For my remaining college days, I continued to be active in the local parish and on campus - teaching CCD, working with the youth group an attending retreats. As graduation approached, I began to look at service and volunteer opportunities. I applied and was accepted to teach with the Vocational, Educational, Social Services (VESS) in Texas. The program was a one year commitment that provided for one trip home in the course of the year. Six months before graduation, my father was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Two months before graduation, thinking the next step in my life was set, my father asked me to please not go. I quickly began the traditional "job search." It ended with a position as a Resident Director at a Catholic University outside of Washington, DC. My first experience with 'sisters!'

Two significant events took place that year; my father died and one of the sisters asked me if I had ever considered religious life! I still was unready to admit that I wanted to consider religious life (I wanted to know more) so I kept my focus on service.

Prior to my father's death, a friend introduced me to a resource that listed a variety of congregations and organizations that provide opportunities for service "closer to home." I had begun to make some contacts when my father died and things went on hold for a few weeks.

When I returned to Washington, I discovered a great number of responses to my inquiries. Two of them were personal, hand written notes from Sr. Susan Hadzima, IHM. One was thanking me for my inquiry and offering to meet with me to discuss possibilities; the second, dated a few weeks later indicating that she hadn't heard from me, she wished me well but again offering to meet in Washington the next week. I called her and we met. I don't remember too much of our time together but I do remember standing at the Metro station waiting for her to pick me up thinking "this is crazy!" and yet the prevailing feeling I had throughout the day was one of deep down "rightness." I do remember Susan asking me in the course of our conversation if I was thinking about religious life. She was the first person to whom I admitted my thoughts about and interest in religious life. While I didn't feel free to share with others after that, I did experience an interior freedom to enter the discernment process. To this day, I know that when something intellectually seems crazy but gut-level right, it is of God and I need to listen!