The month of August has some pretty unique holidays in it, most of them so obscure that not many people even know about them. August 22nd has been dubbed Be an Angel Day, and was founded by Jayne Howard Feldman, a reverend and author. The purpose of the day is to encourage us to do something kind for others, to be their angel. I thought I’d like to about share someone who was like an angel to me in my life. This is my story about that angel, and it starts with a dream.
One day recently, I woke up in the very early morning hours from a dream that left me reeling emotionally. Ever have those kinds of dreams that touch on some emotional level of you, so deeply, that you can’t just roll back over and drop off again? This was that kind of dream.
In it, the entire world had suffered some catastrophic event, and during the ensuing turmoil and chaos, I came across an old letter from a friend, and that was the starting point for the waves of emotion rolling over me that wouldn’t let me slip back under the cloak of slumber.
You see, this friend and I started up a somewhat unlikely friendship many years ago, beginning back when my girls, who are 26 and 23 now, were just little girls. I had paper routes for ten years; I delivered the local daily newspaper and since we home schooled and it was an afternoon publication during the week, my daughters always came with me.
One day we picked up a new route and one customer was an older woman living with her devoted adult son, both of whom had many health issues. The son did the errands and took care of anything that required leaving the house, but the woman was a shut in. In order to deliver her paper to their apartment in a low income building, we had to be “buzzed in” by pressing their button in the lobby and communicating through the intercom. The door would be “buzzed” to unlock it for us by the customer or her son, and we’d go up to the second floor, down the dank, musty hallway to apartment #206, and one of them, usually the woman, would be standing in the partially open doorway to take the paper from me.
It started out fairly business-like and friendly, but soon, just to break up the monotony of announcing myself as “Paper girl” when they responded to my buzzing their apartment button on the intercom, I started being a little more creative now and again. Like answering their question of “Yes” when I buzzed, I might say, “Chocolate-Gram!” or, and this is so much my beloved brother Steven, “Land shark!” 
Having a newspaper customer in a locked apartment building such as that necessitated personal contact with her, on a daily basis, and yes, even in the very early morning hours on weekends. It was hard to see her everyday and not say more than “Hi.” A little chit chat with me here, a little talking to my daughters there, and within a few months we had started spending an average of ten minutes just delivering her paper so we could talk. Sometimes the girls and I came in and sat with her for half an hour.
That’s how Rena and I became friends. We stayed friends by that daily communication and by truly taking an interest in each other’s lives, sharing the ups and downs, and being a bright spot in the day for each other. A couple of years later, I ended up giving up that paper route (I had several) and so I no longer saw Rena on a daily basis, but that didn’t end things there. We started writing letters to each other, pouring out our lives, sharing our hearts, especially on mothering issues, and sharing our joys and trials with each other.
Knowing that Rena was a shut in and her son also had health issues that sometimes prevented him from being able to go out, I offered to do errands for them if they ever needed it. I was so delighted and blessed to have Rena take me up on that offer several times over the years. It was truly a pleasure to go get their prescriptions from the drug store or do some grocery shopping for them. I know how difficult it is to ask someone to go out of their way to help you, because no one wants to be a burden to anyone, but being allowed to do for others is one of life’s biggest blessings. God never intended us to be an “island entire of ourselves;” He created us as social beings for a reason. Leaning on others is a reflection of how He wants us to lean on Him.
Our letter writing spanned many years, until 2009, actually; four years after I had stopped being a paper carrier, and many years after I had been her paper girl. My life had been very full and busy, with many challenges, as I had children with special needs, was home schooling, foster parenting babies and toddlers for several years, including my paper route years, and all the activities the kids were involved in, groups, field trips, church, etc. I had a lot more to share than Rena, and my letters to her were long, but Rena’s to me were filled with support and happiness.
If I could describe Rena in one word, it would be: encouragement. Okay, two words: joyful encouragement. Because Rena wasn’t simply in my corner rooting me on, she was very vocally and loudly cheering me on, jumping, pom poms waving, supporting me in my endeavors and adventures…her words were always bathed in love, clothed in grace, and there when I most needed them.
I knew that Rena hadn’t had an idyllic childhood; she had shared with me little details of her troubled relationship with her mother dating all the way back to when she was a little girl. She never felt truly loved by her mother, and she was sure it was due in part to the fact that her brother and sister had blond hair and blue eyes, and Rena had brown hair and brown eyes. It was one reason why my daughter Caitlin was her favorite, and I didn’t discourage that favoritism; by that time Megan, having Down syndrome and with her effervescent and extroverted personality, was the favorite almost wherever we went. I was glad that someone just adored Caity, with her lovely brown hair and beautiful brown hazel eyes, and her sweet quiet ways.
I remember, after one particular letter to Rena in which I had shared many memories of my own childhood and how wonderful it was, her next letter arrived with her wishes that she had had that as a child; that she had been that loved by her family. It’s not that I had a skewed notion that everyone was so blessed as I was to have an amazing childhood; by that time I had realized that many people didn’t grow up like me in the kind of family I had. But the sadness of her words, the utter dejection and sense of rejection that came across the pages, reaching across the years from a child with a broken heart…it hurt my own heart.
But to think that even with such sadness carried inside her, she went on to be such a light and encouragement to me, was amazing. Maybe that’s why Rena was able to reach out to me and be that way for me, simply because of her own disappointing childhood and relationship with her mother. All I know is that reading a letter from Rena was like being enveloped in a warm, loving embrace.
And then came 2009. Rena had been very sick for the previous year, on and off. Very sick, as in, I was really glad that for Christmas of 2008, I had made her a quilt using fabric with manatees on it, as they were one of her favorite things. I didn’t know how much longer she would be in this world. But at the same time, I guess I somehow expected her to always be there. And of course, that’s not how it happened.
I had written Rena a couple of letters, but I wasn’t receiving any back from her. I wasn’t overly worried, because I knew that she may be sick and it might be too hard for her to write. But then at the end of August or so, I received a letter…from her son. He had never written to me before, and I think I knew, from the moment I saw his writing, that I would be crying at the end. And I was right. So achingly, regretfully right.
Rena had gotten very sick and was in the hospital for a couple of long stretches earlier in the year, and in the second week of August, she died there. The last few letters I had written, he said, he had read to her and he thought they gave her comfort and happiness.
I was devastated. I’m not sure if I can even fully describe the emotions bombarding me that afternoon when I discovered that Rena had died weeks earlier, and I didn’t even know about it. Somehow, it felt like something in me should have known, or some cataclysmic event should have occurred from the shift in the universe at the passing of such a joyful, loving soul. But it hadn’t, and I had been going through my days, living my busy life, while Rena was extremely ill and then died.
And I felt alone. So terribly alone, and bereft, without this special light in my life, this friend who could always make me smile, this supporter and encourager…this Rena. There was a hole in my life, a void in my heart, a Rena-shaped space that has never been filled by anyone else. She was just that special.
Which brings me back to the dream, the start of all this. In my dream, during chaos and trouble, I came across an old letter from Rena, and I slipped it out of the envelope to read. In my dream, I realize now that I couldn’t really tell what all the words were, but as soon as I saw a little tiny sentence off to one side, her characteristic smiley faces sprinkled here and there, and little snippets so typical of her, telling me about her cat’s antics that made her smile or a funny thing she had seen out the window that looked upon Elm Street…such a strong feeling of warmth and love settled on me. I could see her face and smile as she wrote that letter to me, through the words she had sent, the joyful encouragement she gave to me.
What a wonderful way to wake up, feeling all that from an old letter in a dream. And also feeling that I miss her. Oh, how I miss Rena. As I lay in bed thinking on all this, wishing I could see her one more time and get one of her hugs, one more phone call, one more loving letter from her, it made me realize that we need to cherish those we love; treasure those we hold dear in our hearts, while they‘re still here with us. Especially while they‘re still with us.
People are what matter in life, our relationships with others; not things. Yes, we all have our lives to live and we have our things we have to do, but in doing all that, in all the craziness that our lives can become, it’s the people, the ones dear to us, that we will miss. Not having to take out the trash, or getting the shopping done, or paying bills, or playing a computer game. People; our loved ones.
While it’s sweet to have a day set aside to encourage being an angel to others, doing something kind for someone, I think a better idea is to live the life…kindness should be a way of life, not a single act or even just a few acts done on certain days. Rena was definitely living the life, and she was an excellent example of love and kindness. I vote for making more of an effort to be a light in people’s lives, and to value the people in our lives, our family especially; to treasure and cherish them, and make sure they know how much we love them. They’re that important, and so worth it. We may not get the chance tomorrow. <3