Someone asked me a question a few weeks ago, and I pondered over it for a while before I could give an honest answer. The question was “Who in your life has influenced you the most”? At 46 years of age, there have been a lot of people that have influenced and encouraged me since I came to exist. I have survived cancer twice, my family has encountered tragedy after tragedy. During all my life the person that influenced me the most was a woman who taught me in grade six at Christ The King School in Rushoon Newfoundland. 1980-1981. I remember her soft spoken demeanor, she had a friend in Ontario who went to hockey games and would send Sister Juanita hockey pucks and other hockey paraphernalia. All the boys and some of the girls in class would cry out for it. Ontario seemed like a million worlds away and most of the students had never been off the Burin Peninsula.
The previous year in grade five my grades started to decline greatly. It was a rough year for me emotionally, spiritually, socially. By the time I entered grade six I was almost a empty shell of a child. Tall, skinny and certainly not that bright. I had no desire to learn, no desire to exist. My first year in grade six I was withdrawn and closed, I didn’t pay attention and my mind wandered.
Sister Juanita spent time explaining things, I think she knew my childhood was missing its light and wonder. I remember a story she read in class, the velveteen rabbit. a story she told with such emotion. I can remember hanging on every word and how disappointed I was when the class bell rang. She helped me believe that even when times are dark, when secrets take your breath that love can still exist. She helped me believe that I was deserving of love during a time when I felt so very worthless.
In all the years since I’ve thought about Sister Juanita many many times. One of the first books I ever read to my own children was “The Velveteen Rabbit”. I don’t know if she ever knew the impact she had on my life, so when asked this question a few weeks ago, I decided to see if I could find her to at least tell her. Maybe she would never remember the tall skinny girl from Parker’s Cove, but I was filled with a desire to tell her she was never forgotten to me.
When I started I didn’t even know that her last name was Broderick, but a former teacher told me. They told me that she had left Newfoundland back in the 80s and had moved out west to British Columbia. That was all the information I had, but it was something.
I am not 100% if this obituary is Sister Juanita’s, maybe they are one and the same but I cried when I found it, cried that she would never know how grateful, how blessed, how much she changed me, changed my life. I grew up a loving, caring and spiritual person…despite my tragedies, heartaches and pain. Because of her guidance and caring loving nature, I can be proud of the woman I turned out to be.
To the family of Juanita Broderick, my deepest heartfelt condolences. She will be remembered forever.
