When Sister Dorothy Anne passed, I was invited to be part of her funeral Mass.
It was such a kindness—unexpected and meaningful.
Even in her absence, she was still gathering people, still making space.
When I arrived, Sister Linda was the one who greeted me.
She had tended the chapel for years.
Steady. Quiet. Gracious.
Not someone I would’ve expected to show emotion in grand gestures—
but someone who had spent years working alongside people in deep suffering.
She carried things, and carried them well.
That day, she met me at the door and showed me where to sit.
She had saved a seat just for me.
And on that seat—
a card.
Simple. Beautiful.
Handwritten in perfect cursive.
Just like the many Sister Dorothy Anne had written over the years—tucked into envelopes, labeled with stickers, set aside with intention.
Seeing it broke something open in me.
It was such a small thing.
But in that moment, it felt like everything.
Sister Linda wasn’t trying to be sentimental.
She was simply honoring what Sister Dorothy Anne would have done.
Making sure I felt seen.
Making sure I had a place.
Grief is strange like that.
It’s not always the big emotions that undo you.
Sometimes it’s the handwritten card.
The empty seat that isn’t empty at all.
The feeling of being remembered in the middle of someone else’s loss.
And for a moment, I wasn’t just mourning Dorothy Anne.
I was feeling her presence—through the hands of someone else who had carried love quietly, for a very long time.
