14 Nov Orphan For Life
This article was first published in Pink Magazine – Jan 2011
ROSE CACHIA WAS INSTITUTIONALISED AT A YOUNG AGE, BUT UNLIKE MOST ORPHANS,
SHE CHOSE NEVER TO LEAVE THE CONVENT AND THE NUNS WHO BROUGHT HER UP.
AFTER 69 YEARS AT THE JESUS OF NAZARETH INSTITUTE IN ZEJTUN, SHE TELLS ALISON
BEZZINA SHE CONSIDERS HERSELF VERY LUCKY AND HAS HAD A PERFECT LIFE.
War brings terrible things. For seven year old Rose Cachia, it brought unimaginable tragedy.
Her family’s home was destroyed, and her father was killed when the blast of a bomb literally detached his head from his body. Ultimately, the war meant that Rose would spend the rest of her life in an institution.
All this might sound like a horrid story straight from the Charles Dickens’ era, but Rose, who is now 76 years old, managed to turn her tragic childhood into a life of love and selflessness. Just like her six brothers and sisters, Rose was institutionalized at a young age, but unlike most orphans, she chose not to ever leave the institution and the people who brought her up. As a result of her tragic beginnings, Rose Cachia has been living at The Jesus of Nazareth Institute in Zejtun, for the past 69 years.
“I was the eldest of six siblings, and when I was only seven years old, and my mother was pregnant with her seventh child, a bomb fell on our house and destroyed it. Luckily we were not home at the time, but as faith would have it, shortly after, another bomb fell where my dad was working and he was killed. He was only 35 years old and his death left me scarred for life.
I loved him dearly because although we were many siblings and money was short, for some reason I always felt like I was his favourite. He was a special man, who always made sure that we did not lack anything. He was educated and gentle, and always made me feel so special by asking me to sit next to him during meal times, and buying me small toys.
My mother was lucky enough to survive the air raid, but as a young widow she could not cope with six children under the age of seven as well as another one on the way. Her father was adamantly against the idea of separating us children, so for the first night after the tragedy, he gave us shelter at the dockyards where he worked at the time. After spending the first night there, the parish priest took us to The Jesus of Nazareth Institute.
Three months later, my mother gave birth to my youngest brother. She called him Charles after my father, and soon after she brought him to the orphanage and went out to work as a secretary. At first, living in an institution was very hard to get used to. It was very different to living with our family, and the sense of abandonment was heart wrenching. After my father’s death, his side of the family disappeared, and my mother’s siblings were still very young. Being such a young widow my mother felt that she still had a full life ahead of her, and always wished to get remarried one day. So in a way, us kids had no one to turn to except the nuns.
At the time there were close to two hundred children at the institute. I was one of the eldest, and thankfully I had already received more schooling than most. I knew how to read and write Maltese, and soon after, the sisters also taught me Latin. Eventually I grew to love my life at the orphanage. I loved the sisters, and their way of life, and soon I was part and parcel of the institution.
Although I never felt the calling for a vocational life, I’ve lived most of my life with the nuns, for a long number of years, I helped with the children, and did many other chores and jobs to help raise money for the home. As a child I remember being taken to Valletta by one of the nuns to collect money from passers-by. Later as a young teenager, I took care of the other orphans, bathed them, fed them, and loved them like they were my own. Sometimes a nun and I would have had as many as 40 children to tend to. It was very hard work, but I also got to do fun stuff like sing in the choir, and take part in theatrical performances that the nuns used to organise for the Bishop. I sang during mass, and was given protagonist roles in the plays. That was my life, and it’s all I ever wanted. It was always bustling with activity without a dull moment to speak of. I was so busy and active that I hardly wondered what life could have been like outside the convent.
My mother was very heard-headed in her beliefs. Whilst she allowed my brothers and sisters to be adopted, and eventually even to be flown out of the country, for some reason she never wanted me to live with anyone else but the nuns. There were several occasions, when married couples had taken a liking to me and wanted to take me in, but my mother never allowed it. She’d tell me straight and plain that my place was with the nuns, because they were the only people that she trusted with me. For a while I felt slightly bitter about the matter, because on the one hand she had abandoned me in an attempt to build another life for herself, and on the other, she wouldn’t give me the chance to live with a family. However in the long run, I think that she did the right choice, because the nuns were always very good to me and it all turned out well.
Of course, times were hard. We had just survived a war, money was tight, and we did not enjoy any of today’s common luxuries like washing machines and other commodities. This meant that we had to wash uncountable numbers of bed sheets, socks and clothes on a daily basis, and after having put the children to bed, I would retire to my room and knit 100 pairs of socks with a knitting machine. I used to sell these to make some extra money as it was the only way we could make sure that we could feed the children and that the orphanage would not close down.
The stress of so much hard labour eventually caught up with me, and when I hit my mid-twenties I started suffering from severe stomach pains. I had never considered leaving the convent before, but at that age, the idea of greener pastures outside the convent walls, started to tempt me. At this point in time the number of children at the orphanage had started to decrease dramatically, and perhaps subconsciously I felt that I was not that needed anymore and even though the sisters never pressured me to leave, at around the age of thirty I decided to give life outside the institute a shot. This was when I left the convent and tried living with my mother who, at the time, must have been in her early fifties.
Soon enough it became clear to me that my mother now had different priorities in life. She had her life felt like I was in her way. Although I tried to be financially independent by cleaning houses and doing odd jobs, I was not healthy enough to keep it up and going back to the convent seemed like my only choice. I only stayed with my mother for a few weeks, and then headed back to the convent, where luckily, I was welcomed back with open arms. Eventually my mother fulfilled her wish and at the age of 62 she got remarried.
It’s now been 69 years that I’ve been living at The Jesus of Nazareth Institute, and I’ve grown very attached to the sisters, and particularly to Sister Helen, the Mother Superior. We’re almost the same age and we’ve known each other for half a century. I could never consider moving away now. In fact one of the reasons that always kept back from considering a vocational life is that as a nun, the superior could ask me to move to another convent and I wouldn’t want that.
Today there are no orphans living her anymore, so I live here with fifteen elderly nuns, and another six women, who just like me, were orphans as children and never left the convent. As strange as it may sound to most, I consider myself very lucky. Unlike what many might think, I am not living here because I am afraid of the outside world. On the contrary, I love to go out and to have fun, in fact I go all over Malta by bus, and thanks to some generous members of my family and friends I’ve also been abroad on numerous occasions. My aunt Rita helps me out financially and has even paid my trip to Australia. I go out mostly every day and take care of anything that needs to be done outside the convent, like paying bills and picking up pills for the sisters. Though I pay the convent a small fee as rent, lately I’ve also managed to save up enough money to furnish a room of my own.
Although I hadn’t heard from my siblings for years, we have now re-established contact, and though they are all living abroad, we still keep in touch with letters and phone calls. The nuns have given me the life that I have today, but I am fully aware who my blood family is and cherish them dearly. I love my nephews and nieces, and though I never had children of my own, I am fully content knowing that it was entirely my choice. I’ve had suitors who wanted to marry me, but I was never interested enough to see things through. I was busy and happy living with the sisters, and as strange as it seems, it was, and still is the perfect life for me.”
First published in Pink Magazine – Jan 2011
