As to the "angel", Ellen, have often thought her to be an aspect of my oversoul "family"--- she really WAS real. I remember her coming to me at my grandmother's house, where I was in serious trouble in the old outhouse. She helped me get straps unbuttoned, pulled down, and then, business completed, everything put back together. Mom did not believe me when I told her who had helped me. I was seriously spanked, punished, and ridiculed. I never spoke of her again.

So many of us think life ought to be fair, and when we decide it isn't, we blame someone else for our pain. It has taken me years to understand this simple truth.

XXXXX

It is the biggest box under the Christmas tree, and it is mine, a beautiful set of clear Pyrex dishes, some nesting, some with lids, more pieces than I can count. Four years old, I take each piece out of the box several times, then carefully settle them back into their nests of soft wood shavings. I will have a wonderful tea party.

The very next morning, bathed and dressed, I am at last free to play with my new dishes. I set up the table and chairs, bring Saggy Dog, a long-eared cloth dog made for me by Gram, placing him in the seat just opposite me. He brings wisdom to my table. I decide to bring Teddy, seating him just to my right. He isn't a real teddy bear but is one of my best tea party people because he eats everything in front of him without complaint. I save the best chair on my left for my friend Ellen, a tall beautiful lady who often comes to my tea parties and equally often tells us the most wondrous stories and tales of worlds far beyond the stone walls of our rented farmhouse.

Carefully I set out the new dishes. They are perfect, I think; they even improve the look of the old wooden spoons and measuring cups. I wish I had a pretty colored tablecloth instead of the old worn blanket piece, but it is comfortable and no one else seems to mind. I am waiting for Ellen to arrive, when my mother rushes into the room. "May I see your new dishes?"

Proudly, I hand her the very best piece, an oval shallow dish with perfectly fitted lid. I'd placed some of my best pretty stones inside. Mom holds it up, opens the lid. "What're these?" she asks. "Special rocks --pretty rocks," I answer.

Picking stones out of the dish, Mom hands them back to me. "Keep them someplace special," she said, "...someplace where you won't lose them." And she turns away, carrying my precious dish with her to the kitchen. "I need this dish for awhile," she said over her shoulder. "You don't mind, do you?"

I do mind, but not able to speak what I am feeling: a deep futile anger that burns in my stomach.

As the days pass, my dish becomes the obvious property of general family use as the new butter dish. My inner disquiet is a distinct grumble about something over which I have no power.

"It isn't fair!" I'm careful to say this quietly where none can hear me. My eyes fill with tears of self-pity whenever I think of my lost Christmas present.

"Never mind," said Ellen, who always knows things. "It doesn't matter."

But it does matter to me, even so, and I blame my mother.

XXXXX

I skip happily, holding my mother's hand, pleased with my new school clothes. I am five, almost six, and I am going to school! At last I will learn to read all the words in the books, just like my mother. I want to read everything! And today is the first day of school. The joy in my life seems to increase the sun's intensity, only beginning to pale after the wane of summer days.

At last we arrive at a big square brick building. Just inside the door is a long table with lots of people milling about on one side and a couple of angry-looking ladies with tightly curled grey hair on the other side, haplessly facing the mob of women and children. "Sign Your Child In Here" reads one sign. "Get Gowns Here," is another. Finally we are in a small sheeted cubicle.

"Take off your clothes, you can leave your panties on, put on this gown, here, it ties in back, I'll get it." My mother's monolog keeps us busy with action before I fully gather my wits about me. This is not 'school'-- Why do I have to change my clothes? The gown doesn't close in the back all the way. I am cold, and I will most definitely not sit on the metal chair in the cubicle. I am certain my mother will fix everything quickly, --get me into a room with a teacher and the books so I can learn to read-- My thoughts are growing frantic as I struggle to keep the gown closed.

"Come this way!" The curtain is roughly pulled back, tearing away the pin holding it to a makeshift rod. There stands the tallest, meanest lady I've ever seen. The eyes look at me but don't see me. I look into those eyes and feel fear. "Mom?" I'm terrified. "Mom, tell her we are in the wrong place--"

But Mom is turning away, looking for a seat among the mothers, where she can wait while I and the others are being 'examined' for disease and level of intelligence, but I don't know that. Getting angry and obstinate, I'm herded by a not very gentle push on my head. "Over there, first. We begin over there," said the tall mean lady.

"This isn't school. I hate this! It isn't fair," I rage to myself. "This is not fair!"

But I am a kid, with only a burning stomach anger and no power. I have to do as I am told. I blame my mother and Ellen no longer visits with me to say it doesn't matter.

XXXXX

It is my second year of college, I am hunched over my sewing machine, creating a beautiful soft blue woolen suit, my wedding suit. There will be no white dress, no fancy occasion with all the families present. We are going to have a quiet, private service at our church, with only two best friends present.

My mind shies away from all the reasons why I've lately been doing everything wrong, everything against my and my parents' plans for me. I, who have so much potential! The one looming fact remains: I am pregnant. There is nothing else to do, we've both agreed, he more than me, but I didn't dare say anything else. And now here I am, joylessly placing one careful seam after another.

Thinking about how I'd been 'caught', mostly through my own ignorance and lack of proper concern for details, I still rage inwardly, mostly to myself. It was my first experience. "It's not fair!" I sniff. "Not fair at all!"

I blame me, sure, but I'm pretty certain my mother must have had something to do with it, even so.

XXXXX

One day I found myself deathly ill, with two small children just as ill lying beside me. I know the kids are sick, because I've been tending them for days, but how did I get here in bed, tucked between their feverish faces? I touch my own forehead, it is warm and feels as though it is pulsing, long slow deep ....

I wake again, struggle to my feet, call my mother who lives over the mountain, about fifteen miles away. I don't know what I am saying, except to tell her it is getting cold and I can't get the heater re-started.

The next image I have is a stark winter sky, seen through bare branches of the tree in our driveway. I am being wheeled into an ambulance. Where are the kids? I see my mother's worried face looking down at me. "We'll meet you at the hospital!" I think I hear her tell me, but everything is getting dizzy, blurred. I want to hear the sirens scream but there is too much grey.

I wake in a very short bed, my feet hanging over the edge. "Easy, you are safe, you are all right", my mother's voice. "You were all so sick! We brought you here to the Children's Hospital-- it was closest-- you were all in danger..." Mom's eyes are soft yet hard inside with remembered fear. That, and anger, too, at my absent husband. "Where is he?" Mom demands to know. "He should have been there with you."

This time I blame my husband, and it's okay because for once my mother agrees with me. Ellen doesn't enter my thoughts.

XXXXX

I am looking at some old pictures one of the bleak days after my mother has died. There is one of me, surly-faced, sitting in front of a small tea table with my old toys propped on chairs. There is an empty chair beside me, where my mother had inked in the name Ellen! with the exclamation point stabbing into the picture.

Ellen. Who is Ellen? I get a flash of a face, a blue dress, a smile, and then I remember. Of course it is Ellen, the tall pretty lady who helped me many times when I was very little. My mother used to call her my Imaginary Friend, but I always knew Ellen was real. It was supposed to be our secret, mine and Ellen's, but how else could I have explained to Mom the extra chair at the table? Anyway, Mom hadn't seemed to mind, as long as I didn't talk too much about her in front of anyone else. "She'll grow out of it," was what the ladies said to my mother.

I sit here, stunned, looking at the pictures, an aching hurt inside me, at the loss of this beautiful friend. When did she go away? More important: why did she go away? I think of all the times Ellen could have helped me, had she stayed, especially now, with Mom gone. "It's not fair," I think, "It's just not fair!"

This time I do not know whom to blame.

XXXXX

Angels can and will make themselves known when blame and self-pity are banished. I know this to be a truth, because this is my story, or, part of it.


~ Judith Bailey ~

Copyright 2002