She was no saint, but she looked like one

The Boston Globe

Beverly Beckham

A woman lives and dies out of the spotlight, 88 years on earth; and who, besides her family and friends, knows the mountains she's climbed, the fears she's faced, the impossible things she's accomplished? Without headlines or a song or a book or paparazzi to record the story, what happens to the story?

In words, Louise Nolan's story would describe a saint - selfless, loving, faithful, kind. But she wasn't a saint. Saints are stoic. Saints endure, carry on, play the hand life deals. Saints sacrifice.

Louise didn't sacrifice. She loved.

Pictures would lie, too, even the kind snapped at home, because in them you'd see the diminution of a woman, Louise growing from young and healthy to old and frail. You'd see loss, not gain; infirmity, not strength; a body failing, not a soul shining brighter with time.

I did not know her when she was young. I met her when she was in her 60s, when her husband was alive and her twin daughters were in their 40s.

A priest, a man who was the window through whom I saw God, told me that she was his window and that I had to meet her. The day he introduced me to her and her husband, Arthur, and daughters, Nancy and Sheila, all I could see was a too-small house with two big electric wheelchairs and two women my age who, though smiling, couldn't possibly be happy.

There was an aide with them - Joannie - and she seemed happy, too. Everyone seemed happy. Joyous, almost. Neighbors came and neighbors went, and there was laughter and joking and a constant refrain of "Have some coffee. Have some brownies!"

But I didn't believe the laughter, the happiness, the joy.

So when did I start to believe?

When Louise told the story? How she noticed one day at the playground when her girls were young that they weren't climbing the jungle gym the way their brother had. How over the years they went from running to walking to standing to crutches to a manual wheelchair to an electric wheelchair, to a massive wheelchair, muscular dystrophy decimating their bodies a little bit at a time.

How she never said, "Why them? Why me?" How she saw her daughters always as whole and perfect.

And after a time, because of Louise, I saw them this way, too.

Arthur was sick for a long while before he died. Louise and the girls took care of him at home, every inch of the house occupied by wheelchairs and hospital beds and aides coming and going.

And still it was a happy home.

I met Mother Teresa once. She walked into a room full of reporters, a small woman, hunched and wrinkled, sandals on her feet, an old navy blue sweater draped over her habit. And behind her entered Bernard Cardinal Law in his red robes and finery, accompanied by a half-dozen priests.

Yet all eyes were drawn to her.

Why? It's usually beauty that takes our breath away, the outside, not the inside, is our focus, isn't it? Good isn't what people laud in our culture.

Good. God. Energy. Soul. Light. Whatever its name, we're born with it. But it fades or burns out or gets buried so deep that you forget it's even there.

And then you meet Mother Teresa. And people like Louise.

And you remember.

My priest friend wound up in a wheelchair at the end of his life. He struggled with this.

He said, "I don't know how Nancy and Sheila have done it, every day of their lives."

They did it because of Louise, because she told her daughters that life was good and that God was good and that life owed them nothing. And she didn't just say these words. She lived them.

She didn't say I wish I had a bigger house. I wish we had money. I wish the girls could do this. I wish for that.

She embraced her life and was grateful for all the good people in it.

In the end, the twins took care of her. She died at home two weeks ago, and they were by her side.

No flags flew at half-mast, and no headlines noted her death. There was just a wake and a funeral Mass and a promise that life doesn't end, only changes.

Louise is all light now. A beacon, a soul shining, doing what she's always done, illuminating the dark. And showing the way.