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ISBN: 1-932344-76-4
Angel On Board is the most powerful angel
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Angel On Board
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Chapter VIII
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.
"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 did 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.
Jeremi realized that nobody was looking, so he went out to the garage. He opened the spare refrigerator and started to root around. He quickly found what he was looking for, a beer. He checked around again to make sure he was alone. He opened the beer and gulped several swallows. Then he let out a big "Ahhhh."
"Dad would've put that out in the garage," I heard Peter say, as he opened up the door. Jeremi stashed the beer can in the door of the refrigerator and pretended to be looking for something else. "What you're looking for is already opened and in the door of the fridge, Jeremi."
"There you go again, jumping to conclusions. I just needed something to steady my nerves. We're back here, at another funeral, give me a break - please." Jeremi tried to divert attention away from himself.
Peter got right in his face and said, "Mama needs us more than she ever has in her life. Your drinking has to stop - especially now! Even if she had the strength to deal with it right now, I'd make you get a grip on yourself and think of someone else for a change."
"Damn, it's just a beer! Like you never took a drink," Jeremi defended himself, the way he usually did by attacking someone else.
"At nine in the morning?" Peter turned his back on Jeremi, to find what he had come in for. He grabbed a book off the bookcase, gave Jeremi one last warning glare, took a deep breath, shook his head and went back inside the house.
Then, as if to spite him, Jeremi picked up the beer and chugged the rest of it down. He put the empty can in the garbage can under a potato chip bag that was on top. He pulled a breath mint out of his pocket, chewed it up quickly, tested his breath and went back inside, too.
"What are we going to do with him?" I asked George.
"This is going to be tough on you. But things you have to work hard for, you appreciate more," he reassured me. I nodded and we went back inside.
The rest of the morning flew by. The visitors unpacked. Phone calls from friends came into the house, one after the other. The callers all wanted to know what they could do for the family. People from the church dropped by with casseroles or vegetable trays. Each wished it was more. They hugged Glory and told her how wonderful I was. They'd usually pass along a special story we shared. They laughed and cried and left, then the next one came. Each person visiting Glory had an angel who visited with me. They talked to me about their relationship to their charge. Then they told me about a time that they got George to influence me in some way. Some were the sermon topics I picked, that spoke right to the heart of a problem their charges had. Some were Bible verses to quote, hymns to sing or calls to make because the angels were making their charges weigh heavily on my heart.
I wish I had paid more attention to the little things that happened all around me everyday; I might've been able to appreciate these angels at work. It's funny, too, I remembered perfectly every detail these angels described. If I'd been alive, the details would have been fuzzy. As an angel, my memory was perfectly clear. It was a wondrous gift to have all that back.
Early in the afternoon, Vivian, Glory and Peter left to make the funeral arrangements. That left Sarah, Jeremi, Melinda and the children home to take care of things there. I went with Glory and her party to meet with my associate pastor Brother Hamilton at the funeral home. I watched as Glory and Peter picked out my casket. It was dignified, with a white satin lining. Then they picked my favorite hymns to sing, "Blest Be the Tie That Binds" and "How Great Thou Art." Peter would give the eulogy. They planned the nicest service. It comforted me to know how well they knew what I wanted. On the way out, Peter and Vivian helped a crying Glory to the car. I'm sure she was very grateful to have Peter's strong arm to lean on and a faithful friend she could always count on. Their angels flew above them in a circle of protection.
George and I went ahead of them, back to the house, where Jeremi and Sarah visited and the kids watched TV.
"How did you meet her?" Sarah asked.
"At the pub. She comes in to sing a couple times a week."
"Does she sing very well?"
Jeremi thought for a moment, with an impish grin. "She sings these 'I hate men' songs, and she really gets into them."
"Is she any good?" Sarah rephrased the question.
Jeremi nodded. "If she's rehearsed, yeah. If it's the first time she's sung it, I go outside for a cigarette."
"Can you smoke in the bar?"
"Yup," Jeremi answered, giving her a look like, 'You know what I'm saying?'
"Oh, that's cold!" Sarah went over to him and smacked him on the shoulder. "So, if she hates men so much, why is she seeing you?"
"She's just beginning a divorce from this guy she was married to for eight years. She said he never appreciated her singing in the house, so she quit singing for all those years and she's getting all her frustrations out by singing them out now. You should see her face when she does it, though." He shivered and made this really odd face, where he stuck his lip out awkwardly. "Lord have mercy!" he said and they both laughed.
"Kids?" Sarah asked.
"Yeah, two great kids, little girls. They're cute. The baby calls me 'Emi.' I've only seen them a couple of times, but they are really sweet little girls." Jeremi got a distant look in his eyes. "Oh man! I've got to call her."
"You left town without calling her? You dog!" Sarah slapped him on the shoulder again.
"Where's the phone?" He looked around in a panic.
"Where it always is," Sarah said.
Jeremi went out to the living room and dialed the phone. "Hey, baby," he said quietly. "I meant to call you last night. Something's happened; I'm at my parents house . . . Yes. My father had a heart attack and died." He started to choke up a little. Then he swallowed hard. "Thanks. . . I know. . . Yeah, I'll be fine. Everybody's here. . . Yeah, I flew in with them. . . This morning. . . I'm fine, really. Listen, I had this dream, it was incredible. I'll tell you about it later. . . A few days at least. . . Okay, I'll call you then. . . I've got to go now. . . You, too. Give the girls a kiss for me. g'bye."
"You in trouble?" Sarah asked her brother after he got off the phone.
"It's okay, she understood."
"Let's figure something to do with all this food for dinner tonight," Sarah changed the subject on him. They looked over the casseroles and picked three of their favorites and popped them in the oven to warm. Jeremi combined a couple of the vegetable and cheese trays into a pretty centerpiece on the table.
They cleaned up the kitchen and I smiled wide as I heard Sarah recite the old table-setting poem we taught her when she was about five. "'Fork' has four letters and it goes left of the plate. 'Left' has four letters, that's why this is great! 'Right' has five letters. So does 'knife' and 'spoon' too! God named the silverware to make it easy for you!" Before she could say it three times, the table was set for a beautiful family dinner.
Glory and Peter were still gone. Apparently, they'd stopped to take Vivian home.
By the time they made it back, dinner was about ready. Glory came into the kitchen, hugged Sarah and Jeremi and said, "Thank you."
Sarah asked, "Are you all right, Mama?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm all right," she answered, sounding anything but.
Sarah and Melinda rounded everyone up for dinner. The kids washed their hands and the adults came in to help serve. Jeremi ushered his mama to her seat at the right of the head of the table. As everyone sat down, all the seats were taken, except for the head of the table, my seat. Nobody wanted to sit there at this meal, so I did. It was beautiful to look around the table and see all my family together, even though their faces were strained.
Glory asked Peter to say the blessing, in which he thanked God that they were all together, loving and supporting one another in this time of mourning. To which everyone said, "Amen!" or "Yes, Lord!"
Since it was crowded, the angels went small and each took a position on or near their charge. Sheila came, too. She worked hard to get Sarah's attention. As soon as she did, she flitted from one person to the next and gave them a kiss and whispered, "I love you" in their ears. Each person reacted by either itching the cheek she kissed or brushing their hair back away from their ears. Sarah watched everyone down the line, all around the table, react in rapid succession, like a drill team doing a staggered maneuver. By the time the fourth person did something peculiar, her eyes were big. By the fifth, her jaw dropped, where it stayed until Sheila made her way around the table to her. When Sarah's hand went to her own cheek, she jumped away from it, with enough force to knock Peter's elbow, spilling the water he was about to drink right into his lap.
Sheila said to both Peter and Sarah, "That was fun! I got you both." Then she came and sat with me to watch what happened next.
Peter's children watched and waited to see if he was going to get mad at Aunt Sarah for spilling his water on him. He was just about to get indignant, when he realized his audience and caught himself. It took a few seconds before he laughed, but then everyone followed suit. He got up calmly and went to the bathroom. He muttered and chuckled slightly to himself.
Everyone looked at her. She said, "Sorry," and shrugged her shoulders. Normal conversation eventually resumed.
I shook my head at Sheila. "Did you have fun?" I asked with an innocent tone.
She smiled and said, "You know I did!" We all laughed again.
The more the angels laughed, the lighter the mood at the table became. Slowly the smiles came back to their faces and the pleasure of being together as a family was felt all around. The adults, who had only picked at their food, started to eat. Every now and again, someone looked my way and all they saw was an empty chair. The angel of that person pointed out the sad face of their charge to someone nearby who then comforted the sad one. Everyone and every angel made a great effort to keep the mood light and loving. It was one of the best dinners I'd ever had with my family.
The remainder of the evening passed in much the same manner. Everyone was there to support one another. Each had their moments, when the reason that they were all together overcame them. We angels made sure that everyone had a shoulder to cry on, strength to draw from and love to share.
