An Obituary

In 1939 25-year-old Gertrude Lemmens traveled all the way from her hometown of Vernay, Holland, to visit her brother, who was then the Bishop of Sindh and Baluchistan. During the one month that she was with him, she accompanied him on his rounds of social work in under -privileged communities and was tremendously moved by how poor and needy the people were.

So moved was she that, after returning to Holland, she could not reconcile herself to living life with the knowledge of others in desperate need. She came back to Pakistan and joined the indigenous order of the Franciscan Sisters of Christ. Like her brother, who felt compelled to work for the betterment of orphans’ lives; Sister Gertrude chose to focus on the dispossessed. She would tour the slums, reaching out with heart and mind to just about anybody who needed her help. Her sensitivity was not restricted to the ravages of human life; she felt strongly about animal rights and would not hesitate to tell a donkey-cart driver to stop beating his donkey.

Sister Ruth was a close friend and colleague of ‘Sister Gertie’ at Darul Sukun, the home she established for the mentally handicapped. She tells me of the intense bond between brother and sister. The outbreak of the Second World War made travel and communication with their homeland practically impossible and made the two even closer. In 1942, while picnicking on Manora Island with a group of orphan boys, he drowned while trying to rescue one of his wards.

People who knew Sister Gertie say that the thought of giving up never even crossed her mind. She continued teaching at Christ the King School in Khudadad Colony in the morning and doing social work in the slums of the metropolis in the afternoons. She reached out to the weak, the infirm, the aged, and the merely needy with equal abandon, convinced that a little bit of love went a long way in adding to the quality of life. Sister Gertie was particularly concerned with the treatment of the mentally retarded, the real victims in the vicious pecking order of Pakistani society. Condemned, through no fault of their own, to a life of ridicule and pain in a society that brooks no weakness and punishes difference, she grew increasingly determined to do something for them. Sister Gertie did not dream in Technicolor of high gloss wards and fancy rescues, she simply wanted them to “have a homely atmosphere instead of being treated like animals.”

In 1957 she made her first trip home after 19 years. It only strengthened her resolve and focus. In 1969 Archbishop Joseph Caderro bought a single story property on Kashmir Road to start an English School. Enter Sister Gertie. She pleaded with him to let her utilize the school as a home, saying there were already a lot of schools but still no place for the mentally handicapped to attempt to live with a semblance of dignity and hope. He agreed and Darul Sukun, home of happiness and peace, was created.

In the beginning Sister Gertie took “anyone and everyone” so that, far from being a home for the mentally handicapped, Darul Sukun became a beacon of hope for all in need. Orphans, the old and destitute, the physically handicapped stamped with the ravages of polio or genetics, disfigured babies with scar tissue where their faces should be, were deposited on their doorstep. Realizing that one center could not possibly cope with such diverse demands, in time Darul Sukun would spawn a network of homes that include a home for orphan boys called Dugout, one for the old and destitute called Peace Haven, and Janiville for children from broken homes. A chapter of the home for the physically handicapped operates in Lahore. Sister Gertrude Lemmens was the force that propelled this movement into action and the glue that held it together.

Disabled children would never be turned away for lack of space when Sister Gertrude was there. If she was, she would embrace it immediately even if the logistics of accommodation and expenses were becoming a nightmare. To Sister Gertie it was simpler than that- someone needs a home; therefore we must give them a home. Other Sisters at the home acted as the rational voice, tempering her generosity with practicality.

But there never seemed to be enough to go around. In 1970 Sister Gertie traveled to Holland and made TV appearances and newspaper appeals for aid of any sort. With help from philanthropists and Dutch concerns like KLM, they managed to scrape by. In 1992 the Dutch hockey team touring Pakistan donated a percentage of all sales and fees to the Home. In recent years, as awareness levels have risen local people have finally become the main donors. The network receives assistance from the Edhi trust. People send them donations, ‘sadka ka gosht’, and school children volunteer on weekends. Sister Gertie was instrumental in the accumulation of goodwill that keeps the center operative.

Her colleague describes her as loveable, warm and full of humour. Her face beams from pictures on the mantle in the lounge of Darul Sukun. A drawing table dissects the room. On the left of it are placed four red cots; a faint moaning sounds persistently from the one on my left. On the right, a group of the homes inhabitants cluster giggling around a bunch of photographs. “I’d taken out some pictures of her for you”, says Sister Ruth, ‘they’re all going through them now.” She brings some over. Like the pictures on the mantle, every memory of Sister Gertie I see or hear in this home is coloured by laughter. She beams up at the camera with a terribly disfigured child cradled on her lap as two others curl around her. Pointing to the child in her lap Sister Ruth says “that’s Cookie. The rest of us were scared of her when she came but not Sister Gertie. She just reached out and put her arms around her.”

Cookie is now in class 4 at Christ the King School. The morning after Sister Gertie passed away she disappeared and was found at the computer saying “I’m writing a letter to Momma.” Sister Ruth says they were all surprised by how beautiful it was. She was asked to read the letter at the memorial service and spent many hours practicing, but when she actually stood before the mike every word came out a whisper. “I can’t help it,” she said when asked why she spoke so softly, “only my tears were coming, and my hands weren’t free to wipe them.”

As I sit there, I put my questions aside. I get the strange feeling that Sister Gertie would probably have liked to be remembered through the small miracles she engendered rather than the technicalities of demography and geographical location.

Sister Ruth introduces me to Alamin. He is pleasant, courteous and soft spoken, but his face has no discernible features and his hands have stubby protuberances instead of fingers. He runs off to get a printout of something I need, and Sister Ruth points to the wall. There is beautiful oil on canvas of yellow roses in bloom, and a watercolour of a bus. The road looks like a river, and the bus flows down it. This is the work of the boy without fingers who has just left.

She tells me about another success story. “When he was brought here he looked so bad. His eyes were popping out of his head and his head was so strange. I told the woman who brought him that we had no space, but she came back later when Sister Gertie was here and I heard her telling the woman not to worry, we’d look after him. The woman never came back. The baby was only six days old and some of the other children were scared of him. He couldn’t see, he never knew what was happening around him but if he heard her voice he would cry until she came and hugged him.” She looks around and smiles “She had such a big heart. She could never say no.”

I ask Sister Ruth if it is natural to love the way Sister Gertie seems to have loved, without condition, devoid of the prejudices of sensory input. “I think it was natural to her”, she says. Not to all of us, but to her. “I know that she taught me how to do it. I, we all, got a lot of our inspiration through her.”

Among the pictures that she brings me is one of Sister Gertie caught in mid-action during a water fight, delighted grin and super-soaker at the ready. This seems to be the most appropriate as it echoes the joyful, smiling, happy go lucky, “full of fun” woman whose spirit still permeates the atmosphere of this home.

On November 1st 1939 a 25-year-old Dutch woman landed in Pakistan and dreamed an impossible dream. She was buried on 1st November 2000, after having actualized it. Sister Ruth once asked her what she’d like on her tombstone. “1st July 1914-1st July 2014” she quipped, “I’m hoping God will let me live a hundred years.” She will have to settle instead for the inscription that poignantly sums up the theme of her life.

“Whatever you did to the least of my children, you did it for Me.”