Monday, October 10, 2016

Three Nuns in a Basket (a short story)

Sometimes fate has a hand in what is really happening, and we don’t catch on to it until it takes place, after the fact. Thus, ‘Three Nuns in a Basket,’ is such a case.
       It was on a Sunday October 9th, 2016, three young nuns, one Sister S., twenty-five years old, Sister B., twenty-three years old, and Sister C., twenty-two, came over to my house for a late birthday lunch, I had just turned 69-years old, two days prior.
       After we had a good lunch at my home, and hot coffee, and root beer floats, Sister, B., started telling about how after 21-years, her family that had been separated, found one another. Often times this happens in Peru, especially during the time of the terrorists (back in the mid-1990s), many people got killed, separated, and divided. Then suddenly sister C., comes out and says: “I saw my mother once, in 21-years of my life, never again” you could see it in her sad eyes, but she inferred she held no grudges. Then came Sister S., she was in an  orphanage for three years, and nuns took her out raised her, and well, that is her story; all a tinge sad but they made it.  Nevertheless, the irony is this: I could identify with all three, I explained to them, “Sister B., my family—after 52-years of separation, discovered their long lost daughter, which would be my mother’s sister, back in 1985. Separated at an orphanage in the 1920s…” Then I went on to tell Sister C., “I’ve only seen my father once in my lifetime, and it was faded at best, and it was only for a few minutes at a distance,” to me that was the second coincidence.  And then I looked Sister S., and said to her, “I was on a foster farm for three years with my brother which was until my mother could put together enough money and get an apartment for us two boys, isn’t it peculiar, I can identify with all three you.” (A statement-question, if at all a question…)
       Then I got up, and brought out some apples for all of my guests to eat and ponder on, and I told myself in secret thought, there was more to this gathering than meets the eye! (Hopefully, no one was feeling sorry for themselves, because we were all made stronger and better for who can feel the pain of others, without the hurt themselves.)


#1172/ October 10, 2016