Heaven Seventeen
By Sr. Maryanne Terrenol, RGS
If you get to heaven before I do, please call in on Heaven Seventeen and give my love to Yang Jin-Rose Virginia Kim- a lovely white rose that decked our Korean Good Shepherd garden for a few beautiful years.
Jesus said that in His Father’s House there are many mansions. I have chosen to name Yang Jin’s mansion “Heaven Seventeen”- because the first time I met her when she was Seventeen; her entrance go heaven was March 17 she died on floor 17 on Han Yang University Hospital. I’m sure she lives in Heaven 17!
Christmas, 1973. Yang Jin was going seventeen. We had a Christmas play in English. The last scene of that play is etched indelibly in my mind, Yang Jin, the narrator, in the middle of the stage, dressed in an old cast-of green, flowing alb, declaiming as best as anyone could:
FOR UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN, A CHILD IS GIVEN. AND THE GOVERNMENT SHALL BE UPON HIS SHOULDER. AND HE SHALL BE CALLED “WONDERFUL”, “COUNSELOR”, THE MIGHTY GOD”, “ THE EVERLASTING FATHER”, THE PRINCE OF “PEACE”.
This scene came back vividly to me as we watched Yang Jin on her deathbed just the day before she died. She kept trying to raise her hands as if to pull out the oxygen tube. Her husband would not let her, he kept trying to hold her, gently to hear her voice once more, to look into her eyes once more. But for me, it was as if Yang Jin was trying to spread her arms outward was exclaiming with reverence and ecstasy, “Wonderful…”, “Counselor”…, “Mighty God”…, “ Everlasting Father”…, “ Prince of Peace”… She died at the dawn of May seventeen, with only with her mother and her husband by her side, her thumb fingering the rosary ring on her forefinger. She was buried with that ring on her finger.
In between the Christmas scene of 1973 and this last scene of 1988, a number of scene flood my memory. When we closed the our OK PONG School and convent and moved to Seoul in 1976, Yang Jin now baptized Rose Virginia,-her own choice of a name,-moved with the Sisters and took charge of the Kitchen. (Incidentally: Rose Virginia was the baptismal name of the Mother Foundress, St. Mary Euphrasia).
After high school , Yang Jin left us to live once more with her widowed mother. Her father died when she was in the first grade. Her only brother the youngest of five, was less than a year old. Yang Jin works in an office and meet the young people of her own age and culture. At summer picnic she met a nice young man who would later become her husband. He was not a Catholic and he was two year younger than she was. But they discover these “discrepancies” (in the traditional Korea way of thinking) only after when they have fallen in love and had decided to get married. The parents of both parties presented some opposition , but this was quickly overruled.
Only five months of their wedding, the husband called us up to say he was taking Yang Jin to the hospital. Since she knew the doctor in that same hospital, we jumped in the taxi to followed the young couple. The diagnosis was leukemia : she had between four months and four years to live.
The next two and a half years were a real nightmare. She was hospitalized seven times each time for a month or so. And the doctor and nurses wondered at such courage and patience and cheerfulness.
While she was at home, as long as she was able, she would go to daily Mass and attend parish activities. Once a week she went to the factory where she had worked to bring cheer to old friends there. As she grew weaker, the Legion of Mary would go to her home and pray with her. Our novices brought along a slide of projector and watch “Jesus of Nazareth” with her, a few minutes at a time. In the convent we prayed for healing for her, a miracle, if needs be. Towards the end we just prayed as Yang Jin did - for strength to embrace the will of God.
Oh Yang Jin, white rose of Ok Pong, you are now at the embrace of the Everlasting Father, the prince of peace. Thank you for having walked with us for a short while in this vale tears. Thank you for having deigned to bloom in our good Shepherd garden. Look down upon us from your Heaven Seventeen and pray all us in.
Sr. Maryanne Terrenol RGS, from the Philippines, is a missionary in Seoul, South Korea
If you get to heaven before I do, please call in on Heaven Seventeen and give my love to Yang Jin-Rose Virginia Kim- a lovely white rose that decked our Korean Good Shepherd garden for a few beautiful years.
Jesus said that in His Father’s House there are many mansions. I have chosen to name Yang Jin’s mansion “Heaven Seventeen”- because the first time I met her when she was Seventeen; her entrance go heaven was March 17 she died on floor 17 on Han Yang University Hospital. I’m sure she lives in Heaven 17!
Christmas, 1973. Yang Jin was going seventeen. We had a Christmas play in English. The last scene of that play is etched indelibly in my mind, Yang Jin, the narrator, in the middle of the stage, dressed in an old cast-of green, flowing alb, declaiming as best as anyone could:
FOR UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN, A CHILD IS GIVEN. AND THE GOVERNMENT SHALL BE UPON HIS SHOULDER. AND HE SHALL BE CALLED “WONDERFUL”, “COUNSELOR”, THE MIGHTY GOD”, “ THE EVERLASTING FATHER”, THE PRINCE OF “PEACE”.
This scene came back vividly to me as we watched Yang Jin on her deathbed just the day before she died. She kept trying to raise her hands as if to pull out the oxygen tube. Her husband would not let her, he kept trying to hold her, gently to hear her voice once more, to look into her eyes once more. But for me, it was as if Yang Jin was trying to spread her arms outward was exclaiming with reverence and ecstasy, “Wonderful…”, “Counselor”…, “Mighty God”…, “ Everlasting Father”…, “ Prince of Peace”… She died at the dawn of May seventeen, with only with her mother and her husband by her side, her thumb fingering the rosary ring on her forefinger. She was buried with that ring on her finger.
In between the Christmas scene of 1973 and this last scene of 1988, a number of scene flood my memory. When we closed the our OK PONG School and convent and moved to Seoul in 1976, Yang Jin now baptized Rose Virginia,-her own choice of a name,-moved with the Sisters and took charge of the Kitchen. (Incidentally: Rose Virginia was the baptismal name of the Mother Foundress, St. Mary Euphrasia).
After high school , Yang Jin left us to live once more with her widowed mother. Her father died when she was in the first grade. Her only brother the youngest of five, was less than a year old. Yang Jin works in an office and meet the young people of her own age and culture. At summer picnic she met a nice young man who would later become her husband. He was not a Catholic and he was two year younger than she was. But they discover these “discrepancies” (in the traditional Korea way of thinking) only after when they have fallen in love and had decided to get married. The parents of both parties presented some opposition , but this was quickly overruled.
Only five months of their wedding, the husband called us up to say he was taking Yang Jin to the hospital. Since she knew the doctor in that same hospital, we jumped in the taxi to followed the young couple. The diagnosis was leukemia : she had between four months and four years to live.
The next two and a half years were a real nightmare. She was hospitalized seven times each time for a month or so. And the doctor and nurses wondered at such courage and patience and cheerfulness.
While she was at home, as long as she was able, she would go to daily Mass and attend parish activities. Once a week she went to the factory where she had worked to bring cheer to old friends there. As she grew weaker, the Legion of Mary would go to her home and pray with her. Our novices brought along a slide of projector and watch “Jesus of Nazareth” with her, a few minutes at a time. In the convent we prayed for healing for her, a miracle, if needs be. Towards the end we just prayed as Yang Jin did - for strength to embrace the will of God.
Oh Yang Jin, white rose of Ok Pong, you are now at the embrace of the Everlasting Father, the prince of peace. Thank you for having walked with us for a short while in this vale tears. Thank you for having deigned to bloom in our good Shepherd garden. Look down upon us from your Heaven Seventeen and pray all us in.
Sr. Maryanne Terrenol RGS, from the Philippines, is a missionary in Seoul, South Korea