Mother Teresa’s memory comforts the dying

INDIA: Blind and elderly, Sibani Kar, who was found unconscious last month in the streets of India’s Kolkata where she had been begging, is hoping for peace before she dies.

Kar wants to spend her final days in tranquility at a home, established by Mother Teresa, where the frail woman was brought after being discovered abandoned on the street.

“I need care and love. I need peace before I die,” said Kar, forced to beg after her children ejected her from their home. “I love you Mother, I love the sisters and brothers of the home,” the painfully thin Kar said as a Spanish volunteer dabbed medicine in her eyes.

Kar, who does not remember her age but looks in her 80s, is one of hundreds of sick, dying and homeless helped by the Missionaries of Charity order set up by Mother Teresa who died 10 years ago on Wednesday.

The Roman Catholic nun, whose selfless life will be remembered by the order this week with prayers and hymns, founded the home, the first of a dozen. “It’s a home for dying peacefully. Every resident of the home is waiting for death,” said Sister M. Glenda, who heads Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart) home.

“Most of the residents, even if cured of their diseases, refuse to go back to their places and want to die here,” the nun said, explaining that the home was close to the sacred Adi Ganga river.

Mother Teresa, dedicated to working among the sick and destitute of this sprawling city, died days after celebrating her 87th birthday in 1997.

Nirmal Hriday — set up in 1952 — was special to the Nobel Peace laureate. “Mother Teresa saw hundreds of people dying uncared and unattended on the streets,” said Glenda. “She felt very unhappy and planned to set up a home for these people so they could get care before their death,” she said.

Finally, the Calcutta Municipal Corp handed over the one-storey building to her where she established the home.

Kolkata, Sunday, AFP