The Strangest Year of My Life

My friends liked to tease that I was living in a “monastery.” We actually called it a “community,” but the word didn’t change the fact that I, a 22-year-old woman, was living with two older Lasallian Brothers– basically the male equivalent of nuns.

I was a Lasallian Volunteer, a recent college graduate who signed up to be placed in a community of Brothers and work in a local school. The Volunteers want to experience a new city and do something meaningful. The Brothers, who are mostly aging, see the Volunteers as a chance to pass on their knowledge and commitment to educating the young and poor.

The first thing you saw when you approached our Baltimore neighborhood was the prison. It overshadowed everything, including the struggling school and the row house where we lived. There were vacant lots and abandoned homes, a brick church from which emanated mysterious rock music, and a spattering of buildings advertising bail bonds. This was the life I had chosen for one year. This was the life the Brothers had chosen– every day of their lives.

Brother Greg entered religious life 71 years ago at the age of 14. He spent over a decade living and working in the Guatemalan countryside. When he spoke of it, sitting around our old kitchen table, he’d close his eyes and lean back in his chair and you could tell he was seeing the fields and mountains stretched out before him.

Brother Greg didn’t criticize my generation. He saw the best in us– despite burning questions like “Who is Justin Beiber?” and “What’s a twitter?”

He’d watch in awe as I uploaded songs to his mp3 player (he called a Y2K player) or taught him the wonders of the “undo” button. We’d sit for hours, talking sports, current affairs, politics. He did 90% of the talking, pounding the table for emphasis and interspersing his dialogue with belly laughter. He’d alarm visitors with stories of bailing the other volunteer and me out of jail, throwing a wink our way.

He’d get serious when he talked about close friends he had lost during the Guatemalan Civil War.

We talked about the first year of teaching. I told him about my family, my college friends, my worries for my own future. He told me about pranks they pulled as young Brothers, about people he met and loved in Guatemala and the other places he’d lived. There were stories I heard so often I knew them by heart.

To know Brother Greg is to love him. I’ll never forget sitting at that table in Baltimore, building a friendship in the most unexpected place.