DETROIT — As they entered their 80s, Ed and Bernie Doll found their longtime ministry to hospital patients getting to be too difficult. But rather than just taking it easy, they looked around for some other way to serve.
And they found it in helping out with the catechetical program for special-needs children at St. Alan Parish in Troy.
The Dolls are “extraordinary people,” said Sr. Mary Choiniere, CSJ, pastoral associate at the parish, who runs the program.
“Ed sits there so calmly, so patient and kind. And she’s the same way. They’re like two folks who dropped from heaven,” Sr. Choiniere added.
The Dolls had taken Communion to patients at Beaumont Hospital for 28 years, but “the hospital got too big, and we got too old to do all the floors timely,” Bernie Doll said.
But Ed, 86, and Bernie, 83, have now been working for three years with the children in Sr. Choiniere’s program, and plan to continue spending their Saturday mornings helping prepare special children to receive the sacraments.
Catechists work on a one-to-one basis with the children in the program, and Bernie has worked with Xander, a young boy with autism, now 8, while Ed has worked with Emily, now 10, a young girl with Down syndrome.
And both students are doing well in their religious education, both having made their first Communion this year, Bernie Doll said.
“We had to find some common ground to work together, but now we’re buddies. You just have to meet them where they are, and let things happen,” she said of her work with Xander.
The are many degrees of autism, and Xander’s is relatively mild, Bernie continued: “We read stories and talk about Jesus, and I believe he understands the Eucharist as well as any kid that age does.”
Both she and her husband say the work is spiritually rewarding. “It is a very Spirit-filled program, and it is very rewarding to share your faith with them and see them grow,” Bernie Doll said.
Besides Down syndrome, Emily is unable to speak because of a paralyzed tongue, but Ed Doll said it is amazing how well she can make herself understood by signs and gestures. And the speech therapy she is undergoing might one day allow her to verbalize what she is trying to say.
But while Emily faces challenges in communicating, “she understands what I’m saying,” Ed said.
“I’ll tell her, ‘Hold out your hands, you’re going to receive Jesus,’ and she understands everything that’s going on,” he continued.
Plus, Emily loves to dance and to take part in cheerleader routines, and has a remarkable ability to put together jigsaw puzzles, Ed said.
The volunteer catechists, such as the Dolls, grow to love the children they work with, and that affection is returned. “Emily always gives me a big hug and a kiss,” Ed Doll said.
And Sr. Choiniere said she loves seeing how Emily tries to help Ed.
As Ed explains it, “I’ve used a walker the last five or six years. She gets in front of me or beside me, and walks along with me.”
The roots of the Dolls’ affection for special-needs children goes back a long way, as far back as 50 years ago when there were two special-needs kids on their block, and their own son and daughter would play with them. Their daughter grew up to be a special education teacher in the Fitzgerald School District in Warren.
Sr. Choiniere, 82, has been involved in special-needs catechetics for 32 of her 64 years in religious life, and for many years oversaw all such programs in the archdiocese.
While Sr. Choiniere said she could always use additional volunteers — “there’s always something more to do” — she recommends that seniors, or younger people, who would like to get involved with special-needs religious education programs start by checking with their own parish to see if it or some other parish in their vicariate has a program.
Besides the love she receives from the children, Sr. Choiniere said it has been wonderful working with their parents. “I have been so impressed with their overwhelming sense of acceptance — that God has sent me this child,” she said.
