Some moms just go to work, get a paycheck, and live a 9 to 5 “normal” life … and my kids were stuck with one who interpreted motherhood through a nomad’s lens, traveling from place to place, trying to connect to people with an angel pin … that’s right three little angels holding hands, a simple gold lapel pin.. A mom handing out bags of angel pins up and down the East Coast of America. Now is that something you want to tell your friends about?
”No, my mom doesn’t work. She travels around and gives out angel pins.” I could just picture my older children trying to explain my concept of balancing work and motherhood. while at the same time desperately trying to get back on her feet financially.
That’s what I was thinking when I walked into the emergency room of a city hospital, late at night. My plan was to just hop out of my van, grab a bag of angel pins from the trunk, and give them to the triage nurse in charge.
With four kids of my own, I had been in plenty of ERs and I knew it was stress you could live without. I recalled the frantic prayers and bargains I often made with God, while racing to the hospital after a call from a policeman that my child was en route to the emergency room. The one accident, when 21 people were taken to the hospital, was a nightmare.and the accident was pinned on my daughter. Lawsuits threatened my serenity for months. I repeated and even sang the words of the Serenity Prayer (to my own made-up tune) until my mouth was numb. I looked up to the blue sky that fall day and thought I actually saw her in the clouds. I sure needed to be prepared to accept the things I could not change .I remember the fear and panic while seated on the orange vinyl chairs, waiting for the news.
I saw a Down Syndrome little boy waiting outside the hospital and then a lady holding her bandaged head, a mom and dad hugging, not in a romantic way, it was more like a “this is the end of our world hug.”
I remembered the anguish in my heart when my then 18-year-old daughter, Katelyn, was airlifted to a trauma center and another time when my husband was near death at another hospital. I paced outside the van, with my emergency flashers blinking, wondering if I should even go in to this medical center. After all, going in to say I am here because I want to give out a little token of encouragement, sounds a little weird..
It was close to midnight and the lobby of a hotel was really the place to be – not the lobby of an emergency room – especially if you didn’t even have a medical reason to be there.
I said a half-hearted prayer and asked God to bless what I was doing -
because at this point I began to wonder if this was anybody’s will but my own. What was preying on my mind was a comment that one of my children said to me at an angry moment, just a few hours earlier.
“Nobody supports you on this angel pin thing – not Dad, not Grandma, not anybody. Everybody is talking behind your back.” I felt so bad that I almost made a tearful admission that maybe I am a nut … and this was all a waste of time and money.
I put that thought behind me and hung on to my friend’s parting words before I left for my 7000 mile trip. Frances had answered my query “What am I really going to do with all of these angel pins?” Who am I going to give them to?”
“They are preanointed. God will guide you. He knows where they are supposed to go. God gave you this gift, now go share it.”
I explained to the security guard what I wanted to do, just pass out angel pins to the people in the waiting room. He looked at me like I was from another planet and continued doing his paperwork. Before boldly walking in to the waiting room, I showed my basket of pins to another guard.
“Can I just go in and give these pins to the people in the waiting room? I am from Philadelphia and I am traveling around the country trying to spread joy. There was an article about it in your local newspaper.”
He looked at me like what I was saying was pretty-strange sounding but he sort of gave me the okay by turning his back away from me.
There were about thirty people seated around the room – all-silent, some transfixed reading the newspaper, one guy mumbling, and a homeless-looking elderly lady sorting through a strongbox of important papers. Most of the people looked like they needed hope.
“Would you like an angel pin?” I said to the lady holding her head.
She reached into the basket and took the TEAM OF ANGELS FOR HOPE.
“Do you need hope?”
“Yeah, my daughter does ‘cause she is trying to get her kids back.,” she answered me. “I just got beat in the head fifty times and the only thing I know to do is drink.”
I turned to the next person. “Do you want an angel pin?”
She and the man seated next to her took a handful from the basket.
“Our daughter wants to have a baby and she can’t conceive. We need hope that she can adopt.”
“My aunt and uncle are sick. My uncle isn’t expected to make it.”
I went from person to person and the angel pins seemed to be contagious. People began passing them around and talking one to another. A black woman passed one to a Vietnamese man and the smile between them said more than if they had been able to communicate. She prayed over me and asked for God’s blessing and traveling mercies for my journey.
“Are you in AA?” a young woman asked, “Because you gave me A TEAM OF ANGELS FOR ONE DAY AT A TIME. Can I have more for some of my friends at the meeting? My son, Ryan, went out to the car to bring in another basket.
I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Can you give one to my mother in the wheelchair over there?”
The pins weren’t really that much – it was the message behind it - that made me feel happy. I watched the people share kindness, a little token of forget-me-nots. Yes, forget-me-nots, that’s what one lady called the pin. When you pass it along, it is a reminder that someone cares and that God forgets-me-not. I liked that thought.
Then there was the African-American woman whose folded arms screamed a message of “stay away from me.” She looked like she was about to make a snippy comment as I leaned forward and told her that I was not trying to sell her anything. She looked suspicious, no money? I held the angel pin toward her.
“This is for you,” I said. I gave her the pin: A TEAM OF ANGELS TO PROTECT MY LOVED ONES. She opened her heart and her crossed arms and thanked me, her suspicion melting.
“Are you sure you’re not soliciting for these?”
“No, maybe someday you can pass the pin along to someone else who needs it.”
It felt so good to touch strangers and clasp a few hands.
I watched a young man offer a kind word to an older man. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes that I stayed in that room – but I witnessed goodness and kindness in a room filled with different cultures and races, a mix which in the outside world, can cause bitterness and war.
The message, We are all the same in God’s eyes, seemed to resonate in this room.
I was bewildered by what had just happened. I saw respect and caring for one another where moments before no one had been talking.
The tension in the room seemed to lessen.
“Okay,” I said to myself, “my half-hearted silent prayer worked . I felt like I was finding the takers of the pre-anointed pins.”
I never saw a nurse or the security guards again but I saw a group of nameless people, some with faces as wrinkled as raisins, with home lives probably as frantic as a police chase, helping one another get through a tough time.
Thank you, God and Frances for the special people in this room who were pre-anointed.
Now, I can face my kids … the wandering mom has 1500 more miles to go, a little bit of money, and a lot of enthusiasm. “
C’mon, Ryan. It’s time to hit the road! It’s been a delightful day.”
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