C's, my stepdad of many many moons, sister is not doing well. She was transferred down state to a trauma hospital because she had fallen and broken her elbow. The hospital here couldn't fix it, so they transferred her. The second hospital fixed her elbow but she has yet to bounce back from the surgery. She has had two or three heart attacks. The family was told yesterday that the doctors didn't expect her to last long.
So we made the trip today. I love that woman. She is one of the sweetest women that I have ever known. There's a certain kind of "country" toughness that she possesses. She has always been very nice and very accepting of me. And she has always loved my girls. Back in May we were sitting with each other at an auction. Aunt D turned to me and said, "I love you, (Daisy), and can't imagine my family without you in it." She is that type of woman. And I will probably never forget her saying that to me because it made me feel...well...special, I guess.
She's in the CICU because of her heart. When we arrived C's brother and his wife were there. They gave me the heads up about her seeing people who aren't there and imagining that those people were sitting on the foot of her bed and her sink having a farting contest. I laughed at that because the main goal as we were told was to keep her comfortable, and it's my opinion that, in a hospital setting, those words usually mean being given the good stuff.
Aunt D would float in and out of herself. One minute she would know us and the next minute she wouldn't. Repeatedly she asked C to sing to her, which kind of floored C because he's not a singer. Then she asked where I was because I could sing good, she said. After mom and C left the room, I sat there stroking her arm and we sang "You Are My Sunshine" together a couple of times.
She asked about my girls and told me that she wanted to see a kid. What better kid than Grace to fulfill such a wish.
We had been there for about an hour before Grace was taken back. I had prepped her for the fact that Aunt D was hooked up to machines. I told her that there would be a lot of beeping noises and a lot of scary things in there but that everything was there because the doctors were trying to make her better. I should have known that Grace wouldn't need such pep talk.
From the minute she walked in the room Aunt D spoke solely to her. And the things she said to Grace made more sense than most of what she had said to us adults. She talked and talked to Grace, telling her that she can remember looking at her pictures on her wall but knowing they were gone now because she can't find them. Grace said, "Well, Aunt D, they have to be there because pictures just can't get up and walk away by their self." (Remember, she's four.)
Aunt D laughed at Grace and talked about Mak. And then she said to Grace, "I want you to come back here tomorrow to see me. I want you to sit right there in the chair, and I want your pap to sit in the other chair and just wait on me, you hear? Just sit there with your pappy and wait on me because I'll be coming. I'll be an angel and I will be right there beside you and then I'll wait for you in Heaven. Now you tell Makayla that too, okay? Tell her I'll be an angel and I'll be waiting on her in Heaven."
I decided then that it was time to leave. I wasn't sure if I wanted Grace to hear Aunt D tell her that she was going to be an angel tomorrow and wait for her in Heaven. Then again, I'm always talking to Grace about my grandmother, Grace, and my dad being her angels and looking out for her. I suppose the real reason I decided to leave was because I was close to tears and I didn't want to hear her talk about dying because I simply don't want her to die.
I couldn't get the things she said to Grace out of my mind. We left the hospital and she was in my head. And then....
We headed back onto the interstate. Grace was in the back of the van with Da Man. The windows were open, but the van has back windows that only open outward a couple of inches. We're driving and I'm in my own head, replaying the time spent with Aunt D and just thinking.
Out of nowhere I caught a glimpse of something in the rearview mirror floating above Grace's head. It was one of those dandelion fuzzies that we were raised up to call angels. It came in the two inches of space in Grace's open window and hovered there. Then it flew straight up the van and landed in front of me and mom, lighting on the dashboard where it sat on the vent.
I was stunned. I looked at mom and said, "Do you see that? Mom, look! It's an angel." Mom was just as stunned and said, "Yes, I see it." And then we both fell silent as we gazed at it right there before us until it took flight again and flew in front of my face and out my window.
Aunt D's final words to me today as I was leaving were, "I'll be here tomorrow, God willin'." And I hope she is. But regardless of God's will in terms of my Aunt D, I will always remember the angel with us in the van. Always.