Entertaining Angels Unawares

My grandmother had an old 78 recording of her friend, Sir Harry Lauder, singing a song called "The End of the Road" that she played as often as she could. Gramma loved that song. It was in many ways, the theme song for her life, the lives of her children and her grandchildren.

With a good stout strong heart and an end in view, We can cut short many a mile… (The End of the Road)

Fill your heart with unconditional love and share it with your neighbours, your friends and family. Share it with strangers too.

My mother often told the story that during the depression they had very little of anything including food. One day while she was sitting on the front steps to eat her lunch – a peanut butter sandwich - a man came along, out of work, out of money, out of dignity and out of hope. He asked Gramma for some money.

My grandfather had died leaving Gramma to raise 4 girls on her own empty-handed and therefore Gramma had no money to give the stranger. She couldn't give him any work. But Gramma could and did give him a good stout dose of `heart' along with my mother's peanut butter sandwich!

Mom missed one meal but the stranger received nourishment to give him the physical strength to keep on going, and because no one ever left Gramma's without it, he also received a big slice of dignity and hope to help make his road seem a little shorter.

Gramma's road through life was neither easy nor short and there were never any shortcuts but she never once gave up. She kept a good strong heart, continuing to give and share with others, a song in her soul and laughter ever close to the edge of her lips until she came to the end of her road.

Mom never forgot giving up her lunch that day. It's easy to give when your pockets and tummies are full, but it is not so easy when they empty. Gifting should come from the heart and be wrapped in the twin blessings of hope and dignity.

My mother and grandmother were both masters of giving in this way. No, Mom never forgot her lost lunch and she never once regretted it.

Many years later, when Mom was too ill and weak to help herself and her children's physical strengths were failing too, Mom needed help to get down the stepped walkway and into the car to go to one of her medical appointments. It began to look as if we weren't going to be able to get her there. It had taken every last ounce of our combined strength to get to the bottom of the stairs descending from the front door. There was still a long walk downhill to get to the car.

As Mom sat and rested on the steps, a stranger, seeming to appear from nowhere was taking a walk past our house. He came up and offered Mom his help. He then effortlessly picked her up and carried her down the hilly path to the car and gently placed her inside the car on the seat without causing her any additional pain at all.

This stranger gifted Mom that day from his heart and liberally wrapped it in blessings of hope and dignity.

Although we had lived in that neighbourhood for ten years, and knew most of our neighbours by sight, we had never seen this gentle man before. Nor have we ever seen this him since.

Whoever he was, whatever his name, to us, just then, he was an angel whose presence was most gratefully received.

How about you? Have you, too, encountered angels unawares?

On Mother's Day (Etsy Bloggers Carnival May 5, 2008)

My mother loved to make angels. She crocheted big ones, small ones and all sizes in between. She didn't have a pattern for them. She didn't write her pattern down. Each angel was unique and hand made.

I remember one of Mom's birthday parties at which Mom distributed a tiny angel to each and every one of her guests. She had worked for weeks making them. I think one of my cousins even took two or three.  We all enjoyed these heavenly treats.

Mom was generous at giving out her angels. For years her eye doctor and his staff each received an angel at Christmas time. Mom always seemed to have at least one angel in her purse ready to give to someone who she felt might be in need of one. Cab drivers, shopkeepers, bus drivers, even strangers she met throughout her day all were blessed with her special gift.

To celebrate the millennium, Mom made tall pillow dolls using a millennium fabric. They were beautiful creations in gold and white.

Her children and grandchildren received little six inch angels. These had underskirts in our favourite colours.

It was always an adventure to find objects for wings and porcelain faces and hands, or to find enough balls of white and ecru crochet cotton around the holidays. I still have a stash of little dolls that Mom had planned on incorporating into her latest angelic design.

It will be 3 years this Mother's Day that we've celebrated without her. Like my mother before me I have to learn to 'suck it in' and get on with the business of living. At one time there were 3 mothers living under one roof. Mom had to learn to live without her mother for companionship when my own daughter was only 5 years old. Now a grown woman she tries to make Mother's day special for me.

We met with the minister when Mom died and discussed her prolific disbursement of angelic creations. At the funeral he mentioned these angels and asked the congregation for a show of hands of those who had received at least one of these angels. This request was met with laughter and I heard a rustling from the congregation that filled the little chapel. I didn't even have to turn my head to know that every single person in that room had raised their hand.

When the organist began to play Mom's 2 favourite hymns I swear I could hear her voice belting out the melody. And every Angel in the celestial kingdom joined right in.

I'd like to close this entry with the following prose created by one of the funeral director's for a memorial evening for bereaved families at Christmastime. I think it is just as pertinent for Mother's Day. It brings me peace.

• In the rising of the sun and in its going down, we will remember them.
• In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we will remember them.
• In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer, we will remember them.
• In the rustling of leaves and in the beauty of autumn, we will remember them.
• In the beginning of the year and in its end, we will remember them.
• When we are weary and in need of strength, we will remember them.
• When we are lost and sick at heart, we will remember them.
• So long as we live, they shall live, for they are now a part of us, as we remember them.