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By Erika Anderson, Staff Writer
ATLANTA—Last Christmas Eve, 22-year-old Bronwyn slept,
hungry, tired and diagnosed with HIV, on the bathroom floor of an abandoned gas
station in Baton Rouge, La.
This Christmas, Bronwyn will sleep soundly, surrounded by the
warm, wood-paneled walls of the Gift of Grace House and cared for by the
Missionaries of Charity who run the home on St. Charles Avenue in Virginia
Highlands.
The Gift of Grace House opened in 1994, through efforts of the
order founded by Mother Teresa, to care for indigent women suffering from
HIV/AIDS. The sisters provide care for the women, giving them shelter and food
and gently sharing the love of Christ with them through their day-to-day
living.
Bronwyn’s story is like many of the women who live at the
house. A native of Jackson, Miss., she was just six months old when her mother
died in a car accident. She spent most of her early years with various family
members.
“I went to private school. I had a nice childhood,” she
said.
But when she was 15, Bronwyn ran away from that childhood and from
her grandparents, who were caring for her at the time.
She began doing drugs and eventually ended up in a relationship
with a man who was HIV positive. She was diagnosed herself in 1998 at the age
of 21.
“It was a shock,” she remembered. “It was almost
like you didn’t really hear what you had just heard.”
“I went through all the emotions,” she continued.
“I was mad, sad, depressed, angry.” Then the man Bronwyn was living
with kicked her out of the house and she ended up on a bus to Baton Rouge. She
stayed in the abandoned gas station until, finally, desperate, she approached a
stranger for help. The woman found out about the Missionaries’ home in
Baton Rouge and Bronwyn stayed there until February 2000 when she came to live
at the Gift of Grace House, a home completely dedicated to AIDS patients.
“It’s wonderful here,” she said. “It’s so
peaceful; there are no worries.”
A peaceful home is the ultimate goal of the Missionaries of
Charity. Led by Sister Gaynel, MC, three other sisters run the home and provide
care to its residents. They are assisted by many volunteers who give of their
time to minister at the house.
Like the other sisters, Sister Gaynel glows with happiness. She
laughs with the residents, prays with them and cares for them when they are
dying. Each morning, she and the other sisters rise to pray at 5 a.m. in the
chapel. A priest comes to the house to celebrate Mass every day and Thursdays
are devoted entirely to prayer.
“We cannot do this work without prayers,” she says in
her thick Indian accent.
Sister Gaynel has been at the Gift of Grace House for four years.
She will be transferred by the order in December and said she will miss the
house, but is confident the good work will continue.
She is like a mother to the women. As she moves about the house,
one resident asks Sister Gaynel if her brother can come and pick her up next
Saturday so she can spend the day with him.
“Take your medicine with you when you go,” Sister Gaynel
says, smiling.
Most of the women come to the Gift of Grace House by referral of
the Grady Health System. Though some have families, most relatives are not able
to care for their AIDS-stricken loved ones. The sisters, who live in a separate
convent behind the house, provide 24-hour care for the women.
In her four years at the Gift of Grace House, Sister Gaynel has
witnessed the deaths of 36 women. Though impending death is a part of the Gift
of Grace House, life is a larger part.
Many of the women experience new life in the house by choosing to
be baptized.
“We just pray with them,” Sister Gaynel said. “We
read the Bible and we pray the rosary with them. They share their lives with
us.”
It is the example set by the sisters which prompts many of the
residents to request baptism. Bronwyn was baptized and received First Communion
last Easter.
“I wanted to join the church, to be a part of the
faith,” she said. “It’s because of the sisters and their ways.
They seem so happy all the time. I wanted that happiness.”
Bronwyn regularly attends a women’s Bible study with a fellow
resident at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta.
“I am closer to God,” she said. “I had to hit rock
bottom before I could come up, but I know he was my turning point, and on
Christmas Day he sent me to the sisters. I see God as very compassionate, very
merciful. I believe in him.”
Bronwyn and the other residents spend much of their day praying
with the sisters, reading or playing games with fellow residents. Some days
they go to the doctor and other days they go shopping. But an atmosphere of
peace and quiet envelops the house.
The Gift of Grace House sits quietly among other houses in the
Virginia Highlands neighborhood. Yellow with white trim, the house is brightly
accented by colorful flowers. A white statue of Mary stands in the front yard.
Inside the environment is warm and inviting. Laughter is often
heard as the cheerful sisters and volunteers interact with the residents of the
house. Various pictures of the pope and Mother Teresa decorate the walls. In
several places, a written message is repeated. “Jesus, in my heart I
believe in your tender love for me. I love you.”
Nine women currently live at the house, which has a capacity for
10 residents. The sisters visit the Grady clinic weekly to visit the patients,
and doctors from Grady come to the Gift of Grace House to care for the
residents. Sister Gaynel said that she has seen the difference that new
HIV/AIDS medication has made.
“We used to have many more dying patients,” Sister
Gaynel said. “Now we have only one who is bedridden.”
But the sisters talk with the women about death.
“We tell them that one day we all have to reach home,”
she said. “Death is not the end of life. It’s the beginning of
life.”
For some of the residents, like Bronwyn, arriving at the Gift of
Grace House was also a new beginning. Her old life is now firmly behind her,
she says, and something she will “never go back to.”
“I should be dead already with all the things I’ve been
through,” she said. “But God doesn’t make mistakes. There’s
a reason why I’m here.” |
