Angel Smiles

Even as I drove to the long-term care facility I debated whether this was really necessary.

A little voice inside my head whispered, “You’ve got too much on your plate today, this can wait until another week.”

Then a bigger Voice countered, “What about that personal commitment you made to do this at least three times a month? How can you know these people if you don’t visit them on a regular basis? It may not be glamorous, but remember, hot shot, you can make a difference in their day…even if they don’t remember it.”

“All right, already,” I told that bigger Voice. “But I don’t have time to visit very long. Okay?”

I was on my way out of the facility, less than an hour later, when I caught myself.

I had forgotten one person.

“I’ll visit her next week when I have more time,” I murmured.

“Ahumm…” I heard the Voice questioning my rationale.

So, I reversed course, scurried past the nurse’s station, careened around the corner, came within inches of colliding with a lady making an unsuspected U-turn in her wheel chair, and almost out of breath, found myself in my parishioner’s room.

She was asleep.

This is not unusual for her. I usually tap her gently on her shoulder, visit for a few minutes, and then ALWAYS ask her the same question before I exit.

“Do you know what I have to have before I leave?” is my standard question.

She knows the answer.

Her broad grin is inevitably followed by a joyous laugh that engulfs her room and sometimes catches the attention of a nurse or two.

“That’s right,” I join her laughter,  “I’ve got to have my angel smile.”

Her once placid face beams because she loves the play on words with her name, Jane Angel.

When she was well enough to attend church, some years ago, I would see her sitting next to another godly soul, Lucy Pearl. As I would pass by them before the worship service on Sunday morning, I would stop, act like I was studying them, and then pretend to sigh with relief. “All is well,” I would say, “I can preach now because I see my Pearl and my Angel sitting together.”

They would suppress their chuckles, covering them with a hand over their mouth, because after all, it was almost worship time. 

Lucy has been gone for over a year now.

And there I stood that day in Ms. Angel’s room, there only because I had lost the debate with the Voice.

I reached over to tap her lightly on her shoulder, make my brief visit, and ask my weekly question.

But I didn’t.

Something, (the Voice?) told me not to.

How many times have I overruled that Voice and done what I’d already made up my mind to do anyway, or at least unthinkingly repeated my same routine?

But today, the Voice told me to stop, be still, and watch her sleep.

And pray for her.

And so I did.

I can’t tell you how long I stood there in the silence of her room and prayed. It probably wasn’t more than five minutes. But I reflected, as the Voice seemed to direct me, on what I knew of her life: her devotion as a wife and mother, her work on the farm, her career as a social worker, the ease at which she could prepare a meal for a large family. I thought about the day I baptized her when she united with our church from another denomination. She smiled her angel smile that day as her son and I lifted her from the baptismal waters.

And I thanked the Lord for her faithfulness, her love, and yes, her smile.

Content to get my angel smile next week, I left my card so she would know I had been there.

And I promptly forgot about that visit.

Until the next day when I learned she had rather suddenly died less than 12 hours after my prayer for her in her room.

Then I knew why the Voice spoke so emphatically that day.

I was supposed to pray for her, for it was her day.

Her day to take her angel smile to her home in heaven.