~ willow angels at mom and dad's ~

Friday 25 March 2005
9:36 a.m.

It was shortly after midnight when I set down A Moment's Liberty, The Shorter Diary by Virginia Woolf, and turned out the bedside lamp. And yet I awoke at 6 a.m. for no reason whatsoever. That is not like me; I don't usually open an eye for at least eight hours unless I have to make a reluctant trip to the bathroom. I made myself doze for another hour and then, unable to get back to sleep, thought I might as well get up.

In the fall I bought an organic turkey to cook at Christmas, and then Dad requested we not have turkey for dinner, as it makes him sleepy. Could we have something else instead? So the turkey has remained in the deep freeze all this time. Last night I took it out to thaw and announced that I'm roasting it tomorrow. Ida, if you are taking time out of your vacation to check out this page, you and Wayne are invited! Dad's going to try to reach you on your cellphone.

So today, what to do today? Brother Cameron arrived this morning from Edmonton. Sister Joan is going to Mom's to use the sewing machine. I need to return The Saddest Music in the World, a movie by Winnipeg's Guy Maddin, which I wanted to love, looked forward to renting, and then did not even watch to the halfway point although Scott and I tried to, twice, over the past week. And I need to go buy a few groceries. And work, of course, always work. I sat up till 11 last night, working, after being at Mom's all day. Dad fed me supper. I started sewing (it would make a rare picture of me) my quilt top together. It looks pretty good - rich blues and reds that are much more impressive as a solid block than tiny single ones.

Mom and Dad were at the doc's this week and Dad said, as we sat in the living room while Mom and Joan fought with the sewing machine shortly before I left, "The doctor said she is doing remarkably well." Heh! Heh Heh Heh! Remarkably.

I meant to relate Mom's growing awareness of angels. Of course we think of celestial beings when we hear that word, but Mom is calling the people in her life "my angels."

Last time she was in the hospital, a woman she'd met only once, at a quilting meeting, sent via a friend one of those willow angels. With it she sent a card and the note inside it said "I needed you to have this, Grace."

Mom told me that she herself would never have thought of doing that - taking the time, or buying an ornament she considers not inexpensive - for someone she hardly knows. It was an eye-opener for her who, although kindhearted and generous towards friends and family, is not actively altruistic toward simple acquaintances. She would be too busy with her own life and not thinking of nice things to do for people she hardly knows, she said.

She went on to talk again about having a craving for raspberries, and then a friend appearing at her door with a basketful. Or wishing for MacIntosh apples and then her cousin arriving with a box of them. "I only have to think of something I'd like, and it falls in my lap," she says, pleased and puzzled.

"And the thoughtfulness of my friends," she tells me again. "A day doesn't go by that I don't receive a card, letter, gift or phone call from Joanne. She must spend all her time thinking of nice things to do for me!" (Yesterday I was sleeping off a migraine on Dad's bed when he came into the condo with the mail, and I heard Mom say something like "There goes that Joanne again!" in a happily heightened i've got mail! voice. Who doesn't love mail.)

And Mary Jo, who lives in Salmon Arm, calls almost every day and never appears without either some baking or something she's sewn or quilted. Both of these friends have had health problems of their own for some time, and Mom is wondering "What did I ever do for them?" She is noticing people's outstanding thoughtfulness and generosity to her, and isn't sure she has earned it. Therefore they are her angels, as is each person who does her a kindness.

The extent of caring kindnesses has been such that she cannot help but be shocked by it, and has been deeply touched. Yet she scratches her head over it. I say "Well, if you seem to have angels, maybe there is a message in it. Maybe the message is that there are angels all around you; it almost seems obvious, doesn't it?"

When she lays down she sees a green or a purple light near her bed, and feels it pour in through her forehead, healing and soothing. She thinks of these as "my purple angel" or "my green angel."

I told her about my friend's account of seeing her brother's hospital room filled with angels when he died. "Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful," Mom said, hopefully.

"If Laura says it happened," I insisted, "then it happened. We can believe it."

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