by Sr. Margaret Anne Meyer                            USA                      30.07.2024

Soon three months had flown by, and I felt very much at home conducting my assignments in my medical internship. I loved listening to the patients and trying to figure out what was wrong with them. The more you talked to them the more they would tell you of the underlying stress at home which often had a factor to play in their ailments.

Around this time a medical Registrar, Dr. Buckley, was assigned to work under Dr. Costello. He was a nice man and I felt relieved that I no longer had so much responsibility when a new medical emergency arrived. Sure enough, it happened. A woman with hypertensive encephalopathy came in and, in my excitement, I forgot to call Dr. Buckley and Miss Seery and I managed the patient in the initial stages. Then I remembered to call Dr. Buckley. Somehow, he understood what had happened and was delighted that the patient was doing so well. It never happened again that he was not called in a comparable situation.

Word came that Mother Mary would like to see me and assess me for Final Profession. I remember waiting to see her outside her office. Mother Mary asked me how I was feeling. I told her I felt very tired because I had been up with a patient all night who was hemorrhaging and trying to keep him alive with blood transfusions. Mother said, “this is your life, dear, do you want it?” I said,” Yes, Mother. “ This is all I remember of the interview and later, a message came that Sister Martha Collins and I were accepted for Final Profession which was to take place in a few weeks. We were to receive a 3-day Tridium about religious life from Sister Brigid Mc Donagh. We were delighted. Dom Winoc OSB was to give us a conference and be at the ceremony which would take place in our Convent Chapel because we were only six Sisters for Final Vows.

My mother and father were coming from New York to be with me on that special day. They had taken a vacation to Europe and stayed with friends living in Paris and Germany. They took in the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace on their way to Dublin. I remember the excitement of seeing them as they walked into the front hall. Dom Winoc was coming down the stairs at that time and when he saw my parents he said, “You are coming to the wedding of a Queen.” I was overjoyed.

The ceremony went well and many guests besides our parents attended the following reception. Sr. Martha Collins and I had invited the Professor of Surgery, Paddy Fitzgerald, to attend our Final Profession. He did so with his surgical registrar and looked pleased to be there with us. He told me I had done well in my exams. We only got pass or fail results. Some received honors like Maura and Martha. It was a real honor for us to have him with us. Sister Margaret Bede, who was also Finally Professed with us, had invited Mr. Frank Duff, a renowned Genito-urinary specialist. She was now a grandmother but in her younger days had cared for him as a child and the friendship remained. Some of the students in our class also came to add to our joy but most of all, Martha and I were blessed to have our parents come all the way from the USA. That evening, after our parents had returned to the hotel in Drogheda, we all celebrated the feast day of Mother Jude Walsh, the superior of Beechgrove. The 28th of October had been the feast of Christ the King at the time of First Profession, and the day but not the Feast was retained.

I was walking on air with happiness until I brought my parents around the hospital the next day. I found one elderly man dead in the mortuary. He had suffered a complication of leukemia. The other was a maternity patient whom Dr. Costello was called in on consultation to try and discover her unexplained fever. These patients were happy and smiling when I left them. It was a shock, but doctors have a lot to deal with; we can only do our best and can miss the long shot. I did not realize the effect the mortuary had on my father. What impressed him was the simple way the deceased were laid out in a Franciscan habit and buried the next day. He said he wanted it that way for himself. He was of German descent and so many of the Irish ways seemed to calm him down.

I enjoyed a few days with my parents and soon it was time for them to return home and for me to return to the Medical Ward. To me it was a time of profound thanksgiving for my vocation and for the Lord to bring me this far to complete medical studies and make Final Profession of Vows. I have much more to say but that will be another story.