my mom is always cutting stuff out for me from the paper

my mom is really sweet
always thinking of me
always thinking of all her kids and all her grandkids
she is always cutting things out of the paper and holding onto them from me
little snippets come in the mail
little snippets come packed along with the kids after an evening visit

last night the boys had a sleep over at grandma's
they loved it
I am certain she is exhausted
those kids wear me out

picked then up after lunch time

along with the kids I got all sorts of goodies
including a snippet from the catholic standard
in that image was marty o malley
marty o malley along with a sweatshirt with the name of his grade school on it
as well as a few people representing that school

one of those people is sister columbkill
sister columbkill was his sixth grade teacher
sister columbkill was my fifth grade teachers a few years later

sister columkill was five hundred years old then
so I figure she is a few more than five hundred years now

sister columkill was an amazing character
with her character was great depth
she was an fantastic teacher
she cared about her students
and she was a bit of a freak

the children loved her and they feared her
she had powers that one would expect in a harry potter story
and she connected with her students with math the way that the robin williams character in the dead poet's society connected with wish english students
except sister columkill was real
and
sister columkill was a real freak

I think I was in the last class she taught at Our Lady of Lourdes
for some reason Lourdes removed the nuns from their system while I was there
I can understand
Lourdes was some strange time warp to the fifties
Happy Days was one of the popular shows on television
and we were exisiting in some strange Leave it to Beaver world
it was the seventies and we had many strong elements of the fifties

my older brother and older sister each had Sister Columbkill as well
they were lucky enough to have Sister Michael
none of us had the opportunity to have the young child educator Sister Marie Josephine
and
I think that I may have had far more interaction with the principal Sister Francis Paula than either of my siblings

but
as I said
they were removed from the system
not sure what happened to the nuns after that
these people were truly vocational
and not just for religion
but for education

good to see that Sister Columbkill is still alive and well

I wonder if she could finish this rhyme or tell me its root
maybe marty knows the full story and the full rhyme
hopefully sister columbkill knows how much she was appreciated and how well she is remembered

here is that rhyme
it is short and uneventful
but to a fifth grader it make perfect sense

how many kids could columkill kill
if columbkill could kill kids

like I said
she was loved and feared

wish I could attach a picture
and
I hope that sister columbkill does not google herself

I just googled her
and well...
there may be some interesting family stuff there
this woman was more irish than an irish spring commercial
she had soft skill as if she grew up surrounded by the fog

patrick o donell was also very irish
but not as irish as patrick murphy