows that the Lord had been leading her to the different life — a life of
service — but it looked like a sheer coincidence at that time.
— I visited the Convent for the first time in the
winter of 2002. I thought, “Wow! Where am I?” A guard called Nun Eupraxia. I
was surprised that it was a place where nuns lived. I knew absolutely nothing
about Orthodoxy, Christianity in general, to say nothing of monastics.
Nun Eupraxia introduced herself, and I heard her name
as “Europe Crying”. I thought, “It’s impossible! How can I call her Europe
Crying?” I asked her to write her name down for me on a sheet of paper.
(laughs)
I remember how I inquired, “What do you believe in?”
The nun replied, “I believe in the One God the Father, Pantocrator…” And I was
thinking, “How do I tell her that I can't understand anything she says?” I was
ashamed to admit that I was ignorant of things that only small children could
be ignorant of. I didn’t understand any of the words except for “I believe…”
Nun Eupraxia met Sister Joanna with love… She invited
her to stay in the Convent for a few days. She took Sister Joanna to a meeting
with Father Andrew.
— Father Andrew asked me, “Why do you want to be in
the Convent?” I paused to think for a moment and then responded, “I want to
become a better person.”
I was baptised in December. Nun Eupraxia was my
godmother. I started swallowing books after my baptism. I was amazed that there
are after-death temptations, sins, and confession. I learned about the significance
of Communion and how crucial it was to treat the Sacrament with extreme
attention, how challenging it was to repent and to make peace with others. I
was very curious about the life of nuns.
It was Father Andrew who influenced my determination to
make peace with my mother. I got to know her. Until that time, I had been
writing letters to her. Now Xenia and I visit her at least once a year. She is
somewhat childish. She likes my dog very much.
Later, I looked after Father Andrew’s mother and a schema-nun
from our Convent. I spent four years driving a long lorry. I transported goods
made in our Convent to the Urals. I have been to so many places! Then I began
fainting. Chronic fatigue. I thought it was due to overwork.
I learned that I had cancer on November 30, 2012. I
complained to my physician about pain and infirmity. She sent me to an
oncologist. They did a puncture.
“You have cancer, second stage,” the young oncologist
was afraid to announce this news to me. I smiled, thinking, “Oh, finally there
is something happening in my life!” I caught myself thinking that smiling
wasn’t really the most appropriate thing to do in that situation, so I told
her, “You know what? I’ll come back to you in a couple of months.” “What do you
mean? Your tumour is metastasising! You have three months left to live. If you
come here in a couple of months, we won’t be able to do anything!”
At last, it dawned on me how serious it truly was.
They performed an operation. The surgeon who operated on me was a staunch believer,
he prayed to Saint Luke of Crimea. He was called Alexander Alexandrovich… I
can’t remember his surname.
Regrettably, I could no longer drive long vehicles
after the operation and the chemotherapy. I was wondering what I could do, what
I was capable of. Looking after people, of course! That was how I began my work
in the Visiting Nurse Service.
We spent a lot of time talking with Sister Joanna
about troubles and sorrows, and about ways to deal with those who have been
diagnosed with something hardly curable (now I know that it isn’t a great idea
to say “Keep your chin up!”), as well as about the most essential things that
visiting nurses have to keep in mind.
— When you come to your patient, it may seem that you
are absolutely unaware of what to do with him or her. Bedsores, excrements,
foul smell — it’s unpleasant. However, when you approach your patient,
something happens: You somehow regain all your knowledge, find your strength
and proper words. Most significantly, your heart empathises with the pain of
the other person.
Certainly, knowledge and skills matter, too. Our
nurses have finished courses on The Basics of Visiting Nurse Care. They passed
exams and received certificates.
Forbearance is even more important than knowledge.
Your patients grow accustomed to you. They are so accustomed that they start
playing up. This is when your good nature can help you a lot.
People who deal with bedridden patients have a hard
time, too. They want to help but they are disoriented by fear: They don’t know
what to say… I believe you should listen to your heart. If the patient is ready
to talk like we are talking right now, you can even discuss death. You will
simply recognise that person’s attitude. If the patient feels detached and is
afraid to talk about it, you should sit with him and read a book. You shouldn’t
pity your patient, or else they will start feeling dispirited. You need to be
able to hear the other and to listen attentively. If he talks about flowers,
you should talk about flowers, too. If he starts talking about his illness, you
can talk about it, too.
It is critical to talk about repentance and to prepare
the patients for their death. My own illness teaches me a lot. Sometimes I feel
sad because of my sins. I recall what I used to do or what I haven’t managed to
repent of, for any number of reasons — and I feel miserable. At the same time,
I feel blessed. If I didn’t come to the Convent, if I went on living as I used
to, nothing would ever matter to me. My soul would surely perish. Given that I
know the alternative way of life, the better life, I am afraid of the fact that
many people live in sin and in darkness, oblivious to the fact that there can
be a better way to live this life.
Alas, it is not always true that every person who
requires care must be visited by social workers. Even if social workers do
visit bedridden patients, they provide only minimal assistance. Severely ill
and disabled people need patronage, i.e., regular care, but there is no such
service in Belarus officially. That’s why people, who are sometimes unable not
just to walk but even eat without assistance, remain isolated in their flats.
The problem is not just that some of them do not have relatives. It often happens
that people die alone in their flats even if they have relatives because no one
ever visits them.
That is why St Elisabeth Convent decided to establish
a Visiting Nurse Service in 2014.
This Service is supported solely with donations. Your
donations make it possible for us to aid more severely ill and poor people,
offer free doctors’ visits, teach the relatives how to look after their
bedridden family members, pay for transportation and the work of the sisters.
The nurses of the Visiting Nurse Service need your help to be able to look
after more people who need their assistance.
Interview
by Maria Kotova
January 15,
2018
St.
Elisabeth Convent
CONVERSATION