We Don't Notice Their Wings

 My sister has been in hospital for five days. Her 94 year- old husband has been at home. Bless his daughter, who, when I called about this emergency, she packed up and drove here from Saratoga.  

Now, with Anne at home, it's all about food, and organization and that's fine except, as the laughing Buddha would have it, I am leaving for Paris on Monday for a week. I will be going with my oldest son, superb translator and guide, and meeting several friends from my English life, so this trip involves a number of people and it is not possible to cancel. Well, I suppose it is possible, but I won't, and besides, my sister wouldn't allow it.

A mutual friend of Anne's and mine has offered to be point person in my stead and Anne's husband's daughter is willing to stay, so Anne and her spouse are covered. One amazing, marvelous, wonderful thing about illness is the way in which people appear out of the blue to help.

Let me tell you how this "point person" came about. On Friday morning last week my sister presented an in depth and interesting paper on Tess of the d'Ubervilles for the English Literary Club of which she is a long-time member.  Although not a member, I was there. My sister has emphysema and, of course, was carrying her oxygen bag.  She has had a cold. Some coughing occurred during the presentation but, thankfully, it was curtailed by gulps of water.

About an hour after the meeting was over, a friend of hers, who had been at the presentation, stopped her car in the Southport Woods lot to speak with me as I was walking along carrying groceries. What she said was, "Cecily, I know your sister might be reluctant to ask, but I thought you might be willing. If she or you ever need any help I am here and want to be of assistance."

How nice, Mary!" I say. "I will remember." And that was that. 

Little did I know . . . 

 Two hours later my sister calls from the doctor's office. The doctor has declared, "You! Hospital! Now!"

I am to meet Anne in the ER at Bridgeport Hospital.  I have not been to Bridgeport Hospital for at least twelve years. I used to work in the Pastoral Care department at St. Vincent's, so I can find my way there easily, but Bridgeport? This directionally impaired person who doesn't trust WAZE, hasn't a clue!

I call Mary, Mary from the parking lot, who, praise God, is at home. 

"Can you believe this? I explain what has happened. "Do you know your way to Bridgeport Hospital?" Mary has lived here all her life; I am on safe ground. And, true to her offer, Mary willingly drives me to the ER to find Anne. We hang out with our books, fetch water, talk to doctors and Mary brings me home.

Over the next five days I manage the trip to Bridgeport Hospital on my own.  As the days draw closer to my departure for Paris, Mary offers to take my place and see to Anne: organize a team to pick up  food, and look after necessary details of convalescing at home.  I can leave on Monday without a worry.

 Her offer? In the parking lot? Just hours before the ambulance sirens Anne away?  Imagine! What a blessing! God's angels are everywhere. We just don't notice their wings.