I was 29 years old and 6 months pregnant with our first child when my (former) husband and I moved to dry land wheat farming country for his first job as a Lutheran pastor; a town of 5,000 people in Eastern Washington, several hours drive from anything like a yoga class.
When I was about to graduate college, my grandmother was sick. I was extraordinarily close with her because I had the blessing of living in a multigenerational home for ten years of my youth. I was visiting her in the hospital and the doctor had explained that hospice should be the next course of care.
I wanted to get some air in courtyard - I got in the elevator barely holding together. A nurse got on a floor below me, looked at me and calmly said “it’s ok, I cry in here sometimes, too” and wrapped me in a hug.
I don’t know her name and never got the chance to thank her, but I think about that kindness often. For me, these small encounters of grace reaffirm my faith in God amidst all of my doubt.
To the kind nurse at AGH hospital in Pittsburgh that hugged a crying college girl - you provided me comfort in more ways that I could ever express. That hug reminded me that God was with me, my family and my grandmother as we navigated her death. Thank you just doesn’t seem to cover it.
My best friend took me to the Detroit Zoo on the day I was supposed to get married. I have thanked him for it, but I don’t know if he knows I smile on every anniversary of that day. He taught me what real love and commitment is.
When I was 11, Linda, a school friend's mom, scooped me up with her son and drove us down to a trailer on a canal near the beach for a week. She sat and smoked and read novels while her son and I played board games, paddled around the Intracostal Waterway, caught crabs, and read books of our own. It was just this little slice of domestic normalcy, giving me a holiday reprieve from alcoholism and violence. On a rainy, stormy day, she drove us east for my first look at the ocean. I bumped into her once, about 25 years later in an out of the way, little country church, and she somehow recognized and remembered me. I tried to look her up again this Sunday, having come to realize how formative that brief, safe time was, but I missed her by a few years and she's gone now.
Maybe 15 or 20 years ago I was in a drive-thru lane at a DMV office to pay my annual vehicle taxes & fees. As If waited in line and, eventually, at the window (because the DMV was never meant to be a fast food site), I was knitting a scarf with a mixture of wool and some sparkly yarn. It was all warm browns, deep reds, maybe a touch of violet, but the sparkly bit had a shiny turquoise component that added to the beauty. The DMV employee who took care of my business remarked that she thought it was beautiful. A few weeks later in December, I went into that office and explained how I didn't know the woman's name but I could give them the date and time that I went through that drive-thru lane and that she had remarked on the scarf. They found the employee and when she came to the counter she seemed cautious (like maybe they were used to people complaining), so you can imagine her joy when I handed her the finished scarf. She was so overwhelmed that she came out from behind the counter to give me a hug. She asked my name, but I told her that it was the Christmas season and all she needed to know was that I got to be her angel that day.
Honestly, I was as happy and joyful as she was! And act of service is a wonderful way to be someone's angel. Add to that the joy of giving someone a wonderful surprise, well, I'm happy all over again just remembering it.
When I was 10 years old, I had a 20-year-old camp counselor. (I am now 64) She treated me like I was her favorite camper, with an amazing unconditional love. I had never been anyone's favorite anything. In fact, I went my whole childhood thinking I was a mistake, an unloved ugly child. 9 years ago, I found her on Facebook. She remembered me! I drove 13 hours to re-connect with her. We've stayed in touch. I am going to see her again next month. God is Good.
Mrs. Kostelnik my best friend's mom. I called her mom too so I don't remember if I knew her first name. I was a troubled kid growing up in a troubled household. I didn't believe at that time in my life that I deserved anything good. Her house was a safe place for me. She welcomed me no matter the circumstances, never judged me and allowed me to stay as long as I wanted (or could). I did get to talk to her a few years before she passed and thanked her for putting up with me and her daughter (her daughter was my partner in crime). I am so grateful that God put her in my path so I could know that I was valued.
This may seem odd, less about friendship than caring. But I had a mechanic when I was married that allowed me to make payments on the many, many repairs I had to obtain on old vehicles that my wife and I would bring in to him. We were terribly irresponsible financially - I used to travel all over town paying off payday loan places on my payday - and one of my stops was usually KeMas Auto Service, where I'd give them $100 a pop until our repairs were paid off. I've split (painfully) from that family and put my finances at least back on a responsible basis, and I would love someday to go to that repair shop and pay for their Christmas party or something, just to give back to them for the peace of mind they gave me over a decade. Mark and Tony were the very definition of good people.
Thank you for this, Nadia. It brought tears to my eyes and made me remember some of those who have helped me through times of loneliness. Thank you, especially, for those wise words about forgiving and loving our younger selves who did the best they could with what they had and knew and were in those younger days. I am grateful for you.
7th grade. 1983-84. I was barely surviving some pretty intense bullying. The school musical that year was Oliver! Middle schoolers were invited to participate. Two upper classmen, one a senior and the other a junior befriended me. sent me little notes of cheer and encouragement. Their love and friendship quite literally saved my young life. Fast forward some 2 1/2 decades to early facebook days. I found them both. I thanked them both. There could never be enough thank yous for those precious people. (and, I'm still grateful for that beautiful part of social media- the rest of it? yikes!)
My next door neighbor, Theresa was a mom just like my mom. With four kids (two girls and two boys) just like my mom. But there was just something about her that I needed. And I would frequently go to her house when I felt most unseen by the screaming hordes at our house. No, it wasn't abusive, just incredibly loud for someone who preferred quiet. And she was always there to listen to this little kid who seemed to be lost in the shuffle. She is 100 now and we don't see each other very much. She does text though. And still somehow finds time to hear the quiet me amidst the life of noise we all have. And yes, I have told her how much she means to me and that I love her. It just doesn't seem like enough, though...
These days I am the primary caregiver for my mom. I love her unconditionally, even though she could not do that for me as I was growing up. I love her especially because of this. She is not the person who helped me when I needed it most. My fathers girlfriend was my angel. She taught me and consoled me, she listened, and she gave me the unconditional love I desperately needed as a 14 year old. In the short time I knew her, she showed me how to love. It is because of her that I am able to give my full heart to my mother in her time of dying.
This is an angel story. There have been plenty of angels in my life, but this one was the most amazing. We live out in the boonies, on a very deep and very wide, rapidly moving tidal creek in an agricultural community in the SC lowcountry. In metro Atlanta, where we moved from, this would have been a river. Anyway, my husband George had motored our 28 foot Tartan sailboat back from having it serviced, maybe 7 or 8 hours away by water. He had been in the hot sun all day and was exhausted. I was at the dock near dusk to greet him, and in trying to land the boat and tie it off, he suddenly got pulled into the water (we are talking 18 feet at low tide). I began to panic because there was nothing that I could do. I had no throwable life preserver to toss to him, there was no ladder on our dock, and all I could do was yell. I had had recent foot surgery and had been advised not to immerse my right foot in water until it was healed. Plus if I had gotten into the water with him, we both would have been helpless. George was pulled by the current against dock pilings and was getting scratched up by barnacles. I phoned a neighbor, who hurried over but could also do nothing to salvage the situation, so we both stood there helpless. Meanwhile, our sailboat, with the motor still on idle, was moving rapidly down the creek, unmanned. Here's the miraculous part. There was a young couple, whom I have never seen before or since, fishing out of a motor boat right beside our dock, who heard me panicking. After a difficult struggle in the growing darkness, they got my husband into their boat and motored him along the waterway so that he could retrieve our boat. We shouted thanks to them and asked how we could thank them, they responded, "Just let us fish around your dock again." When I say that I never saw this couple fishing around our dock before, I mean I NEVER saw this couple fishing around our dock, before or since. And I go out to the dock pretty often. I am not an evangelical person, and I do not go around preaching to people, but I have NO DOUBT that these young people were sent by God to retrieve my exhausted and sunburned hubby from the water that night. And I thank God for them every single day since. Talk about being fishers of men!
She came into my life when I was probably around 13 years old. I met her by playing with her five year old in the back yard. I babysat for her for years. When I got married, it is her face that I remember seeing as I walked down the aisle. She was the one I called after I took myself to Juvenile Detention after a night when my drunk dad and brother physically abused me. My mother had died a couple of months old and I was 17. She invited me to stay with her family. She is the one. She is the one that moved to Maryland when her husband was hired by the NSA. There were many years that we did not see each other and didn't even talk. Then I had the opportunity to go to a conference in Washington, D.C., and I spent the night. She is the one who was cracking fresh crab for dinner when I got back from the conference. She is the one that I have gone to see once or twice a year for the last several years. Her home is the only place I can go and feel totally accepted. In her home, my anxiety takes a rest. It is in her home that I have gathered a new family. A family of acceptance and love. Her husband welcomes me, teases me, and is grateful for an apple pie or chocolate chip cookies. Her children, though they don't need me to care for them any longer, treat me as if I am a treasured member of the family. Her grandchildren have become my grandchildren and I was able to officiate at one of their weddings and I went from Washington to Maryland for the other's baby shower (these "grandchildren by friendship" are twins). She is the best friend I have ever had and I never need to be anything but myself when I am with her and her family. She is more than a friend, she is a gift. Her name is Melinda, and I love her so much. Thank you, Melinda, for loving me, taking care of me, accepting me and welcoming me into your heart and home.
"Some things only come after getting them wrong enough."
This hit me like a semi truck.
After 23 years of marriage to a verbally (occasionally physically) abusive narcissist with bipolar d/o, I went to my Lutheran pastor to confess that I could no longer forgive him, but was ashamed to be thinking about divorce. "I made a vow 'til death do us part." He said, "_____ made a vow too, to love, honor, and treasure you. He has broken his vow to God. You are no longer bound by yours." Then he said, "You can forgive him, but you don't have to let him keep on hurting you."
That statement hit me like a ton of bricks, and I went home to process what it meant. 6 months later, I told the spouse he had to leave, and it took him another 6 months before he finally moved out, but I have been ever grateful for that one sentence that freed me to become who I was intended to be from the beginning. I tried to thank the pastor but he didn't remember that as the powerful moment it was for me, but thanked me for letting God speak through him!
When I was about to graduate college, my grandmother was sick. I was extraordinarily close with her because I had the blessing of living in a multigenerational home for ten years of my youth. I was visiting her in the hospital and the doctor had explained that hospice should be the next course of care.
I wanted to get some air in courtyard - I got in the elevator barely holding together. A nurse got on a floor below me, looked at me and calmly said “it’s ok, I cry in here sometimes, too” and wrapped me in a hug.
I don’t know her name and never got the chance to thank her, but I think about that kindness often. For me, these small encounters of grace reaffirm my faith in God amidst all of my doubt.
To the kind nurse at AGH hospital in Pittsburgh that hugged a crying college girl - you provided me comfort in more ways that I could ever express. That hug reminded me that God was with me, my family and my grandmother as we navigated her death. Thank you just doesn’t seem to cover it.
Beautiful.
My best friend took me to the Detroit Zoo on the day I was supposed to get married. I have thanked him for it, but I don’t know if he knows I smile on every anniversary of that day. He taught me what real love and commitment is.
When I was 11, Linda, a school friend's mom, scooped me up with her son and drove us down to a trailer on a canal near the beach for a week. She sat and smoked and read novels while her son and I played board games, paddled around the Intracostal Waterway, caught crabs, and read books of our own. It was just this little slice of domestic normalcy, giving me a holiday reprieve from alcoholism and violence. On a rainy, stormy day, she drove us east for my first look at the ocean. I bumped into her once, about 25 years later in an out of the way, little country church, and she somehow recognized and remembered me. I tried to look her up again this Sunday, having come to realize how formative that brief, safe time was, but I missed her by a few years and she's gone now.
Maybe 15 or 20 years ago I was in a drive-thru lane at a DMV office to pay my annual vehicle taxes & fees. As If waited in line and, eventually, at the window (because the DMV was never meant to be a fast food site), I was knitting a scarf with a mixture of wool and some sparkly yarn. It was all warm browns, deep reds, maybe a touch of violet, but the sparkly bit had a shiny turquoise component that added to the beauty. The DMV employee who took care of my business remarked that she thought it was beautiful. A few weeks later in December, I went into that office and explained how I didn't know the woman's name but I could give them the date and time that I went through that drive-thru lane and that she had remarked on the scarf. They found the employee and when she came to the counter she seemed cautious (like maybe they were used to people complaining), so you can imagine her joy when I handed her the finished scarf. She was so overwhelmed that she came out from behind the counter to give me a hug. She asked my name, but I told her that it was the Christmas season and all she needed to know was that I got to be her angel that day.
Honestly, I was as happy and joyful as she was! And act of service is a wonderful way to be someone's angel. Add to that the joy of giving someone a wonderful surprise, well, I'm happy all over again just remembering it.
When I was 10 years old, I had a 20-year-old camp counselor. (I am now 64) She treated me like I was her favorite camper, with an amazing unconditional love. I had never been anyone's favorite anything. In fact, I went my whole childhood thinking I was a mistake, an unloved ugly child. 9 years ago, I found her on Facebook. She remembered me! I drove 13 hours to re-connect with her. We've stayed in touch. I am going to see her again next month. God is Good.
I'm so glad you found her!
Mrs. Kostelnik my best friend's mom. I called her mom too so I don't remember if I knew her first name. I was a troubled kid growing up in a troubled household. I didn't believe at that time in my life that I deserved anything good. Her house was a safe place for me. She welcomed me no matter the circumstances, never judged me and allowed me to stay as long as I wanted (or could). I did get to talk to her a few years before she passed and thanked her for putting up with me and her daughter (her daughter was my partner in crime). I am so grateful that God put her in my path so I could know that I was valued.
WOW! This just popped up in my Facebook news feed:
Angels by Mary Oliver
You might see an angel anytime and anywhere.
Of course, you have to open your eyes to a kind of
second level, but it’s not really hard.
The whole business of what’s reality and what isn’t has never been solved and probably never will be.
So I don’t care to be too definite about anything.
I have a lot of edges called Perhaps and almost nothing you can call Certainty.
For myself, but not for other people.
That’s a place you just can’t get into, not entirely anyway, other people’s heads.
I’ll just leave you with this.
I don’t care how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
It’s enough to know that for some people they exist, and that they dance.
What a beautiful poem! Thank you for sharing it.
This may seem odd, less about friendship than caring. But I had a mechanic when I was married that allowed me to make payments on the many, many repairs I had to obtain on old vehicles that my wife and I would bring in to him. We were terribly irresponsible financially - I used to travel all over town paying off payday loan places on my payday - and one of my stops was usually KeMas Auto Service, where I'd give them $100 a pop until our repairs were paid off. I've split (painfully) from that family and put my finances at least back on a responsible basis, and I would love someday to go to that repair shop and pay for their Christmas party or something, just to give back to them for the peace of mind they gave me over a decade. Mark and Tony were the very definition of good people.
That's an amazing idea- i hope it happens!
Thank you for this, Nadia. It brought tears to my eyes and made me remember some of those who have helped me through times of loneliness. Thank you, especially, for those wise words about forgiving and loving our younger selves who did the best they could with what they had and knew and were in those younger days. I am grateful for you.
7th grade. 1983-84. I was barely surviving some pretty intense bullying. The school musical that year was Oliver! Middle schoolers were invited to participate. Two upper classmen, one a senior and the other a junior befriended me. sent me little notes of cheer and encouragement. Their love and friendship quite literally saved my young life. Fast forward some 2 1/2 decades to early facebook days. I found them both. I thanked them both. There could never be enough thank yous for those precious people. (and, I'm still grateful for that beautiful part of social media- the rest of it? yikes!)
It's great that you found them both!
My next door neighbor, Theresa was a mom just like my mom. With four kids (two girls and two boys) just like my mom. But there was just something about her that I needed. And I would frequently go to her house when I felt most unseen by the screaming hordes at our house. No, it wasn't abusive, just incredibly loud for someone who preferred quiet. And she was always there to listen to this little kid who seemed to be lost in the shuffle. She is 100 now and we don't see each other very much. She does text though. And still somehow finds time to hear the quiet me amidst the life of noise we all have. And yes, I have told her how much she means to me and that I love her. It just doesn't seem like enough, though...
I've loved reading all these stories of our angels. Thanks everyone for making this place what it is.
These days I am the primary caregiver for my mom. I love her unconditionally, even though she could not do that for me as I was growing up. I love her especially because of this. She is not the person who helped me when I needed it most. My fathers girlfriend was my angel. She taught me and consoled me, she listened, and she gave me the unconditional love I desperately needed as a 14 year old. In the short time I knew her, she showed me how to love. It is because of her that I am able to give my full heart to my mother in her time of dying.
This is an angel story. There have been plenty of angels in my life, but this one was the most amazing. We live out in the boonies, on a very deep and very wide, rapidly moving tidal creek in an agricultural community in the SC lowcountry. In metro Atlanta, where we moved from, this would have been a river. Anyway, my husband George had motored our 28 foot Tartan sailboat back from having it serviced, maybe 7 or 8 hours away by water. He had been in the hot sun all day and was exhausted. I was at the dock near dusk to greet him, and in trying to land the boat and tie it off, he suddenly got pulled into the water (we are talking 18 feet at low tide). I began to panic because there was nothing that I could do. I had no throwable life preserver to toss to him, there was no ladder on our dock, and all I could do was yell. I had had recent foot surgery and had been advised not to immerse my right foot in water until it was healed. Plus if I had gotten into the water with him, we both would have been helpless. George was pulled by the current against dock pilings and was getting scratched up by barnacles. I phoned a neighbor, who hurried over but could also do nothing to salvage the situation, so we both stood there helpless. Meanwhile, our sailboat, with the motor still on idle, was moving rapidly down the creek, unmanned. Here's the miraculous part. There was a young couple, whom I have never seen before or since, fishing out of a motor boat right beside our dock, who heard me panicking. After a difficult struggle in the growing darkness, they got my husband into their boat and motored him along the waterway so that he could retrieve our boat. We shouted thanks to them and asked how we could thank them, they responded, "Just let us fish around your dock again." When I say that I never saw this couple fishing around our dock before, I mean I NEVER saw this couple fishing around our dock, before or since. And I go out to the dock pretty often. I am not an evangelical person, and I do not go around preaching to people, but I have NO DOUBT that these young people were sent by God to retrieve my exhausted and sunburned hubby from the water that night. And I thank God for them every single day since. Talk about being fishers of men!
Indeed!
Indeed.
She came into my life when I was probably around 13 years old. I met her by playing with her five year old in the back yard. I babysat for her for years. When I got married, it is her face that I remember seeing as I walked down the aisle. She was the one I called after I took myself to Juvenile Detention after a night when my drunk dad and brother physically abused me. My mother had died a couple of months old and I was 17. She invited me to stay with her family. She is the one. She is the one that moved to Maryland when her husband was hired by the NSA. There were many years that we did not see each other and didn't even talk. Then I had the opportunity to go to a conference in Washington, D.C., and I spent the night. She is the one who was cracking fresh crab for dinner when I got back from the conference. She is the one that I have gone to see once or twice a year for the last several years. Her home is the only place I can go and feel totally accepted. In her home, my anxiety takes a rest. It is in her home that I have gathered a new family. A family of acceptance and love. Her husband welcomes me, teases me, and is grateful for an apple pie or chocolate chip cookies. Her children, though they don't need me to care for them any longer, treat me as if I am a treasured member of the family. Her grandchildren have become my grandchildren and I was able to officiate at one of their weddings and I went from Washington to Maryland for the other's baby shower (these "grandchildren by friendship" are twins). She is the best friend I have ever had and I never need to be anything but myself when I am with her and her family. She is more than a friend, she is a gift. Her name is Melinda, and I love her so much. Thank you, Melinda, for loving me, taking care of me, accepting me and welcoming me into your heart and home.
Thank you, Melinda.
"Some things only come after getting them wrong enough."
This hit me like a semi truck.
After 23 years of marriage to a verbally (occasionally physically) abusive narcissist with bipolar d/o, I went to my Lutheran pastor to confess that I could no longer forgive him, but was ashamed to be thinking about divorce. "I made a vow 'til death do us part." He said, "_____ made a vow too, to love, honor, and treasure you. He has broken his vow to God. You are no longer bound by yours." Then he said, "You can forgive him, but you don't have to let him keep on hurting you."
That statement hit me like a ton of bricks, and I went home to process what it meant. 6 months later, I told the spouse he had to leave, and it took him another 6 months before he finally moved out, but I have been ever grateful for that one sentence that freed me to become who I was intended to be from the beginning. I tried to thank the pastor but he didn't remember that as the powerful moment it was for me, but thanked me for letting God speak through him!