James S. Wood / Arizona Daily Star

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The swimming pool case still haunts, more than a decade later.

The mother of two little boys was in critical condition after nearly drowning in a pool at the motel where the family was living. She eventually died.

"The 6-year-old boy who witnessed it, he looked up at me and just said the same thing over and over: 'I couldn't get my mommy up,' " Sister Mary Ann Rawson remembers.

Calling the situation an accidental drowning would be simplifying it. Like so many of the cases she's handled, there were complexities and, like some, a darker turn. Rawson was with the family for the aftermath, too.

Rawson, 67, is a chaplain for the Carondelet Health Network in Tucson.

She has spent the last 15 years — first in Yuma and, since 1995, in Tucson — sitting with families and patients during times of unexpected health crises, tragedies and often during the final stages of a life.

"I represent something larger than myself," she explains.

She walked the halls of St. Joseph's Hospital one last time on Friday, reluctant to be leaving. Her friends and colleagues were set to throw a retirement party Saturday.

Crippling rheumatoid arthritis has made her job increasingly difficult. She gets around with a walker and has limited use of her hands.

Those who know Rawson say she has touched the lives of thousands of local patients and their families — sitting with them through illness and death.

"I will pray for her. She's an excellent one," said the Rev. Isaac Fynn, a Catholic priest and fellow chaplain.

"We all find her very insightful, and she has a special way of relating to people who are having chronic physical or emotional issues," said Cheryl Wilson-Weiss, who is director of spiritual care for Carondelet and oversees its six full-time chaplains.

There have been miracles, too, Rawson says, like the woman Rawson recently met in the elevator at St. Joe's. Two years before, Rawson had helped the woman go from the intensive-care unit to hospice.

"I am very much alive," the middle-aged woman said, as Rawson was still trying to figure out how they knew each other.

She still smiles about that one.

"She really got right up in my face," Rawson says.

Rawson once sat with a tearful family that expected the family's father to die of cancer at any moment, only to have him sit up, ask for orange juice and go on to live with a decent quality of life for six more months.

She remembers a 1-pound baby who had been flown to the neonatal-intensive-care unit from Mexico City. His parents prayed constantly. The family asked Rawson to join them. He wasn't expected to make it, but he did.

In another case, a woman who had crossed the border illegally lay near death from heat exhaustion and dehydration, also not expected to live. The woman's husband prayed for her every day for months. She ended up living, too.

The chaplains' philosophy is that while a cure isn't always possible, there's always room for healing.

"We're all spiritual beings. We express it in different ways," Wilson-Weiss said. "What Sister Mary Ann does is a ministry of presence, simply reminding people there is a loving God. She has that capacity. … We cannot give what we don't have."

Rawson, a native of Washington state and a member of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary order of nuns, stresses that her career has not been all about giving.

She constantly learned from her patients.

"It was when I was in Yuma and they brought in a fellow with his hands blown off. He'd mixed gunpowder and cocaine to shoot it. He was about 30 years old," Rawson says. "I confronted my own losses."

Always a musician, Rawson played piano and cello and loved them both. She earned her bachelor's degree in music education.

But when she was 42, she woke up one day with severely swollen joints. The rheumatoid arthritis had set in, and though she tried, she was not able to play her instruments again.

"My reaction was a little bit of anger," Rawson says. "But I was able to change my beliefs around that."

She's also learned from the forgiveness and letting go that happen at the end of life.

One recent case involved a woman who died unexpectedly, leaving behind two daughters in their early 20s and the girls' stepfather. The woman had been the family's glue. When the family had moved past the shock, there was fear. But Rawson said the stepfather ended up learning how much the daughters loved and appreciated him.

Chaplaincy isn't Rawson's entire life. She volunteers for a state refugee- and immigrant-support program and is a court-appointed special advocate. She's also into genealogy and is obsessed with "America's Most Wanted" — her colleagues say she's always on alert for the faces she sees on the television show.

And she has a group of friends at KG's Westside Restaurant. They are the ones who threw her retirement party.

Rawson first came to Tucson in 1995 to work for St. Mary's Hospital. She's been at St. Joe's since 1999.

"For people struggling with diminished lives, she has been such an inspirational figure to them," said Beth Bebee, the now-retired director of pastoral care who hired Rawson to work at St. Joe's. "To see her not letting personal pains and hurts prevent her from doing things is so meaningful for them."

Bebee said Rawson has also been invaluable to staff members at St. Joe's, who experience constant stress in their jobs.

"She accepts you as you are," said Nikki Hinrichs, the office coordinator who has worked with Rawson since 1999.

Some cases will always stand out. Rawson has never forgotten the little boys who lost their mother in the swimming pool.

"The mother had been drinking when she drowned," Rawson says. "After she died, the dad said he didn't want the children anymore, that he was turning them over to his sister. He said they would have a rough life.

"I still have emotions around different things with that. I keep them in my prayers."