One of our friends, Louisa, was here at the Foundation one Saturday morning and she shared with us the following story. We asked her to come back and tell it to us again so that we could publish it for all of you to read. The following is Louisa's story:
Louisa's Aunt Regina was from Portugal and did not speak any English. She moved to America and her residence became Providence, RI. Relatives took Regina to visit her brother in Los Angeles. One day, Regina and her family took a trip to the store. The next day, Regina decided that she wanted to go by herself to the store and figured that she would remember how to get there. So she left. After walking for a while, she realized that she wasn't sure of where she was going, or where she had come from, so she just kept walking. Walking and walking and crying. Someone stopped her in the road and because she was so upset, they took her to their home. Since Regina did not understand English and had no identification on her, they did not know what to do with her, so they kept her with them. They figured they would keep her until they heard news about a missing person. Her brother and his step-daughters made posters and looked for her all over. The posters had pictures of Regina and the police and everyone was looking for her.
Regina had been missing for three days. Louisa got together that Friday night with her rosary group and did the sorrowful mysteries. After the rosary group, she came home and grabbed her statue of Padre Pio, as she always does when she needs his help. She went into a room by herself and said, "Padre Pio, today you are going to help me, everyone is crying. My aunt has been missing for 3-4 days and alive or dead, we need to know what has happened to her." She told Padre Pio, "You have to help us. Please let us know where she is." Then she began to say the rosary. She didn't know why, but she felt like she should do the joyful mysteries yet she had just done the sorrowful mysteries with her rosary group. She followed her heart and began the joyful mysteries. When she got to the end of the fifth decade, when the Blessed Mother finds child Jesus in the temple, and before she could say "Our Father," the telephone rang, it was Regina's granddaughter, as happy as could be. She said, "Louisa, I want you to know that we found my grandmother. An old man with a beard delivered her to the authorities in Hollywood." An old man whom they didn't know and never heard from or saw again.