Angels in our Midst

How I Learn about the World

I have always been fascinated by people from other cultures, beginning with my friendship with the only black child in my school in 1952 in Montreal. My parents did not share my enthusiasm. I was born at the end of World War II, when Montreal became home to thousands fleeing devastated homelands. My parents wanted their daughters to stay away from anyone with a foreign name. Immigrants in the trades could work at our house, but their daughters could not marry one of them.

As a teen, I fought with my parents about my dates, winning sometimes, losing other times. I remember a tall, handsome Armenian youth with coal black hair. I considered him out of my league, so when he asked me out, I was over the moon. But my parents went into such an epic meltdown that I cancelled, fearing for their mental health if I defied them. Then there was Jack, a Polish Catholic (we were Protestant). He was my university boyfriend, before my father tried to bring the hammer down on us. I refused to cave and continued dating him until the relationship ran its normal course, which made for a chilly atmosphere at home.

This fall, a gift came to me in the form of an angel named Enid (not her real name) from Ghana.

A friend of mine texted me one day to ask if I would like to hire her house cleaner (I refuse to use the term cleaning lady). At the time, my husband was home after a sixty-day hospital stay. Time was tight, looking after him, the dog and the garden, but I said no, I could handle it. Typical of me. But I am getting marginally smarter in my old age. Upon further reflection, I realized this might be the proverbial helicopter, come to save me from my perennial guilt about not cleaning the house well enough.

I texted back Yes.

I woke up on Enid’s first day in despair. The house was a mess. Now I would have to tidy up each time she came. My inner dialogue muttered that it was easier to clean myself. But I scurried around tidying anyway and the doorbell rang. I opened it and there stood Enid. She had a smile that lit up her dark-skinned face and a voice with lilts of an African accent that sounded like music. She brought in all her supplies and after a brief consultation about what I needed and ensuring that she liked dogs, she was off to clean the bathroom. (I had done some cleaning in there ahead of her, so she wouldn’t think we were pigs.)

I hovered. We conversed. She told me about living in Accra, Ghana, about her family there, her three children and husband who are all hoping to join her in Canada one day. How much she missed them. She told me about the climate. The food. The government. She told me proudly that she was a Christian, and said that God looks after everyone. She said she would pray for my husband. The vision of a helicopter hovered in my inner eye. And then she cleaned. In three hours, the house was cleaner than it had ever been since I bought it in 1985. She cleaned things I didn’t even know got dirty.

I was smitten.

Every two weeks now, I spend quality time with this amazing African woman. She is brave. Hardworking. Positive. We have bonded. She says I am her Canadian mother.

When fall gardening cleanup came due, I asked Enid if she would like to help me. She said yes, and soon, we were working together cutting back perennials and bagging the branches. I gave her lessons in Canadian gardening. She squealed with delight over this. I discovered we share a love of photography and took pictures of her to send home for her family. Later I made her a photobook of my nature photographs.

Then on one Saturday morning, the Santa Claus Parade went past our house, half a block away. I called Enid away from her work and took her to the parade. The smile on her face was so wide, I thought she would burst. She had never seen anything like it, and she adored it. More photos please! I took many that she sent to her family in Ghana later that day.

In December, she was leaving on a long-awaited trip home to her family. The night before, when buying a few last things, her purse full of travel money was stolen at Walmart. She still had her passport, car key and phone, but nothing else. She came crying to me. I rushed to an outdoor ATM in the dark and gave her several hundred dollars which she could change to USD at the bank in the morning before she left for the airport. She promised to pay me back.

She spent two months with her family, who loved the photobook, and when she returned to clean my very dirty house, I told her the money for travelling was a gift. Her eyes filled with tears. Mine did too.

Now, tidying up before Enid is a prayer.

I am further blessed by knowing three young Chinese people who lease the main floor of the house next door. They send me pictures of China whenever they return home. They say that they love Canada. We talk about cultural differences. We text. They deliver homemade wonton soup and send videos of their hamster named Bean.

One day when I was experiencing caregiver exhaustion, I went for a walk to clear my head. As I passed by their house, one of them was standing on the porch. He called me over. He had something in his hand. He said that he bought it for me when he was home - traditional Chinese clay figures of a man and a horse. He is the Warrior, he said. For you, he said, pressing them into my hand. As I walked back to my house, the tears came. That gift was just what I needed. To beat back my depression. To help me find my inner strength and become a Warrior again as I continue to care for my husband. They sit atop my computer desk now, reminding me to call on the Warrior when things get tough. As they often do.

I have discovered that even grocery shopping is an opportunity to connect with angels. The tall cashier from Nigeria knows my name. He tells me about his homeland, and his current studies at university. He says he is praying for my husband. That everything will be all right. He writes down numbers of Psalms for me to read when I get home, on my cash receipt.

I think of my parents, looking down on all this, and I know they are smiling. They made an enormous leap into enlightenment when, some years after my troubles with dating foreigners, my sister fell in love with an Egyptian/French Catholic. They embraced this union with a beautiful wedding and genuine love for him, a fine man who became the father of their grandchildren and who continues to enrich my sister’s life into their mid-eighties. Years later, one grandson married a Jewish woman, making our family the melting pot it was meant to be all along.

And all the while, I keep learning.

Say yes when no is the wrong answer.

Even angels need help sometimes.

Cashiers read Psalms.

And a warrior is always with me.

(photographs included with permission)