I have not blogged for some time, but today I break my silence to offer a tribute to a dear teacher and friend, Sr. Maryla Farfour. Dig in; this is a long one.
**
Twenty-four years ago this August, I met a force of love who forever altered the trajectory of my life. I walked into her hot second-floor classroom, Room 206, during the first week of high school theology class at Bishop Hannan High School. I believe her introduction went something like this: “My name is Sister Maryla Farfour, IHM (with emphasis on the IHM part). F-A-R, F-O-U-R. I chose my religious name because ‘Mary’ for Mary and ‘la’ for music: Maryla-la-la!” She continued, “I’m from North Carolina, but I don’t have the accent anymore.” But, she did, and it was glorious!
 |
| Visiting Scranton with my friend Marilyn, who took this photo of Sr. Maryla and me. |
I was enthralled by this woman. She had thinning, wavy gray hair, big brown eyes, a smile that went on forever, and a presence that took up the whole room. As I share these memories, I see them in living color and hear her voice so clearly, a voice I had come to imitate very well over the years. These imitations I did were a real crowd-pleaser, always done in a spirit of love and flattery. Those who heard my version of Sr. Maryla often had a hard time keeping a straight face when they met her in real life. If she knew about these impressions when she was alive, she never let on—and she never shied away from saying anything. Her death on June 20, 2020, six days shy of her 97th birthday, hit me particularly hard. I had retired the impressions years ago; our relationship was actually much deeper than most people probably knew. Our inability at the moment to celebrate her life because of the pandemic leaves me bereft in a way I never imagined. But then again, no one is ever really prepared to face the grief that comes from losing someone so special, someone so influential.
Sr. Maryla was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, on June 26, 1923. Her parents gave her the name Rosette, but there was nothing diminutive about her or her spirit. She was proud to be Lebanese, a fact she never shied away from sharing with all of us. I heard one time at a large meeting with other sisters that she misspoke and told everyone that she understood what it was like to be discriminated against because she was a lesbian. Or Lebanese, she corrected herself! I’m sure there were some chuckles in the room, and she, too, could laugh at herself. That is a second-hand story, though. My own stories about her, many of which involved high school pals, bring me a special kind of joy that is difficult to capture in the printed word, so full of life that she was, and so full of accent that never really left her.
I don’t think any of us knew how old Sr. Maryla was. If we did, we might have cut her more slack in the classroom. (In fact, I didn’t know until after I graduated high school and came across her birthdate while working for the sisters in their business office. I was stunned.) I remember watching a video in class one afternoon on a 19-inch television mounted in the corner of the room when we noticed that Sr. Maryla had started to doze off at her desk. Her head bobbed and her eyelids fluttered. Some of the kids decided to throw spitballs her way. This went on for a little while until she woke up and really didn’t miss a beat (I wonder how many times she had seen said video). At the time, I did not know that she was already in her early-to-mid-70s, teaching a full load of classes, moderating an active student organization, and being involved in countless other projects in the community, such as the Marywood Seminary Alumnae Association, for which she was the moderator. She attended Golden Lancer basketball games and cheered our athletes in the stands and at pep rallies, yelling, “Raise the roof!”
She played the organ at the cathedral across the street and the bishop was her close, personal friend. Many years after she retired and he was retired, I was visiting her at Our Lady of Peace, the sisters’ retirement home. I asked about the bishop, for whom I had often served Mass, and she just casually picked up the phone and dialed Cliff’s number by memory and said, “Hey, guess who’s here and wants to say hello?” They chatted like old friends. I was in awe that she could do this.
In the classroom, we seemed to stray at times from the prescribed curriculum in the textbook. She sometimes took our classes to the chapel, where she would teach us to pray the rosary during October (Mary’s month) or practice songs for an upcoming Mass. As a music teacher, Sr. Maryla loved this part of class the best, while I and many others dreaded it. She loved to sit at the organ and play her heart out. I am not musical at all, but even today, I always try to hold my hymnal the way she taught us, slightly inclined and in front so you could project. She always emphasized the projection part to a group of teenagers who didn’t want to sing. In the classroom, we sang, too, or chanted. She wrote the names of the twelve apostles in her signature loopy handwriting on the side board, got out the yard stick, and we sang along with her Southern accent as she snapped her fingers to the beat: “Peter, Andrew, James, and John; Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Tom; Simon, James, Jude, and Judas show the twelve apostles to us!” Then she would say, “OK, now louder and faster, too!” until it became lodged in our heads for eternity.
Not only was I in her theology class freshman year, but I was also in her theology class sophomore year. In my first year, she convinced me and some of my other friends to join the Christian Life Community (CLC), where I met some of my best friends in high school. When she died, these were some of the first people I reached out to. Who else could understand the profundity of the loss? CLC was a term that the Jesuits used for their small Christian communities, but for us it was a club devoted to service rather than small group sharing. We also represented the school at major liturgies at St. Peter’s Cathedral, such as the Respect Life Mass and others like it. Many of us found our photographs in the diocesan newspaper, holding banners and such. It was an active organization, and many times, members were asked to report to Room 206 during homeroom or after school to give an updated on the status of a task. For some students, hearing their name over the loudspeaker induced dread. Sr. Maryla was joyful and exuberant, but she had high expectations of her students and sometimes her enthusiasm for projects far exceeded ours. She loved to celebrate any and all holidays, so parties were a fixture of our club’s activities. She could be particular about things, though. One time for a party we brought food and spread it out on the cafeteria tables after school. She entered the cafeteria, looked at the food, and declared, “That isn’t enough food!” We thought our chips and salsa and cookies were plenty for the occasion, but we teenagers didn’t understand the importance of having an abundance at table. A bit crushed by the rebuke, we never made that mistake again.
Sometimes our CLC duties involved taking Sr. Maryla to various places in downtown Scranton. She didn’t drive, and many of my friends shuttled her to Boscov’s, the eye doctor, and other places. In those days, before VIRTUS and safe environment training were mandatory, you could do this with your teachers. This is not to say that no one raised an eyebrow; some teachers rolled their eyes (she was not everyone’s cup of tea, I’m sure), but Sr. Maryla could pretty much convince a high school student to do anything. Perhaps we were motivated by guilt, but I think many of us were good kids who wanted to help (and wanted to stay in her good graces). Why she trusted brand new drivers, I shall never know! Driving her meant that it was less likely that she’d bust you for smoking outside the bus stop at the Ritz Theatre as she walked to and from her destination down the block.
In hindsight, one of the qualities I admired most in Sr. Maryla was that she truly marched to her own beat and never lost that vivaciousness that she had as a young adult. (If you have not read her vocation story, written in her own words, I highly recommend it. I came across it the other day, and while reading it, realized why she did many of the things that she did, even in her later years.) Sr. Maryla was particularly fond of our friend Maria’s mom, and much to Maria’s chagrin, her mom invited Sr. Maryla to their home in the country. Maria insisted that my friend Lauren and I join them for the day, so we all piled in the car and drove 45 minutes north to rural Susquehanna County, where we enjoyed a spread of food, which we three tried not to spit out every time our teacher said something that made us giggle. To escape the tension, Maria suggested we, meaning Lauren and I, go for a ride on her four-wheeler across their expansive property. When we got back in the house, Sr. Maryla said she was jealous and insisted on taking a ride, too. On a four-wheeler. In a skirt. She was not dressed for the occasion, and the late spring day had turned gray and chilly so she didn’t have proper outdoor attire. In a coat two sizes too small (Maria’s family was all very petite), Sr. Maryla got on the back of an ATV and rode across the grass with Maria, shrieking with delight. At the time, I venture she was about 75 years old. She loved every minute of it, and we did, too. On the way back to Scranton, Sr. Maryla asked Maria’s mom in a “whisper,” if we could stop at the Bon-Ton where she worked to pick up a new girdle. Three girls in the history of the world never worked so hard to not explode from laughter in the backseat of a compact Mazda sedan. Sr. Maryla was completely herself, and we had legendary stories to tell our friends.
 |
| "Mary Lynn, let's take a selfie!" She was always up on trends in pop culture. |
Today, as news has spread of Sr. Maryla’s death, friends have messaged me and said, “You’re the first one I thought of when I saw the news.” To many, Sr. Maryla was indeed legendary and certainly larger than life in many ways. She was and certainly is all of that to me, too, but I struggle to capture just how influential she was. As a high school student, I was smart but awkward. I was not sure where I fit in, but joining CLC gave me a chance to blossom, to explore my faith, and to develop as a leader within the school and later within the diocese through youth retreats. While there were other IHMs in the school, Sr. Maryla lived and breathed the community’s charism most authentically, and I found it intoxicating.
One time, I was called to Room 206 over the loudspeaker, so she could ask me, “Mary Lynn, have you ever thought about being a sister?” Stunned, I didn’t know what to say. I don’t remember my response, but the question has never quite disappeared. I ended up going to Marywood University, worked for the IHM Sisters as a college student, and got involved with various projects that they sponsored. I ended up going on to graduate school for pastoral ministry at the University of Dayton and served as a campus minister for over a decade. Once, like Sr. Maryla, I told my students there wasn’t enough food at an event. I laughed when I realized what I said. In October, I became an IHM associate, a non-vowed member of the community. Even though I’ve met other communities of sisters through ministry and young adult groups, I know IHM will always be home, due in large part to the influence Sr. Maryla had on me as an impressionable 14-year-old. She bled blue and white, for the Tar Heels and for her community. That she died late on the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is not lost on me. God was finally ready to welcome home the force of love he created.
 |
| Reunited with our dear teacher at Savory Maza in West Scranton. |
A few years ago, two high school friends and I took Sr. Maryla out for a lunch at a family-owned Lebanese restaurant on the west side of town. She loved catching up with us, and we got to enjoy her company as adults. She was so interested in us, our families, and what we were doing. On the way back to the convent, she asked me to stop at CVS. She sent me in with her wallet and asked me to buy her roll-on deodorant that was on sale. I laughed; some things never change. My friends had ditched me, knowing full well what a trip to CVS would entail. Recently, some time had passed since I had visited Sr. Maryla. We talked on the phone at Christmas, but because of my travel schedule, I was not able to visit her as I usually did. I regret not calling her during the pandemic, but I think she knows that I loved and still love her very much. What would I have said if I knew it would be the last time we talked? I have one saved voicemail from her from January 1, 2019. She was enthusiastic, but also slightly scolding because I had come to visit her during Mass, and she wasn’t available. I had forgotten about that misstep of mine. She doesn’t linger on that in the message, though, instead praising me for the homemade photo cards I had shared with her as a Christmas gift. “You’re getting to be a real pro,” she said, with such great love, affection, and admiration. Her voice is still with me, on my voicemail, and more importantly, inside me.
Sing with the angels, dear friend.
P.S. The voicemail is from January 1, 2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment