Life Surprises Read online

  I looked at her in surprise. “You were?”

  “Yes,” she went on. “I used to watch you to make sure you didn’t get into trouble.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You did?”

  “Yep,” she concluded with a sharp nod of her head. Then, her timing perfect, she added slowly, “And you needed a lot of watching!”

  The years go faster the older you get, so even this new generation of children grew up and got away from me. Soon, Angela didn’t need babysitting any longer and I was unemployed again. But our bond was very tight, and she made time to sit and talk almost every day. And when we spoke, that other child often seemed to stand just behind her in the shadows. “How old is Angel now?” she would ask every few months, perfectly able to do the calculations herself. The formula was always the same – “If she was eight when you were born, she would now be twenty-three.” And Angela would always respond with a soft “Wow!”

  She graduated from Dartmouth with a magna cum laude degree in math, and went to work as a designer for a software company in New England. She was on her way to an independent and successful career, and we were all very proud of her. But she still called me almost every day, even when she didn’t call her mother.

  Then one day, a year after she moved to New England, when I was into my 80’s, I got a call from her that changed everything. She was almost yelling, and at first I thought something was wrong, that she had been injured or lost her job. When she finally settled down enough to speak coherently, she said, “I found her. I found your little girl on the beach.” There followed a long silence. I had heard her words but they didn’t compute. She might as well have been speaking Russian. “You found her?” I repeated dumbly. “How’s that possible? She’s not find-able.”

  “Yes, she is,” she shouted, laughing and talking in such a jumble that I began to think she might be high on something. “She’s looking for you!!” Another silence. Am I dreaming this? How can any of this be true? Taking a deep breath, I said, “OK, Angela, I’m having trouble with this. Please start at the beginning and tell me slowly what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “G-pa, listen to this. Your little girl on the beach is a grown woman now, and she remembers the time you gave her that feather. Apparently that meeting was as important to her as it was for you, and she’s decided to try to find you. She launched a website and published the whole story on it – dates, details, everything. There can’t be any doubt. It’s her, and she wants to talk to you!”

  I was too stunned to even think. She continued, “Mom can get it for you on the computer, and you can read it for yourself. And you can email her and tell her who you are and say that you want to find her, too.” Pause. “She’s been looking for you for over a year. She must really want to get in touch.”

  I thanked her and hung up. I had some serious work to do, emotional and mental. My angel was seven years old in a light blue bathing suit with a frilly skirt. What did all that have to do with some grown woman? Why would I want to see her? What would I have to say to her? Would talking to her destroy that precious memory? Wouldn’t it be better to just leave things as they were?

  But the family was having none of it. They were ecstatic about this miraculous development. My myth was about to take on flesh. “Aren’t you curious?” they would ask. “Don’t you want to know why she wants to find you?” Eventually, I agreed to let Ginger bring the letter up on her computer screen. She punched the key, the screen filled with a mass of information, Ginger smiled at me and got up from the chair. I sat down with very mixed feelings and began to read:

  About twenty-four years ago, my mother and I spent a week on the Outer Banks in N Carolina. I was seven years old at the time. On our first evening there, we were playing in the sand when a man came along and gave me a perfect white feather. He said something to me at the time, but left before I could learn anything about his identity. This encounter has been very significant for me in my adult years, and I would like to find this stranger to thank him for his gift, and to tell him why his thoughtful act to a little girl was so important.

  Her name was Emily. That bit of information in itself, after all these years, was a shock. No longer Angel but now Emily. The site went on to add details about her later years, her family and her work. She was a physician’s assistant in Virginia, was married, had a young son, and still loved the ocean. She was asking for people to assist in her quest. There was information about how to contact her, an indication of how long she had been conducting her search, as well as data on the astonishing number of people who had checked in to the site.

  But I noticed immediately that her account of our meeting was missing several critical details. That was like a gong sounding in my ears – I was being invited to add the specific information which, out of all the people in the world, only I knew, information which would convince her that I was the person she was looking for. I suddenly visualized all the fakes who might have checked in claiming to be me, and I was gripped with a sense of outrage that others would try to steal my experience. At that moment I knew that I had to write her. I had no idea where all this would lead, but I felt that I had to see it through.

  I had written only a few emails in my life, mostly to Angela, but, with Ginger’s help, I sat down to compose my response to Emily, my demythologized Angel.

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  III: Emily

  I hadn’t checked the site in almost two weeks. I got busy with other things, my son took a lot of my time, and by then I had just about given up on ever finding my feather-man, anyway. So when someone asked me if I had gotten any new responses and I said no, I realized that I didn’t know. As a result, I logged on and started through the thirteen new emails on the feather site.

  When I got down to the fifth one, I froze. There it was, the message I had been looking for for over a year, a response from the man who had been my unseen companion for most of my life. I read it through for a second time before I shouted to an empty house, “Here he is! I found him.” He had written:

  My granddaughter told me about your website on the web. She knew my story and recognized what you wrote. I am the man who gave you the feather back on the N Car beach that evening. I know you want the details. You were wearing a light blue bathing suit with a fluffy skirt, and you had strawberry blond hair. Your mother was working near the water and you were in the sand. You were both building a trench so the water could come up into the sand. The feather was white and about 6 in. long. That is all the detail I remember. Also, I said, Here, you need a feather.

  I couldn’t believe it! I had thought about this moment for years, had kidded myself about receiving an email from him, certain all the time that it would never happen. This was just a game, a way to play with my own personal myth, not a riddle to be solved.

  But here it was, all of a sudden, the long-awaited answer to my childhood mystery. I was very confused. What if he was not a nice person? What if I was making a big fuss over something that meant nothing to him? Would talking to him ruin the image I had of this angelic presence who had once walked within an arm’s length of me?

  But it was too late now. The genie wouldn’t fit back into the bottle, so I sat down and wrote him. He must have been using someone else’s computer because I assumed that his name was not Ginger! But he didn’t mention his own name. However, his recall of the details was startling, and the fact that he remembered them after all these years must indicate that the event had had some meaning for him, too. But how was that possible? He had walked by and disappeared in an instant. Why should he even remember doing that?

  I told him more of my story, why his gift had meant so much to me over the years, and then asked for more details about himself. He responded promptly, and I found out that his name was Thomas and that he was a retired minister who was eighty-four years old. I was very glad I hadn’t waited any longer to begin my quest, since we probably didn’t have much time left. In later emails, he tol
d me his story in greater detail, why he remembered giving me the feather, how he had idealized me and thought of me as his angel, in the same way I had come to think of him as my guardian and guide. It was at this point that I knew I had to go see him.

  He lived in Maryland and I was still in southern Virginia, so I made an appointment and drove to his house one Saturday afternoon. I met his daughter, Ginger, who was waiting for me. But she had bad news. Thomas was in the hospital with what they were afraid was a stroke. She took me to the hospital and went into the room ahead of me. After preparing him for my visit, she came out said, “He’s waiting for you.”

  I walked in cautiously, steeling myself for the first sight of him. He was propped up in bed, his arms lying on top of the blanket. He had a full head of snow white hair and his face was lined, but the lines only softened his expression and gave him a kindly appearance. He looked at me with glistening eyes as I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. I sat in a chair by his bed and took hold of his warm hand.

  We looked at each other in silence for a while, before he said, “Emily.” It was almost as though he was testing the name, listening to the sound of it. “I always called you Angel.”

  “I know,” I said. “I always thought of you as my angel, too.” We sat looking into each other’s eyes for a long time, sharing something deeper than words.

  After a time, I said, “I’ve never forgotten you. I only saw you for a second but you have always been with me.”

  Tears were running down his cheeks now. He cleared his throat and said, “You were so beautiful, with the sun lighting up your hair. You’ve always been seven years old with a halo of pink fire.”

  More silence. Finally, I gently asked the question: “Why did you give me that feather?”

  He started to answer several times before he could get the words out. “I thought you were an angel, and I figured you had shed it when you came to earth.”

  “Is that why you said, ‘You need a feather’?” I asked him. He nodded.

  I’ve forgotten the rest of our conversation because he kept nodding off. Once, when he seemed to rouse, I said, “I have something for you.” He brightened for a moment, and I handed him the plastic sleeve in which I kept the white feather. “I want you to have this,” I told him. “It belongs to both of us.” I pulled it out of the sleeve and put it in his right hand; his other arm was not working properly. He looked at it intently, then looked at me, and there were twenty-four years of accumulated love in his expression.

  I said, “You know, that feather saved my life many times. I don’t think I would still be here if it wasn’t for that feather.” He smiled at me, another lovely, emotional smile.

  I sat for a time and was thinking of leaving when he said quietly, “You know, I have loved you every day since I first saw you.”

  I couldn’t stop the tears. I asked, “Why do you suppose all this happened?”

  He was silent for a while and I thought he had drifted off again. Then he said, “Because we needed each other. Because that’s how angels work. In disguise.”

  After a moment, I whispered, “I love you too, you know.”

  He didn’t seem to hear. Then he roused himself and said with great intensity, “You gave me a wonderful gift. You gave me back my faith.”

  I was sobbing by this point. I hadn’t done anything but pick up the feather that blew from his hand into mine. How could the simple act of receiving that gift result in such an enormous change in the giver? He gave me credit for something he had done for himself.

  He finally slept, and Ginger came back in to retrieve me. Two weeks later she called to tell me he had died in his sleep. She was kind enough to say that my visit had made his passing easier for all of them.

  † † † † † † † † † † † † † † †

  IV: Thomas

  I was anticipating the visit from Emily when, in the middle of the night, I woke up and couldn’t move. Days in the hospital ensued and time lost all meaning. So it was a surprise when Ginger came in one afternoon to tell me that Emily was waiting outside to see me. I was frustrated to have to greet her in this condition, but I couldn’t do anything about it. She came in and leaned over the bed to kiss me. I asked her to sit down so I could see her face.

  “You know, I never got to see you,” I reminded her. “All I saw was the top of your head and a little of your profile. I have to see if you’re the same person and not an imposter.” She looked at me full face, then slowly turned and offered me her profile. She was a pretty girl but her hair was blond. “You’re a little bigger than I remember,” I ventured.

  She pretended to take offense. “That’s not a polite thing to say to a lady.”

  I smiled. “Only in the vertical dimension,” I assured her.

  It is impolite to stare at another person, but this situation was so extraordinary that all rules were off. I apologized for examining her so closely, explaining, “I’ve been waiting for a quarter of a century to see what you look like. I wanted so badly to look at you, talk to you, spend some time with you, but I was afraid your mother would call the cops.”

  She nodded. “That kind of a situation is awkward,” she agreed. After we had gazed at each other for a while, she asked, “Well, what do you think?”

  I shook my head. “I got the best part of this deal,” I said with a chuckle. “You’re looking at a used-up old wreck, and I’m looking at the girl of my dreams.”

  “I’ve dreamt about you, too,” she said. “Many times. You were always there, watching over me. When you gave me that feather, you gave me hope along with it.” Her statement startled me, but I knew what she meant.

  So I said, “Well, seeing you that day and watching you pick up the feather made it possible for me to hope again, too.”

  We looked at each other in astonishment. That tiny moment so long ago had had such enormous consequences in both our lives. After a while, she said, “I have a gift for you,” and produced a blue plastic slip case with a transparent front. Inside was the feather.

  “You kept it!” I said, somewhat surprised.

  “Are you kidding?” she asked. “It’s one of the main treasures of my life.” She slid it out of the protective cover and put it in my good hand. I twirled it around, looking at it from every angle. It was bigger than I remembered, but just as white and with the same blue-gray stripe down the side. “I want you to have it,” she said. “It really belongs to both of us.”

  I searched her face some more, simply overwhelmed by the visit. I had so much to say to her but couldn’t think of a thing. “Your hair is supposed to be strawberry blond,” I reminded her, shaking a finger.

  “Sorry,” she apologized, “but I’ve had to start coloring it.”

  “Well, you should be careful about that,” I warned. “I might not have recognized you.”

  Soon, Ginger was escorting her out of the room and the visit was over. The woman was gone but the little girl on the beach was still there. After a while I got confused about who was who. Who was that woman who had come to see me and why was she bringing me a white feather? I had once given a similar feather to a little girl on the beach, and I have always remembered what beautiful curly hair she had, and how glorious it looked when it was backlit by the setting sun. But I’ve already told you that story, haven’t I? I hate repeating myself.

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  V: Angela

  I went to see G-pa the week before he died. My mother told me to get back home if I wanted to see him again, so I took the next plane. He looked feebler than the last time I had seen him, and it soon became obvious that he was getting confused.

  I sat down by his bed and took his hand. He turned to me and smiled, a special intimate expression which I always thought he reserved for me. I asked him how the visit went. He leaned closer and said, “She was very nice, but I don’t know where they got her.”

  I frowned and shook my head. “What do you mean? You know w
here we found her. On the Internet. She lives in Virginia.”

  He was silent for awhile. Almost to himself I could hear him say, “Nobody understands. She was a little girl.”

  I tried to help clear up his confusion. “But she’s all grown up now.”

  He was struggling with it. “I didn’t recognize her.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “You wouldn’t recognize her because she’s all grown up.”

  But he persisted. “You don’t understand. I gave the feather to a little girl. I wanted to see the little girl.”

  I reached into my purse and pulled out a photo that Emily had emailed to me. She apologized for not bringing it with her when she came for the visit. It was a picture taken by her mother during the week that they had spent at the Outer Banks. Emily was seven again, standing on the beach, holding a pail in one hand and a tiny beach shovel in the other. She was wearing the blue bathing suit with the frills, and her curly red hair glistened in the sun.

  I handed it to G-pa and asked, “Is this the little girl you wanted to see?”

  He took it in his good hand, stared at it for a very long time, and then I watched his face slowly crumple as the tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “That’s her,” he said in a choked voice. “That’s the little girl.” He studied it some more. “I couldn’t see her face before.”

  But his continuing confusion showed how much damage the stroke had done. “That woman who came was a blond. And she was a woman!” He held the photo out toward me. “This was the little girl I wanted to see again.”

  I decided to try to focus his thoughts on the girl rather than the woman. I asked him to repeat the story of the feather and the little girl, and he started the way he always had, but then got lost. I had never heard him forget the details before, and it scared me. I tried to calm him, but it was all becoming too much for him. He kept repeating, “She had strawberry blond hair.” Then, as though seeing me for the first time, he said in surprise, “You do too. What’s your name?”