Will I Go Straight to Hell for Taking a Nun to a Casino -- and Finding Out That She Collapsed?

 I was walking my dogs yesterday and was ready to return home when I thought to check the mailbox in case my wife had not picked up Saturday afternoon's mail. I was saddened to see that one of the items was one of the home made Christmas cards my wife had sent out. It was returned with the following notation: Deceased. 😔 I brought the card into the house and showed my wife. A quick internet search confirmed that the friend had passed away last summer. I was reminded of a time when I thought my passage in the afterlife was going to be straight to hell -- with a bullet on it.

My in-laws lived in northern Wisconsin -- the Chetek area to be accurate, about 100 miles east of Minneapolis. It was not unusual in the 1990s for my wife and I to load up our van and head from central Illinois to Chetek for the Christmas holidays. The drive was over 450 miles and the travel included anywhere from 0 to 3 children, depending on which year we went. Winter weather in central Illinois is a real crapshoot. It can be relatively decent or really cold and crappy. The drive, with winter conditions and kids, usually took in the area of 8 hours. To go north ... straight north in winter. Sometimes we would hear things like "The snowfall has been 23 inches, but the rods are pretty clear. Yeah. Once up in Chetek with any number of my wife's family, I often found myself to be bored. The saving grace was that the St Croix Casino in Turtle Lake, WI was only about a 45 minute drive west. On more than one occasion, I made the trip, most often by myself. One year, however, I had a fellow gambler. One of the guest at the house was my wife's former first grade teacher, Sr. Katie. My wife's family had been friends with Katie since the 1960s. She was from Pittsburgh and was, as you might guess, a huge Steelers fan. We had fun talking football trash: Steelers vs Bears. Katie was not your typical nun. She was excited to toss a little money around at the casino, so off we went.

Once at the casino, we separated so that she could do her thing and I could do mine. I had a few favorite slot machines I liked to play, so I made a beeline for them. After a short while, I though that it would be a good idea to check in on Sr Katie. As I began walking around the casino, I heard a commotion going on. There were sirens and flashing lights. I went toward the source and was horrified tro see that Sr. Katie was lying on the floor and being tended to by the EMTs. Holy crap, I thought -- I took her to a casino and she was going to croak. Strangely enough, although she apparently lost consciousness for a short time, she quickly came to and seemed recovered. The EMYs wanted to transport her to the local hospital, But Sr. Katie said that she was fine and that she periodically had fainting issues due to a chronic health condition. After the EMTs left, she wanted to continue on at the casino - mostly for my sake, I think. However, I told her that it would be best to go back to my in-laws' home for her to rest. I breathed a sigh of relief as we headed back to Chetek. A nun dies on my watch -- not exactly something I wanted added to my judgement resume.

We got back and there were no further health incidences before my wife and I headed back south in a few days. It always seemed kind of strange that my wife's family stayed connected to their daughter's first grade teacher. The reason was that she left the teaching profession and went into health care. She was the assistant administrator for the Catholic hospital that my father-in-law served in as the chief  administrator.

Over the years, I only saw Sr Katie one or two times at family weddings or funerals. We would talk about football and our wonderful trip to the casino. She was almost like a member of my wife's family and spent a lifetime in service to people via education, health care and service to people in several US venues and in Ethiopia. She was one of a kind and will be deeply missed.

Thanks for reading!