A Mentor of One’s Own

On my first day at Mount Saint Joseph Academy in September 1989, I met Sister Mary Dacey. She stood before me and 124 other nervous 14-year-old girls and spoke about Virginia Woolf's 1929 essay, "A Room of One's Own."

I had never even heard of Virginia Woolf.

That morning, the ground beneath me seemed to shake. I had never felt so moved and inspired by someone. I had never witnessed such power in presence. To hear her speak was to experience something transcendent. She had a gift for oratory that left us all spellbound, floating out of the room convinced we could accomplish anything.

I hung on Sister’s every word. My brain swirled as I wondered how I got so lucky to be at this school … in the orbit of this woman … amongst these bright young girls … about to start what seemed to be an incredible journey of growth and self-discovery.

That morning, Sister Mary Dacey wasn't just casually suggesting a quick read of Woolf’s feminist essay. She was setting the stage -- drilling a fault line in our brains to separate the world we knew before we entered the Mount -- and the world we’d go change after we graduated. She was opening our eyes to our own potential, our right to expression, and our gargantuan capacity to shape our communities, our families, our networks and our lives. She was compelling us to find a room of our own at the Mount in which to plant ourselves, take root, and bloom gloriously.

I didn’t understand the gravity of this moment fully. It would mark the beginning of one of the most influential relationships I’d ever experience as a teenager or adult. One that would span more than 35 years and touch every corner of my life.

I came to the Mount as a middle-class kid via a generous music scholarship. I carried a LL Bean backpack, which was featherlight compared to the weight of my fear and self-doubt. When I struggled to balance the daily demands of my scholarship with the academic rigor of the school, Sister Mary became my refuge behind a seemingly imposing principal’s office door. But once I crossed that threshold, I was met consistently and patiently with profound empathy, genuine warmth, and motherly comfort (whether the topic was teenage minutiae or the heavier moments in life).

Our relationship evolved far beyond the walls of that office and long past my graduation day. When I lost my father in 1999 at age 24, Sister Mary Dacey was among the first to reach out, making sure we had time for dinner and conversation. She showed up and she checked in -- not as the administrator I had known, but the friend I needed. This was her way – ever present in moments of joy and sorrow. Always authentic. Always wise. And like her own brand of magic, always available. Did she have more hours in the day than the rest of us? Did she not require sleep or sustenance? Was she of this earth or a supernatural being? I asked all of those questions many times.

Her “commitment to her commitment” of living the mission of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Philadelphia , propagating the faith, and embodying the essence of Christ was ironclad. She had an indelible impact on the development of my relationship with God as I know it today. Second only to her commitment to God was her commitment to women. True to the credo of the Mount, Spes Messis in Semine, she planted many a seed in the rich soil of her care as a teacher, a principal, a president, a mentor, an advocate and more. The harvest of confident women she tended to and nurtured has delivered abundant yield.

She was FUN. She loved music. And she loved to dance. (Oh, how she loved to dance.) Over the years, we shared meals, rich conversations, and heck yes, some cocktails. We texted often. We laughed. We joked. One of the last interactions I had with her was at my home, three days before Christmas. She arrived in a red leather jacket, and I called her The Fonz. She told me to shut up and gave me the Sister Mary Dacey Smirk?.

Our relationship deepened with each passing year, evolving into something precious and rare. We worked on formidable challenges together when she returned to the Mount as Interim President. We got into the trenches and radically candid dialogue with one another. We recently talked about her cancer and how it helped her to remember that time is currency that we must spend wisely with people that give us the greatest joy. I got to know her not just as the nun who was once my principal, but as a remarkable woman whose influence on my life was profound.

In this time of heaviness and grief, I must thank God for the time I had with her despite my desperate feeling of needing more. The text messages will stop coming. The dinner reservations no longer need to be made. The casual bump-ins rendered impossible. That trademark smirk invisible. The comfort of her embrace now painfully out of reach.

But she is everywhere I look. She lives within Sister Charlene Diorka, whose superhuman commitment to caring for Sister during her illness (while simultaneously caring for the 500+ women of Mount Saint Joseph Academy) is exactly what her beloved mentor and friend would have done if the scales were tipped in the other direction. She lives in the bonds of a family she loved beyond measure. She lives in my friends and the thousands of Mount alumnae who have discovered their own rooms, their own voices, their own paths and their own purpose because of her. She lives in the students at the Mount today who stand firmer because of a foundation hand-poured by the pioneering SSJs of 1858 and strengthened by SSJs like Sister Mary Dacey. She lives in the songs that remind us of her. She lives in the spontaneous urge to dance. She lives in the quiet moments of reflection she taught us to make space for in our lives.

And she lives in me, nudging me to get up every day and ensure that young women get a shot, a room of their own and an education that unlocks and propels their God-given potential. With the humble knowledge that I can never fully repay my debt to Sister Mary Dacey, I will nonetheless try every day -- until I see that smirk on her beautiful face once again.

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