by Thornton, EJ
I spent the rest of the night there. I sat by Glory. I immensely enjoyed just being by her side. I wished I had appreciated each moment more, but I appreciated each moment now and I treasured it unlike anything I ever had before.
I reflected on the day and wondered about the future for the family. I was confident, through all I'd experienced so far, that they were going to be all right and that they were well taken care of.
I had fun in the night testing my "Angel light" to see if I could get Sarah or Vivian to notice things. It amazed me how easy it was. I got Sarah to stare at the family picture and I lit up my face, to let her know how proud I was of her. I got Vivian to notice that the lights were left on in the guest bathroom and she got up and turned them off. Then I drew a fanciful pattern in the ceiling with the different paint textures. By the time I was finished lighting the different pattern, it looked like a beautiful flower. Viv recognized it right away and she said, "That's pretty, Martin. You know how I love columbines. I'm sure going to miss you." Soon after that, she brought a blanket out and covered Glory up. Then she went to sleep in the recliner.
The predicament with Jeremi kept troubling me. The thought of him having a little boy at this stage in his life, was both fun and frightening at the same time. I knew what kind of person he was, when he was sober. Until we got him straightened out, however, I worried what kind of influence he'd be on his new son. I found peace when I trusted in the Lord's wisdom. I prayed for strength for Jeremi in his struggle. I prayed Jeannie would look past his flaws and see him for his potential and I prayed for her girls and their future son.
Chapter 7
George showed up near dawn. "Did you have a good night?"
"Yes, I had a very nice night."
"Well, are you ready to face the adventures of another day?"
"Where do we get to go?"
"How about going to go meet your future grandson's sisters and their angels and help get them ready for the day?" I looked at Glory as she began to stir a little on the couch. George reassured me, "Relax Martin, we'll be back soon."
"Okay," I agreed.
Suddenly, we were in a small, two-bedroom apartment. An alarm clock buzzed. There was Jeannie in between two small girls in her bed; they had both snuggled up so close to her that she had trouble maneuvering to hit the snooze button. She turned to see the time, then snuggled back down in the bed with her girls, who slept soundly through all of it.
"It'll be a couple of minutes before they get out of bed. Do you want to look around?" George asked.
Like her office, Jeannie's apartment had inspirational quotes about self-confidence and her inner spiritual self everywhere: posted on the refrigerator, tacked on the wall of the bathroom, her bedroom, and in the hallways. She had dozens of photographs as well of people all over her walls. Most of them were pictures of the girls with other people who looked enough like the girls to assume they were their relatives.
"Good morning, Martin. Good morning, George," Pearl's voice came from behind us. "Come to get to know your new family, I see." She smiled. "Well, let me give you the official tour. You've met Jeannie, she's thirty-one. The oldest girl is Carole; she's five. The youngest girl is Lynne; she's two and a half. They're both very smart, happy and well-adjusted children, but different as night and day. Their angels will be back as soon as they wake up. You'll like them. You'll see what a challenge being the guardian angel of a small child really is."
"They've lived here for a few months. Soon after the girls' father left, they moved here from their house, which was for the best. Jeannie wanted out of that lonely house. This apartment will work for now, but we'll need something bigger when the baby comes."
I looked around and had to agree. This was small, but it looked ample for them at the moment.
"These pictures are all of family. She's the youngest of five children. There's a ten-year span from oldest to youngest. She has three brothers and one sister. They all live far away. She's on her own for all that she's going through now and what's coming. She's definitely going to learn what being self-reliant is all about, but that's part of what this is supposed to teach her," Pearl explained.
"Part?" I asked.
"There are so many lessons coming in a short period of time for her. It'll be a hard road, but she'll come out shining on the other side. We'll do our best to make sure of that. It takes a lot of pressure to make a diamond."
"Is she being punished? Having this all happen this way?" I asked. I still was a bit muddled about the reason she was chosen.
"Punished? Heavens, no!" Pearl laughed a little. "The timing of this is more critical to Jeremi's predicament. However, it plays in her favor to a great extent."
"How?"
"Jeannie needs to get a little of her own medicine. She needs the shoe to be on the other foot and learn that God is the only judge that matters." She paused and I looked her a question. "A little family history is in order here. Jeannie and her first husband were married, then two years later Carole comes along. Well, that's all well and good and the way that things should happen, but she was full of herself with that fact and when she met people who got that order reversed, she was secretly judgmental and proud. So she judged and now others will judge her for the same reason. That's why the timing for her. She's doing some penance for those sins now, to teach her a larger lesson. She's going to develop such compassion for women in this predicament, that after this, hopefully she'll be inspired to do great things. The reason for the baby, among other reasons, is that she was always destined to have three children, so, here comes number three and a boy to boot. It always amazes me how perfect the Father's plan is when so many things are accomplished at one time and for so many people. Only God could be so wise."
We made eye contact with that statement and both sighed. There was going to be a lot of work to do to get them through all the trials life was about to throw them.
The alarm went off again. We all went back into the bedroom. Jeannie slipped out of bed without waking the girls and stumbled one eye still closed, the other squinting, into the bathroom. She closed the door behind her. Pearl disappeared, too.
George and I stayed with the girls. Their angels appeared beside each of them. The one by Carole said, "Hello, Martin."
The one by Lynne said, "Hi." Both smiled broadly.
"This is Marie." Carole's angel gracefully nodded. "And this is Edwina." Lynne's angel gave a little wave. "They're the girls' angels. Pearl has told them about you."
"I'm delighted to meet you both. You have beautiful charges," I said referring to the sleeping children beside them.
They both smiled, nodded in agreement and Marie graciously said, "Thank you."
I watched as Marie stroked Carole's cheek gently enough to make her stir. Carole woke up enough to see that her mother had already gotten up. She got up and walked blear-eyed to the bathroom, just like her mother had and Marie went with her. I had to laugh. It was so cute.
"When the little one wakes up, will she do the same thing?" I asked.
"Runs in the family," Edwina admitted. We all chuckled.
We heard Carole and her mother talk in the bathroom. Shortly thereafter both emerged in their bathrobes. Jeannie instructed Carole on what outfit to wear and what accessories to bring, so she could help her dress.
During the next half hour or so, I witnessed the most spectacular display of angel/people interaction that I'd seen so far. When one of them was looking for something, her angel shined her angel light on it until it was found. Jeannie yelled out commands and the girls' angels repeated them to the children until whatever it was, was accomplished.
Little Lynne was out in the kitchen and reached up to the top of the counter. She was in danger of pulling stuff off the counter onto her head, but Edwina pushed the pile of papers back out of her reach.
I informed George anxiously, "Jeannie will notice that! She moved that whole stack of papers!"
"Just watch," he smiled.
Lynne walked i
nto the family room and proceeded to get into more things. Edwina, always one step ahead, pushed things out of her way. It was a game with them. The smiles on their faces matched perfectly. Sometimes I wondered if the baby could really see Edwina.
When Jeannie came out to the kitchen, she walked past the stack of papers that had been moved. She looked back over her shoulder to do a double take, said, "Hmmm, how'd those get there?" She shrugged her shoulders and turned back around (because Pearl had shouted at her) with barely enough time to dodge the door jamb she was about to walk into.
Pearl sighed. "That was close."
The incident with the door jamb apparently wiped any thoughts of the misplaced stack of papers right out of Jeannie's thoughts. She went on with getting herself and the girls ready for the day.
George explained, "If your charge is going to get hurt, you, as their angel, have to make snap decisions as to the best way to protect them. Moving a stack of papers or inanimate objects away from little children will receive little notice from others in the house, so that's done routinely. Sometimes, like you saw, it's a game the angels play with the children to keep them occupied until someone is physically in the room with them. We only play those games when they're really little. When the parent comes out and sees some things moved around, they just assume the little one did it. It all works out. When they get a little older, it can scare them, so we change how we play with them."
When I saw this, I thought back to when I was alive. I had fun imagining what the angels were doing. I tried to apply what I had seen this morning, to every morning when I grew up and my children grew up. The echoes of my mother's commands in my ear was George making sure I'd remember something important she'd told me to do. All the times I'd walked past stacks of papers wondering how they had ended up where they were, I just dismissed it as the children getting into them. The more I thought about it, it occurred to me that the incidence of papers moving in my life decreased as my children got older and started happening again when my grandchildren were born. It all fit. It became incredibly clear. They were always there, always doing things with us. I never understood or appreciated how much they actually took care of us from minute to minute, every day of our lives, crisis situations and peaceful situations alike. Angels were with us routinely, daily, every moment. It was absolutely astounding to consider.
The more I watched, the more I was amazed and the more I wanted to do this. I definitely wanted to be the new baby's Guardian Angel. I smiled knowingly at George.
"I bet you've made your decision," he said.
"Yes. I want to do it."
"Well then, let's start preparing Jeannie and Jeremi. Tell her the good news."
Jeannie came into the family room and looked at her watch. She began a last-minute flurry to gather up the children, Carole's backpack, Lynne's diaper bag and her work folder. So I got close to her and as I stumbled for words to say, she whizzed right back out of the room.
"Let's wait until she's alone and can hear us," George said.
She whizzed by again and grabbed more things as she went by. She picked up Lynne, too. As she loaded up her car, Marie whispered something to Carole. Carole yelled, "Mommy, my snacks!"
Without missing a beat, Jeannie nodded, rattling the keys she was holding in her mouth. She finished buckling up Lynne, closed the door, ran back into the house, got a sack out of the refrigerator, ran back to the car, gave the treats to Carole and drove away, checking her watch and shaking her head in disgust.
"Is it always this frantic in the morning?" I asked Pearl. She nodded, shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
Jeannie dropped the girls off at the daycare. When she got back to the car, she took a second for herself. She put her hands together on the steering wheel and put her head down on them. "I need to get more sleep!" She glanced at her watch and shook her head in disgust again.
"Is now a good time?" I asked.
"Let's set the stage with some music," Pearl said. Jeannie pushed a tape in the tape player, a song about destiny. "You came in and I discovered that my life would never be the same. You are my destiny, you are my one and only. You're the one God sent to me. I'm so glad He chose you, for me, for love, forever."
"Give me a break, destiny, ha!" Jeannie said out loud and pushed the tape out.
George counted on his fingers, one, two, three. "Jeremi is your destiny!" George and Pearl said together.
I could tell those words hit her like a blast of wind because her head jolted back against the seat and she stared up at the ceiling with her eyes open really wide.
She blinked hard and shook her head. Then she started her car and drove away, muttering to herself. "I wonder what Jeremi is doing right now? He said he'd call last night - hmmm. Oh well, I'll see him after work tonight. Geez, what made me suddenly think of him? Oh yeah, that song. Destiny, schmestiny, Jeannie, you're imagining things. Get a grip."
She made it to work, walked into the building, dropped her purse off at her desk and grabbed her coffee cup and headed off to the lunchroom. Pearl said, "Watch this. Every day, like clockwork, she reads her horoscope. Wait until you see what hers is today." Jeannie, true to form, opened up the paper to her horoscope, which read "Today is a day of great beginnings. Black is a significant color for you."
Jeannie read that and choked on the coffee.
Judie walked in behind her and patted her on the back. "Are you all right?" she asked.
Jeannie shook her head and pointed to the horoscope. After Judie read it and looked at Jeannie, she laughed and said, "Somebody knows about you, huh?" She patted Jeannie on the back one more time after filling up her cup with coffee, left the lunchroom and chuckled to herself all the way back to her desk.
As Jeannie left the lunchroom, she shook her head and muttered, "Significant color! Destiny, schmestiny. Get your mind on your work and off Jeremi!" When she got back to her desk, Judie took one look at her and laughed all over again. Jeannie tried-unsuccessfully--to keep her laugher to herself. They both gave each other one last knowing glance and smile and went to work at their computers.
"Pearl, how'd you do that?" I asked.
"Nothing to it. We're trying to get a message across to her, right? So we need to put it in front of her any chance we get. We can use any means at our disposal. It's actually very simple. The only question is, is she listening?" she responded.
"Is that everybody's horoscope today?" I asked.
"Nope. But it'll be in any paper she looks at." She smiled. They laughed. After watching the pleasure they took in doing the jobs they were sent to do, I caught their enthusiasm and drank it in. I enjoyed watching these Guardian Angels at work.
Chapter 8
Once we got Jeannie to work successfully, my thoughts returned to Glory. George read my mind or maybe he just knew everything about me and sensed this. He nodded at me and we were back with Glory. Sarah made Glory breakfast. Both of them picked at their food.
The doorbell rang. Peter's face appeared in the window. He, his family and Jeremi had arrived.
"Good timing," I told George.
"I know." From the look on his face, I think he planned it. I shook my head and simply smiled.
Sarah ran to the door and opened it up. Everyone gave her a big hug at the door and then came into the kitchen to greet Glory separately. Once everyone got in, they congregated in the kitchen and stood in one massive group hug. Their angels held hands around them all, in a circle of safety. Sheila showed up and grabbed my hand. George and I joined into the circle, too.
"Keep them from crying Martin, say something," George said.
All the angels looked at me.
"It is so hard to see them cry. I want them to be happy. They're all together. I love seeing them like this," I explained.
Sheila whispered in Peter's ear. Peter had his arm around Sarah. He slowly moved his hand up her side, right up to her underarm and tickled her. Sarah knew that everyone was really serious and sad. She tried hard to resist reacting, so Peter d
id it again. Sarah gave in to the pressure and she snorted. Everyone looked at her, most of them wiped their eyes, in time to see her punch Peter in the arm. It was like they were kids again. Glory laughed through her tears. Peter and Sarah's eyes met and they started to crack up, too. Sarah snorted again.
Melinda appeared perturbed by her husband's juvenile behavior. She asked, "What do you need us to do for you, Mama?"
Right on queue, Vivian walked into the kitchen and said, "Give an old friend a hug!" as she joined the group. Gradually, each one broke from the group and separated into their own conversations.
Vivian and Sarah briefed Peter and Melinda on the funeral arrangements. Jeremi and Glory went off into the dining room, so I went with them. "Mama, Dad came to me yesterday. I met him in a dream. We were at our favorite beach on the coast. We talked. We had a great talk! He said he was with Sheila and that she was the most beautiful angel he had ever seen. He said they painted the sunrise just for you yesterday."
Glory got chillbumps and took Jeremi's hand. "There was the most spectacular sunrise, yesterday."
Jeremi shivered. He got reassurance that what he had experienced was real. They gave each other a hug. "What else did he say?" Glory asked.
Jeremi looked away from his mama and was quiet for a bit, I guess he was replaying the dream quickly in his head. He looked back at her. "Just that he loved everybody and that he was closer than we could ever imagine." They both looked around the house, staring hard at places that I used to frequent. If I was alive and I saw this, I'd go and goose one of them. They would've jumped a mile. Instead, I breezed past between them. As soon as they felt it, they squeezed each other's hands and smiled.
"He's here, Mama," Jeremi said.
"I know," Glory acknowledged and gave his hand another squeeze. After a few seconds, she kissed Jeremi on the cheek and said, "I'm so glad you're here." She let go of his hand and went to greet Peter and Melinda privately.
