When I was a child, I thought I saw an angel. The night was black and the air cold when a strange sensation woke me from a sound sleep. White lights moved on the ceiling and walls of my room.
I decided the fluttering lights in my bedroom must be an angel. When they disappeared, I jumped from my bed and ran down the hall of our South Dakota farmhouse to tell my parents what had just happened. They weren’t quite as excited and returned me to my room.
“Don’t worry.” they said, tucking me back into bed. “It was probably car headlights out on the road.”
But I wasn’t so sure, and sixty some years later, I know that I have met many angels. However they have taken forms much different than I ever expected.
Some have been human… the friend who gave me courage when illness struck hard at my family…The hospice nurse in my dying mother’s nursing home who helped make her room more homelike.
Some angels have been furry and four legged…Bing, the 100-pound chocolate lab, who grew up with my children… Molly, the little chocolate lab, who charmed the whole world…Rufus, the deaf rescue dog who gratefully shared my life for nine months.
Currently, a special angel has made her presence known. Tonight, as I sit at the dining room table, writing Christmas card letters, this angel sits ten feet away, licking her paws.
Goldie, the lab, appointed herself as the guardian angel of my household sometime during the past year. She is a rescue dog who has lived with us for eight years and the sweetest canine alive.
In typical lab fashion, she always loved to spend her days sitting out on the deck, watching, sniffing the air. We figured she was doing guard duty but didn’t realize how professional she was about her position until she lost her hearing almost a year ago. She no longer wanted to sit outside but preferred the safety of the house, her deafness having made her feel helpless and vulnerable.
But her true nature is that of a working dog and we realized that she was still very serious about guarding us all from danger.
In September, we spent several weeks on Lac Des Mille Lacs where Dick built a biffy. The remote wilderness surrounding us has its share of moose, wolves and an occasional lynx. Goldie insisted on staying outside with Dick as he did his work. She stayed near him and on a regular basis, patrolled the area around our clearing. Though her hearing was gone, apparently she still felt duty-bound to protect him.
When we arrived home, she continued her vigilance, only she stayed inside. She took a position at the French doors where she could observe the back yard for potential danger and started barking at what she perceived as trouble.
Since then she spends most of her evenings peering into the back yard and barking in the high, odd voice of a dog that cannot hear itself. She is ever watchful even though we have not spotted any danger.
Tonight, as I work on my Christmas cards, she left her post to lie down in the living room and wearily lick her paws.
Now as I finish with my Christmas cards, Goldie has fallen asleep, this evening’s watchfulness having exhausted the old girl, her white muzzle moving slightly as she breathes.
My wish for everyone this holiday is that you all be lucky enough to have such a guardian angel.
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