Dream Theater: The Home of Sister Rose

Photo by carrollcountycomet.com

It was a simple proposition: one day off work at the ad agency in exchange for one day volunteering at the place of my choice.

So I ended up at a convent, offering to clean the home of an elderly nun named Sister Rose, who'd been in the hospital with an unnamed illness but would be returning soon.

For years Sister Rose had lived in a run-down brick building of three or four stories--the kind of place with bodegas and no-name electronics stores on the ground floor and dark, airless apartments above.

Her home was just two rooms, one in front of the other, with an impossibly small bathroom off to the side. And as it turned out, Sister Rose was a hoarder.

In the living room, two mis-matched sofas faced each other, surrounded by stacks of books, magazines and newspapers. In the bedroom, one dresser after another lined the walls, their drawers filled with clothes and documents, their tops covered with whatever could no longer fit inside. In the bathroom, green mold covered the tub, the toilet and the front of the sink. 

I looked around, trying to figure out where to start and how to finish the job in a single day. That's when I realized the sofas were classic mid-century designs. The dressers were by Heywood-Wakefield, Kent Coffey, Lane and Paul McCobb, each worth thousands of dollars.

Somehow, Sister Rose had amassed a small fortune in modern furniture, all of it donated to the convent over the years. 

That's when Mother Superior Justine arrived to check on my progress. She was younger than I expected, with a stern, thin face that peered at me from within the folds of her black habit. 

I tried to explain what I'd found--how valuable the furniture was, how much Sister Rose had collected, and finally, how it would be impossible for me to complete the work.

She said nothing, but her withering look told me she'd seen this all before. I wasn't the first ad agency person who'd come here hoping for an easy day outside the office.