how an angel in rainbow scrubs once helped me
Hey, do you believe in angels? Irish mystic Lorna Byrne does. Diagnosed as “retarded” as a child, best-selling author Byrne maintains she has always seen angels in physical form her whole life. Not just beneficial humans that we pronounce angels, but actual angels. However, she says they take whatever form makes them most credible/acceptable to those they visit. For example, she tells of the Archangel Gabriel appearing to someone looking like a “biker.”My angel story takes place in 1997:
Once, when my husband was the sole breadwinner, I was home with our 2-month-old and 2-year-old, trying to get our home ready to be put up for sale. It seemed impossible to get any time or space to make progress on the house. By the time I’d get both of them down for a nap, one of them would be crying and ready to get up.
Typically, I’m a resilient, independent, self-sufficient woman. I can figure out my solutions, and I can get what I need. Before this time, it hadn’t occurred to me to ask for help, and CERTAINLY not Spiritual help. Until one day, nothing seemed to work, and it seemed impossible that I could ever get the house on the market. I had no thought of God or Spirit; I simply broke down and collapsed on the front stoop of our 1910 Capitol Hill row house, burbling, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I don’t know how to do this. I need help. I need help. I need help.”
In short order, a coffee-skinned woman with a short afro wearing rainbow scrubs appears at the doorway. I greet her with distraction. I am busy with my children. She presents herself as recently retired, looking for 5 to 10 hours a week of work, paid in cash only; do I know anybody who needs any help with DECLUTTERING OR FIXING UP A HOUSE FOR SALE?
Bam, I pop to attention.
[This (as Deepak Chopra says) “breaks the probability amplitude” ]
What?! That’s exactly what I need. We talk for a minute and agree that she’ll be back the next day at 9am. She gives me no contact info.
The next day, after a bad night, I wait for her in the window seat. I don’t see her approach, but she’s there at 9. We have a great morning together: me watching the kids and her decluttering the main room downstairs while asking me questions.
The next day, I sit in the window seat again. Again, I do not see her approach. This time I ask her at one point if she’ll hold one of the babies for a minute while I declutter.
She looks at me quizzically and replies, “I was told you wanted decluttering and readying the home for sale.”
“Well, yes, I say. But that could happen if you hold the kids. I can do it.”
She says, as if she just checked a manual, “Oh, I’m sorry not to be clear. I am not here for childcare. I am here to declutter your home and help you prepare your home for sale.”
Bam. I back down, and we revert to our newly accustomed roles and responsibilities. We are making progress on the house. At one point, she brings some sort of perfect adhesive paper designed to create the effect of trim in an old house and cover up blemishes. She always wears rainbow scrubs.
At my request, anxious to stay in touch, she gives me her home phone number (this is 1997, so that’s still a thing). I call a few times. I forget why. I think I mostly just wanted more contact with her. She never answers. No answering machine. She never returns my call. Sometimes, right after I call, she just shows up.
At my request, she gives me her address. She says it’s a few blocks away on Capitol Hill, but I’ve never heard of the street. This is before Google Maps. And I can’t find it on my map, which just shows the detail of where most white people live in DC (I only wish I were making this up). She tells me where it is relative to my house. One time I pack both kids into the double stroller and attempt to follow her directions, “Go up 7th, turn right on Maryland, turn right on D St. And then its XXX*** street, you can’t miss it.” I’ve never heard of XXX*** street. I wrote the street down, but I keep losing it (something common for me at 60 but rare at 34). I keep circling that intersection and cannot find the street she told me.
My attempts to locate her between visits all fail. Even my attempts to see her approach the house fail. She always just appears.
One day, she says, “Well, that should do it. My work here is done. “
I beg her to stay, coming up with other household things for her to do, remembering that she turned down childcare.
She stops and stares at me like I am out of my mind. “My work here is done,” she repeats.
She gathers her stuff; maybe she has a purse, maybe not. I think she usually brought a snack and eschewed my offering.
I thank her profusely.
I vaguely remember a quick hug, and then she’s gone.
Never to be heard from again.
It is only later that I realize that she has all the properties I associate with an angel (note: I’m not really an expert on anything except my own experience, and since this is my only protracted realized angel experience, this is it):
She came when I was desperately pleading for help.
She came for a surgical discrete task that I asked for help on.
She was inexplicable and wore beautiful clothes.
She left when done.
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