1976 " Mother in the hospital" Reflections by Katherine Punch as she sat with her.

   I sit here at Mother's bedside in the hospital, listening to her quiet breathing.The sound is the gentle, steady hum of the oxygen to keep her alive.

   She is ninety-six years old, but I think of the little girl who was sitting near the fire in the tiny cabin in Castlecomer, or running on the short path between school and church and home; or out in the dew drenched morning searching for mushrooms. When playing, she always walked with caution, on the dark crossroads where the soldiers were buried; or watched for the fairies that lifted the hay on the breeze from one field to another.

   She always had her long hair blowing behind her, after having had them tied up all the day in the school. She would fly out of the school yard and let her hair down as she ran, hurrying to get home. I think of the girl, 19 years old, as the governess of the Baroness children, and rolling with them down the grassy slopes in a park in Belgium. She was always hurrying to get home. In the last weeks before she was brought to the hospital she was searching and searching for the way home, searching the roads for her mother who needed her. She was hurrying either to her home in Ireland, or to heaven-- perhaps a mixture of both.

   She is quiet now. The struggle is over. Soon, soon she will go home. I think of her influence on all of us. I hear her voice, as I heard it so often:"No matter what happens. It will be for the best."

   I recall my first memory of Mother. I am in a church in Lethbridge with Mother. I am walking along the kneeling benches, in and out, into another pew. I remember saying "I love the Sacred Heart". She must have taught it to me. I was less than four years old in Lethbridge. I remember playing on a rocking horse while she was near. I remember being on a stairway while she stood in the front hail waiting while my father arrived. In Ottawa, again it is a church: the Franciscan Church in Hindenburg. I remember being there because it had a grotto.

Every once in a while, lying in the bed in the hospital, Mother raises her left arm as if she is reaching and trying to touch something.I wonder what road she is traveling to-night?

   I remember an evening on 157 Third Avenue in Ottawa, when mother and father were putting up the Christmas tree. Frank and I had been put to bed, but we were on the top of the stairs where they could not see us. They were arguing where the dolls and other toys should be put under the tree. I lost Santa Claus that evening.More memories are associated with churches: kneeling in the chapel of Precious Blood Convent on Echo Drive, and how we walked from one church to another on Holy Thursday before Easter.We were also often walking with Mother to keep us from bothering Granny, walking along Bank Street and in Lansdowne Park. I remember standing with her at the cenotaph near the Parliament Buildings.

   She taught us how to skate on the double-runners on our own rink in the yard. She couldn't skate; she just pushed a chair in front of her, while she helped us.She took me one day over to our church on the children's rink. I remember Mother's indignation when Father Bambrick said I was too big to wear pullovers. I must have been only four, because I started at school at five years. However I never wore the pullovers again: they didn't have a skirt.

   I remember Eddy doing homework at the dining-room table. She helped him often. Once they worked together on Ireland. Eddy had to give a talk at school on St. Patrick and he got the First Prize. I remember Mother had us in Granny's room saying the Rosary and the litany of the Blessed Virgin, and the Thirty Days prayer. What a strong, unwavering faith in God! She often said: "Not my will, Oh heavenly Father, but Thine be done." I never remember her just sitting around. She was often in the kitchen doing cooking, in the flower borders, digging and planting.

   I remember Mother with baby Mary in her arms. I remember Mother lying in her bed upstairs, after Mary was born. Aunt Kate was doing housekeeping for us until Mother was well again.

   I remember driving with Dad in the open Dodge car --one that had no glass windows. I remember Mother sitting in the back seat and getting stung by a bee. She yelled and flung her arms around Dad's neck: “Hell, woman, do you want to kill us all!"

   I remember her washing the clothes in a wooden tub in the yard. I remember her talking to the old t Rag-pickers who had a horse and wagon. I remember her feeding the tramps. She sat them on the side porch on Thornton Street. I remember going to Mass early on Saint Patrick's Day, and walking through the puddles with ice on them. I remember her buying for me a pair of patent shoes, with square toes and silver buckles. Frivolous shoes, instead of my usual sensible heavy brogues, but she must have felt guilty because she always blamed those shoes giving me my hammer toes!

   I remember how good she was to old Aunt Josie, and to Aunt Eileen, and to Madame Graeff. Everyone came with their troubles-- even the milk man. She had always time to listen.

   I remember the winter we had a ticket to do a contest to help finance KC's Hall. We had to count in a picture the tiles on a swimming pool and we used a pin to count them. We won second prize, but the KC's went broke so we never did collect. Yet Mother always said that her ship was going to come ashore someday.She often came with Dad to "Palm Beach" near Britannia outside of Ottawa so we could swim there--not Mother-- she didn't like the water. We often went with her on the open-street­car to go to Rockliffe Park-

   Mother died on December 15, 1976, in late afternoon. We had all been with her and said prayers.

Katherine.