Image

Leaving the Convent

Dear Diary:

In 1967, I left the convent after five years and moved from western New York to Queens.

I had taken a job with a social services agency, and on this particular day I was riding the subway from Midtown Manhattan to Brooklyn. I was going to visit a teenager who had just been released from a residential program for delinquent boys.

On the train, I studied the subway map, trying to determine my whereabouts. An older man who was sitting across from me came over and asked my destination. He proceeded to show me which stop was mine.

We chatted for a bit. I asked him where he was headed. We had already missed the stop he had mentioned, but I said nothing.

When it was time for me to get off, he came with me. Puzzled, I asked why he hadn’t gotten off earlier. He said he wanted to make sure I was O.K.