From St. Ann to New Jersey: A Nurse's Story

Nurse Christy Matlock

I want to continue with this series of guest bloggers. I asked Christy Matlock if she would be willing to be a St. Ann guest blogger. Christy has been serving as our school nurse and has revamped and totally reorganized the school clinic. She also stocked it with everything needed in a school clinic. It is like a night and day difference in the clinic this year. Christy is on the frontlines of this COVID-19 battle. I'll let Christy share her story with you.

Most of y’all know me. I had the privilege of being your school nurse this year. Our daughter, Scarlett, started school at St. Ann in Pre-K 3 with Ms. Sellers and Mrs. Bannister. My husband, Coach Blake, coached flag football and basketball. I've been in Memphis most of my life. Born in Ohio but left as a baby to come here. We have grown to love this school and the people in it so much already.

I am a Registered Nurse and worked at Methodist North and St. Francis Hospital on Park until the outbreak of COVID-19. With surgeries cancelled and census low at the hospitals here, I joined up with a travel nurse agency and traveled up to New Jersey to help the nurses up here. I'm working at a hospital called CentraState Medical Center in Freehold, NJ, which is about 45 miles from New York City. 

It was not an easy decision to make. It was a decision based on love for my family and love for my career. I’ve been in New Jersey a little over 2 weeks now, and what I see makes my heart tired. I see nurses who have been bravely fighting this battle for over a month, almost 2 month. I see ever changing policies on balancing patient care and the need to protect the staff members. I see the looming threat of diminishing supplies of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and the hospital administration doing their best to retain it and secure more. I see patients, so many patients, sick as I have ever seen them, alone with only us to comfort them. I have never taken care of patients this way, and I hope I never have to again.

I'm ok so far. We are running out of gowns here though. Using the same gown unless it becomes terribly soiled for every patient for entire shift, and they are trying to figure out how to extend the use longer. I asked the hospital today about trying to find some washable waterproof material and see about making everyone 2 or 3 gowns a piece that way at the end of each shift they can be laundered and decontaminated and ready for use next shift. If you know anyone that sews and thinks this is a mission they want to try, I would pay them to make me a couple to see if this will work for us! I'm not sure how much longer we will have gowns at all. I brought one rain suit with me in case we ran out. I may have to break it out soon! 

Matlock Family and
Fr. Favazza

Please pray for these patients and their families. Please pray for ALL frontline workers, including those who work in grocery stores and restaurants. Please pray for healing from this terrible virus.

God willing, I will see you all this fall. I miss my St Ann family. My contract is over July 11th, and I will be on my way home. I miss my babies and husband so much!!! Please stay safe out here y’all. Do the social distancing and wash your hands frequently!! 

Much Love,

Nurse Christy

Thank you Christy, for your service, not being afraid to face this pandemic on the frontlines, and for being a hero. You will be in our prayers as you continue to do God's work on earth.

God bless you,

Didier Aur, Principal

St. Ann Catholic School

Dr. Laura Battle- This Week's Guest Blogger

Laura and the Battle Boys

This week's guest blogger is Laura Battle. I met Laura back in 2013 when we worked together at Resurrection Catholic School. I have always highly regarded Laura as an educator, St. Ann mom,  and friend. I learned much about St. Ann back then from the many stories Laura shared about her boys, their teachers, and the school. I wanted to get Laura's take on the work taking place at St. Ann because Laura does view things with a critical eye. We need that critical eye to make sure we are doing the work well. So, here's Laura's take on the last five weeks of work by the St. Ann educators.

When Mr. Aur asked me to write about my experiences with St. Ann during this pandemic, I immediately said yes.  If you know me, you understand how risky that could be.  If you ask for my opinion, I will give it - the good and the bad.  I can honestly say that I have never been more proud to be a St. Ann parent than I am right now.

Reid, Brett, and Drew Battle

I have had one or more Battle boy at St. Ann for the last 15 years.  Many of you know me; we have laughed, cheered, cried, and supported each other and our children throughout the years.  We have spent years together in the gym or on the sidelines, car pools, and early morning pick ups to help each other out.  And Lord help us, the sleepovers!  We have built something at St. Ann to be proud of.  I can’t believe I only have 3 more years at the school!

The closing of the schools happened so suddenly.  No one expected it to happen so soon.  It was the Thursday of spring break week.  By Monday, my boys and I had heard from their teachers, had a chance to go to the school to get the supplies that they needed, and my boys were working.  There was not one minute of lost time in instruction.  Take a minute to understand how amazing that is! These teachers were on their vacations.  They came back to work, worked out a plan, and put it in to action.  There was no delay, no putting it off until they were more comfortable.  They embraced this new way of teaching and jumped right in.  They did this in 3 days!

Drew: Online Learning

There was a learning curve for everyone of course.  After that first day, I realized that we needed a daily schedule to help us stay on track and to provide some sort of normalcy.  By the time they starting their online learning through videoconferencing the second week of distance learning, things were so much smoother here at home.  Like many of you, I am working full time from home.  I appreciate the fact that the teachers have stayed on top of everything and are helping my boys stay on track and working with them. 

Brett: Online Learning

As much as I would love to say that I can do it all, it has been wonderful to still be able to rely on the teachers and staff of St. Ann to make sure my boys are still learning and doing what they are supposed to be doing.  It would be impossible for me to work from home if I had to take on their education also.  We are a family at St. Ann and we work well together.  It is such an amazing feeling to know that the teachers and I can still work as a team to educate my boys and that I can still rely on them to be there for my boys when I am working.  If something wasn’t working, they fixed it.  For example, for the middle school students, since they have several teachers, they need to check several teacher blogs.  To make sure assignments do not get missed and to help students and parents keep up, a weekly list of assignments is now sent out. 

Let’s look at this time line again.  On Thursday of spring break, schools were closed.  Over that weekend, we were allowed in the school to get what they needed.  By Monday, each teacher had a blog up with work posted for the students.  By the next week, my boys were having online classes with their teachers.  I am sure all of you join me in thanking everyone at St. Ann for getting out of their comfort zones and working together to do what is best for their students.     

Laura Battle, MSSW, Ed.D

Mom of:

Reid SAS ‘17

Brett SAS ‘20,

Drew SAS ’23

Thank you Laura for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate the time you have taken to serve as a St. Ann guest blogger.

God bless you,

Didier Aur, Principal

St. Ann Catholic School

Previous Blog: https://didieraur.blogspot.com/2020/04/holy-week-and-easter-during-time-of.html

Holy Week and Easter During a Time of Pandemic: A Spiritual Meditation

Painting by Ethan Nichols

St. Ann Class of 2022

Every so often, I ask a student or colleague to be a guest writer for my blog. Today, I received this spiritual meditation from Anthony Maranise. Mr. Maranise is the 8th grade religion/confirmation teacher at St. Ann. With Mr. Maranise's permission, I am sharing his spiritual meditation not only because I love what he has to say but also because what he has to say is so appropriate for this time we are going through. This spiritual meditation is definitely worth reading. Without further ado, here is his meditation.

Holy Week & Easter During a Time of Pandemic: A Spiritual Meditation

By Anthony Maranise, Obl.S.B.

We tend to view the happenings around us through a “me-centered” prism. Some examples help: That four-engine long train is going to make me late for work!; That Dow plunge cost me so much yesterday!; perhaps even, Social distance is making me stir-crazy! How relevant that last one, right?

This year, Holy Week and Easter are a bit different for us all. We are living the most hallowed of liturgical seasons amidst one of recent history’s most difficult, challenging, and uncertain seasons — that of a viral pandemic. ‘Social distancing’, then, is a term to which many of us have become accustomed. As an infection mitigation effort, it refers to the necessity to physically withdraw from close contact with one another. These efforts are not cruel, but selfless as through them, we can help to ‘slow the spread’ of illness and keep safer those with compromised immune systems and the elderly for whom illness can be more costly.

Painting by Zoe Geronimo

St. Ann Class of 2020

Be that as it may, how are we supposed to live Holy Week without being able to gather in our churches for worship? To celebrate Easter’s exceeding joys without being able to be close to our families and friends? It is truly a different kind of Holy Week this year, and it will be a different kind of Easter as well.

Let’s shift from that typical “me-centered” prism for a moment. Consider this, instead:
Both voluntarily and involuntarily, the object of our imitation and devotion in this holiest of time of the year — Jesus, Himself — experienced and knew ‘social distance.’

In two salient instances during what Religion scholars have revealed to be the timeline of historical events which make up the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday) of Holy Week, Jesus either ‘socially distanced’ or was ‘socially distant’ from those He loved.

1. After His Last Supper, Jesus went with His Apostles into a nearby garden known as Gethsemane. He asks the Apostles to settle there for a bit, to pray, and to keep watch with Him. Though together at first, all the synoptic Gospels report that Jesus withdraws Himself from them for a while to be alone in prayer by Himself. He ‘socially distances’ Himself and experiences His agonia (literally, ‘a struggle towards victory;’ ‘severe emotional anguish’), only to emerge strengthened in will, spirit, and mission.
2. Hours later, after Jesus is arrested, mocked, condemned, shamed, brutally scourged, and made to carry His own instrument of torture — all willingly, for the sake of our redemption — He is nailed to the Cross. The base of His Cross is placed in a hole in the ground and filled in with rock-pebbles to support its vertical position. Here, in this second instance, when Jesus is lifted high up above the onlookers in the crowd, we see Him made ‘socially distant’, indeed, physically separated from those various others who were usually so physically close to Him.
   

Painting by Caydence Davis
St. Ann Class of 2020

In this different kind of Holy Week, this different kind of Easter, we can be sure that though we face our own sorts of ‘emotional anguish’ precipitated by being ‘socially distant’ from those we love, we do so, not out of a “me-centeredness”, but out of an expression of care and concern for the well-being of those we love — to keep them safe. We do this inspired by Jesus’ first instance of ‘social distancing’ in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Though ever fully Divine and God, we so often forget that Jesus, while on earth, was fully human as well. Like any human facing a major injustice and forthcoming unimaginable suffering, He ‘needed a moment’ to collect and compose Himself. He needed spiritual and emotional strengthening which God, the Father provided Him in earnest. He emerged from that agonia even stronger. From our own ‘social distancing’, so also shall we, if only we seek, as Jesus did, strength from God.

Anthony Maranise

Finally, our being ‘socially distant’ need not necessitate ‘spiritual distance’ in us. We should continue to look to Jesus in this Holy Week, as we have in all Holy Weeks past, as we should in all Holy Weeks to come, and always. We should look upon His Cross, but look into the ‘distance’ beyond it even more intently because Jesus’ own history ends not in His being ‘socially distant’ on that Cross. He rises! He rises from death and above it. He vanquishes it, conquers it, overcomes it, and returns from His ‘social distance’ to be once again reunited with and among those He loves!

The beauty is that includes us, even today. His Resurrection imbued into all of us who love Him and believe in Him a share in that strength He obtained through His ‘agonia’. Moreover, He has given us assurance that because He first endured the worst sorts of ‘social distance’ in pain, rejection, sorrow, shame, and death — but overcame it — so also shall we; and, all these things are so because of the events that took place on and are the reason for the Friday we call “Good.”


Thank you Anthony Maranise for sharing your spiritual meditation. You can learn more about Mr. Maranise on his website: https://amaranis.wixsite.com/amjm

God bless you,
Didier Aur, Principal
St. Ann Catholic School