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That's Life: A Prayer for a Snow AngelBy Phyllis McGuire - March 09, 2008
iBerkshires Columnist
I like living in a condo as I do not have to worry that the grass on the lawn will grow too high, or that snow will pile up on the walk. But I do wish there was a garage on the property so that I did not have to park my car in an unsheltered space in front of my condo unit.
Recently, as I looked at my snow-covered car, I could no longer deny the truth. My snow angel was no longer here to help me.
The times in the past six winters when my car had been buried in snow, it had been mysteriously cleaned off.
When it first happened, I naively thought the sunshine that favored us in the day following a snowstorm had relieved me of the job of digging out my car. The next time it snowed, we endured a stretch of gloomy bitter cold days and I could not attribute nature with melting the snow from my car.
There are a few people in the condo who have been especially considerate since I became a widow seven years ago, and I searched my mind trying to come up with the name of anyone who might have been the Good Samaritan. I wanted to thank them.
Could it be Debbie, the young woman who lived next door to me? She has volunteered to dispose of my rubbish and to pick up groceries for me when the weather was wicked.
Was it the high school boy whom I had once hired to clean my car and who then refused to take payment? "I didn't do it for the money," he had said. He did gladly accept a batch of chocolate chip cookies I had just baked.
Was it the condo's superintendent, who has stopped by my unit to make sure I was all right when a snowstorm was raging?
Finally, one day when I happened to meet Craig, a neighbor who had been one of the first people to befriend my husband, Bill, and I when we moved to Williamstown, I mentioned the mystery to him.
Then it dawned on me that it might be Craig who was my snow angel. "Did you do it?" I asked. "Me?" he said, but the smile that ran across his face and the twinkle in his eye answered my question.
And then he warmed by heart by adding, "Yours was the only car [in the parking spaces] that hadn't been cleared off. And Bill came down [from Heaven] and said to me, 'Why don't you give Phyllis a hand?'"
Craig was not the type of person to go around declaring his religious beliefs, but I remember that whenever he noticed me driving off to church on Sunday morning, he would call out, "Say one for me."
Cancer claimed Craig's life a few months ago, and I have no doubt that he is now with the other angels in Heaven.
I think of him often, remembering chatting with him and laughing at the amusing stories he told, but most of all I miss him when snow falls.
Phyllis McGuire lives in Williamstown and is an occasional contributor to iBerkshires. |
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