24670: Hermantin(News)Local woman holds kiss from pope to heart

[sak-pase@bimini.ws]

leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Local woman holds kiss from pope to heart
By Christine Evans
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 03, 2005

MIAMI — The girl in the picture that made a bit of local papal history 18 
years ago was the perfect choice to kiss the pope — or, more accurately, to 
be kissed by the pope.

"Right here, in the middle of my forehead," says Nancy Bourjolly, now 26, as 
she flips through her faded newspaper clippings documenting The Kiss in her 
North Miami home. It is the same red-and-white house she grew up in, the one 
where she became, if fleetingly, a local celebrity.

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"I did feel a little special, because when I went to school, one of the 
teachers ran to me and showed everybody: 'This is the girl the pope kissed!' 
"

"She said, 'Exactly where did he kiss you?' I said my forehead, and she 
leaned down and kissed me in the exact same spot. Then she ran around 
introducing me to everybody.

"The reporters kept calling our house. My mom speaks Creole, so I took the 
calls. I guess I was famous for about two weeks."

Here's how Nancy, the 8-year-old daughter of Haitian immigrants who worked 
as a tailor and shoemakers, got the job of officially greeting Pope John 
Paul II during his highly anticipated Miami visit on Sept. 10, 1987.

"What happened was some other little girl got picked, but she backed out. 
She was too scared. So a teacher from my church — Notre Dame D'Haiti in 
Miami — called me. I think they knew I wouldn't be too shy."

True enough. Back then, Nancy had a flair for the dramatic. Today, her 
friends call her "Queen." It would be accurate to say she did not worry 
about freezing in front of the pope. She only wanted to know if she would 
have any specific responsibilities, and when she learned there would be just 
one, to carry flowers, she said OK.

She put on her new communion dress and rode with other special greeters in a 
white limousine van so she could be on hand when the carpet rolled out like 
a red river for the popular pontiff at Miami International Airport. He 
stepped from his jet, the "Shepherd One," and the kiss came shortly after.

It should be mentioned here that the little girl chosen to meet the pope, 
along with a few other children from different churches, also got to shake 
the hands of President Reagan and his first lady, Nancy.

The younger Nancy was just learning about current events in school, and the 
importance of a presidential handshake was not at all lost on her. "I 
thought it was a pretty big deal," she said.

But for her mother, Clermane, who at 61 still helps support the family by 
cleaning hotel rooms, and her father, Lunert, who died a year ago, nothing 
will ever top the papal kiss.

"It was a blessing," Clermane said. "Oh, a blessing!"

Nancy Bourjolly is no longer famous. But she is well on her way to becoming 
a nurse, which is the very thing she told reporters she would be when they 
called her home all those years ago, looking for the girl the pope kissed.