Description
It is easy to be complacent about the rights of women. Though women are executives, attend universities, and hold high office, there is still much to do. Their story of rising equality is mirrored in miniature throughout 'Sisters in Our Soul.'
Due to her quest for an education, the Taliban tried to kill Malala Yousafzai. She survived, won the Nobel Prize, and said, "When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful." 'Sisters in Our Soul' is such a voice.
'Sisters' tells the story of two generations of college women. Spread across several decades, each seeks recognition and friendship. Both show leadership as they endeavor to be that "one voice" for change.
Early on, Evelyn and Calinda take center stage. They provide the unlikely bond that unites the Nazareth College classes of 1928 and '74. Each appears as a youthful student and, later, as a mature woman.
The women are like two trains in the night, hastening to different destinations. Their lives unexpectedly cross, casting shadows on one another as they speed past. Though scarcely touching through the years separating their youthful college experiences, Calinda and Evelyn inspire one another.
The reader meets five-year-old Calinda in 1957. Her brothers mistreat her and prey on her childhood weaknesses. Despite their behavior, or perhaps due to it, she is a forceful, self-confident student when we next encounter her. Capable but troublesome, she seeks to become an independent adult. Calinda evolves, graduates, falls in love, marries, and becomes a mother. She supervises a nursing facility. Hers are the joys and dilemmas of an educated woman.
Despite health problems, she oversees the creation of a new building for her residents. There, high on a hill overlooking Oneida, NY, Calinda struggles against bureaucrats and their vexing mandates. At times, she thinks back to her life at Nazareth. However, these are passing thoughts until one day; she encounters Evelyn Regan.
Gail Hood, R.N., the director of nurses, deliberately places the patient's folder on her desk but declines to explain its significance. Caught up in the day-to-day predicaments of the nursing home, Calinda puts off reading it. However, on her way upstairs to visit Evelyn's room, the harried administrator skims the patient's background and notices something: Like herself, the older woman is a Nazareth College graduate!
Evelyn suffers from ill-health. Though enfeebled, when Calinda discloses that she too is a Nazareth graduate, the older woman stirs. It is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
"Can you please say that one more time for me?" Evelyn asks. Something drew her attention, and she reveals how their two graduating classes had once crossed paths. Evelyn tells her that the earlier group of pioneers had been present at Calinda's graduation ceremony in 1974—the 50th anniversary of the institution's founding.
That day, two groups of women, though never standing face to face, intersected through an act so subtle yet so binding that it forever entangled their lives. Calinda and Evelyn discover that they truly are sisters.
Sharing stories, they come to understand that the gap separating them is an illusion. It is clear that each generation stands on the shoulders of its predecessors; each took steps toward equality for women.
It strikes them that both classes shaped vibrant women who contributed to those "yet to be born." In their own way, half a century removed from one another, and another half removed from Pakistani heroine Mala Yousafzai, both come to appreciate that their individual voice conveys power and truth.
Their relationship is short-lived. Tragedy intervenes before the women complete the dialogue. Still, their sisterhood flourishes in the form of a reunion, where the graduates of '74 renew their long-ago friendships. At the same time, halfway around the world, a youthful Mala Yousafzai readies herself for a journey with global implications.