I returned yesterday night from Sister Edith’s burial. Hundreds of people visited the family home where everyone could say goodbye to my dear friend where she rested in her open coffin. The mortuary did a good job recreating her beauty and tranquility, even her small half-smile. You couldn`t tell if she was just asleep. More hundreds crowded into the local church for mass, people filling the doorways. When the pallbearers carried the casket to the cemetery, they plowed through the street crowded with more hundreds of trailing mourners as the sun set in shades of red and yellow. It was dark before the community that had come to pay their respects to a holy woman, a savior of children, dedicated to her God dispersed.
Edita once told me she had lived her life in 15s. She joined the Franciscan Congregation at 15 years old. She lived and worked as a nun for 15 years. Then she founded a missionary residence for at-risk children where she had taken care of unwanted and abandoned youngsters 24/7 for 15 years. And now, she said, what`s next. She admitted she was tired.