Grandma’s Angel
Grandma wanted to see an angel. “They’re out there,” she told Mum wistfully. “The bible says so. I’d love to see one. Do you think it would appear to a human with or without the wings?” Mum was inclined to think without. Granddad was inclined to think the whole thing was yet another manifestation of Grandma’s awful doctrine. “Your mother is a flake,” said Granddad to Mum, gloomily and indulgently. “She gets these ideas all the time.”
“It’s true,” said Grandma, humbly. “Fortunately Arthur’s so sound or I’d be into all sorts of odd things.”
“Yeah, like a destructive cult,” muttered other members of the family when the conversation was repeated to them. “Grandma isn’t normal,” said Mum, mysteriously. “She’s special.” And it was true. Grandma read her bible every day and extracted from it such ideas as no one else had ever heard. She proposed spiritual theories to Granddad that would make Granddad groan and say, “no, no, no!” Granddad also read his bible every day and his conclusions were so sound and stable he was mildly famous within our town for his biblical knowledge. Yet despite Grandma’s peculiar approach to the faith, no one dared upbraid her too severely. Grandma had a connection. Or rather a CONNECTION. If people approached Granddad to have a biblical riddle solved, they approached Grandma to get a prayer answered. In fact, Grandma’s prayer list, kept on a miniature white board by the phone, was as famous as Granddad’s biblical wisdom. It was regularly wiped clean of the ‘done’ prayers and filled out with fresh ones. Stubborn prayers were simply rewritten and tackled with an increase of pleading and fasting.
“If anyone is going to see an angel,” said Mum, “it’ll be Grandma.”
A few years after this conversation, when we had moved to Australia, Mum got an email. “Your grandparents have been involved in a car accident,” said Mum, peering at the computer screen. “Are they alright?” we gulped. “Yeees,” said Mum slowly. “But this really is a very strange story. I’ll read it to you.”
Grandma and Granddad had taken a country drive with two of their friends to a fruit and veggie shop called Huianui Orchards. The produce was local, cheap, (Grandma loved that), and if you spent over ten dollars you could fill a plastic bag with all the kiwi fruit you wanted for free. The charms of this place were undeniable and the drive through beautiful New Zealand scenery made it an irresistible destination. “What a pleasant outing!” said Grandma, cheerfully, thinking off all the free kiwi fruit she could cram into her bag. “I shall be able share the kiwi fruit around at least three neighbours. The woman next door doesn’t get out much since-- Ooo!” A car from a side road, hidden by a thick stand of puriri trees, shot out and slammed into the side of my grandparent’s car. The impact was so severe that the car my grandparents were in split in half. The back half of the car went spinning to the left of the road, the front half went careening to the right side of the road. The second car came to a jagged stop in the ditch. A horrified farmer promptly called emergency services. When he described what he had seen, the authorities dispatched a parade of screaming sirens and honking horns. Police car after police car poured down the road, followed in hot pursuit by an avalanche of ambulances and fire engines. They were expecting mangled carnage and mostly death.
What they found were my grandparents, their friends and the driver of the second car slightly dazed, but alive and unharmed. In fact, the most interesting thing for the paramedics to tackle was Grandma and Granddad’s friend grumbling about a sore neck. They put him in an important looking neck brace and then joined the bewildered police officers and firemen. “Never seen anything like it!” said the policeman, shaking his head at the mutilated wreckage. “In all my career, I never saw anything like this! You lot should all be dead!” he announced to my grandparents, their friends and the second driver. “We should be scraping five corpses off the road, not putting one man in a neck brace! I don’t understand it. A very, very lucky thing.”
But Grandma wasn’t having any talk of luck. “God sent his angel to protect us,” she said firmly. “They’re out there. The bible says so. One day, I’d love to see one. I want to know if they show up with or without the wings. But today I’m just praising the Lord that one turned up in the nick of time.”
And for once, Granddad had nothing to say about Grandma being a flake.
