my angels

on the way home from oregon last week.

#1 You know who you are…

#2 The woman in the seat next to me – both women, but especially the one on the right. You always know, the second you squeeze past your seat partner, whether they’ll be awkward, dead silent, anxious, talkative (or at least willing to talk), or any other variety of things, and I liked this woman immediately. Come to find out her second husband of 6 years died of brain cancer 3 months ago. She talked to me about God and how she didn’t believe in him until after her husband’s death – she said it makes her feel safer to believe there’s a plan. And she believes she was meant to be there for him in his last years. She said, the truth is, once you have a love like that (and “not everyone gets to love as truly and deeply as I did”) even if you lose it it doesn’t matter; you’ve been filled. You will always have it. She really loved him, too. She showed me a picture and I could tell by the deep, connected way she looked at it. We had a connection. There are just some people that are on the same wavelength as you; you just understand them on many levels without extra words or attempts. She was one of those people. She talked to me about her past and beliefs and gave me her People magazine to read and talked to me about The Alchemist, which she finished yesterday and I’m just starting today. She just opened up to me, and I had this insane strong desire to spill everything, to tell her all my questions and secrets. I knew she would handle them well. I could say anything and not feel judged at all. I got to see a picture of her daughter (several, actually) and I feel like I know the girl already. She told me it felt like her daughter was here when she was talking to me.

#3 The Hungarian woman at the terminal… I missed my connecting flight, figured everything out (Angel #4: Candyce Dixon, for picking me up at 10 pm to stay at her house… and driving me to the airport at 6 am the next morning) and I spotted some chairs marked “For Disabled Persons” or something like that. Of course, the long row of chairs was empty, but I figured I’d better play it safe and sit on the floor next to it, just in case 10 disabled persons dropped in and got pissed. Soon a naturally beautiful older woman with wisps of white curly hair dancing off her light wrinkled skin sat down with her 5 huge cases – I thought nothing of it, of course. Angels never have wings. And she scooted over to last seat in the row, right next to me, and looked at me with very intelligent twinkling eyes and a glorious accent, “you mind eef I seet here? I like to read, and there ees more, how you say, light? Ees lighter here.” And she talked to me for half an hour about her two month trip to Mexico to find work and how she’s flying back to Hungary and the frozen weather and her just married son (she missed the wedding) and the baby they just delivered. Her son was in the room and helped with the delivery. She’s very proud. She was glorious. I could look into her smart, real eyes with their intense flashes of humor for hours. And when I got up I said thank you. And I took her hands in mine and smiled. And she struggled to her feet and then she hugged me close, and said “eet was very nice to talk to you.” And smiled and pointed me towards the passenger pick up. Delightful.

Why did I write about these people I'll never see again and you have no significant interest in? Because they matter in that they changed the course of my life - my experience, my attitude, my outlook on humanity - for the better. Maybe I'll be able to do the same for some random young person when the time comes. If I'm open enough.