Smell the Coffee
My sadness was drowning me. I felt that my life was useless. My wife had died suddenly. I could not accept that she had gone. Why did she have to go now when we had retired early to enjoy life?
A week after my wife died our dog, Poppy, stopped eating. She got so weak I had to have her put to sleep. Two losses within a month! I lost a stone. I wasn’t eating. Food didn’t interest me. Life didn’t interest me.
My brother and sister-in-law called round every day to invite me for coffee or to go shopping. Friends phoned and letters and cards dropped through the letterbox but wherever I went it was always the same – I was alone. A year passed like this and then the ‘signs’ started.
One night my sister came for dinner. She suggested visiting the dogs’ home the following day to choose a new dog. She told me that taking care of the dog and getting lots of fresh air walking it would do me the world of good. I told her in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t ready for a dog. I wasn’t ready for anything. I asked her to leave. No sooner had she shut the door behind her than the light bulb blew in the hall. I didn’t think anything of it but then I went into the kitchen and another light bulb blew. I looked at my watch. It was just after 7 pm so I decided to get some new bulbs in the morning.
I slumped on the sofa to while away the hours watching television. I must have nodded off briefly because I woke with a start. The TV wasn’t on. I tried fiddling with it but it wouldn’t work. Then all of a sudden I heard a noise coming from upstairs. I rushed up into my bedroom and saw that my wife’s jewellery box was open. The little ballerina inside was twirling around to its Swan Lake tune. I had given it to my wife as a first anniversary present. It had stopped playing many years ago, although my wife had tried it many times.
I went back downstairs and as I stood in the hall, I felt a cool breeze go by me. Then I was hit by the strong aroma of coffee I used to smell every morning when my wife was up making breakfast and toast. I knew then that my wife had come to help me. On the floor was the note my sister had left with the phone number of the dogs’ home. My wife wanted me to love something again.
Elated, I rang my sister saying I had changed my mind and I did think a dog was a good idea. She was delighted but sounded a little disorientated. I asked her what was wrong and she asked me if I knew what time it was. I glanced at the clock on my mantelpiece and it said 7 pm. My sister told me that my clocks must be wrong because it was actually 11 pm. I looked at my wrist watch and it also said 7 pm, exactly the time my sister left that evening.
The next morning I did go to the dogs’ home and I chose a beautiful little puppy. Taking care of and training a new dog was exactly the tonic I needed. I know my wife is still with me, especially in the mornings when I wake up and smell the aroma of coffee coming from the kitchen downstairs, even though I actually drink tea instead of coffee. My wife was the coffee pot every morning, not me. My new dog recognizes the smell. He will often get up on all fours and begin sniffing around in the kitchen, raising his head up and sniffing the air. I’m so glad he can smell it too.
I’m aware that so far the stories in this chapter have been rather serious but it is important to point out that angels have a whimsical sense of humour. I often feel them smiling or laughing with me – especially when daft things happen, like the time I bought a brand new trendy leather jacket and trousers to impress an editor I was going to work with. When I turned up at her office the doorman told me that I should leave my delivery around the back! Angels don’t always take themselves seriously and sometimes they try to encourage us to do the same by communicating their love through humour, as Sarah’s delightful story shows.
The Final Chapter
My family is extremely close. Every year since we were children we gather together for Christmas and it is always a time for love, laugher and celebration. The same people, the same delicious food, the same jokes! It may seem boring to some people but it is comfortable and cosy for me.
Year after year we share wonderful moments and memories but in the last few years I noticed not just my own advancing age but my father’s slower pace as well. Last year, after dragging the Christmas tree up a flight of stairs, his eyes bright with anticipation, he fell and broke his hip. His routine hip surgery went well but the medical team noticed a problem with his blood count and ordered further testing. The tests revealed that dad had liver cancer.
And so that Christmas instead of laughing over our mince pies we were sitting anxiously in a hospital waiting room. About three months and two different hospitals later dad was finally allowed to go home. We made the day really special. We bought him all his favourite food, music and books and he spent the next few weeks reading, relaxing and chatting with us all.
Although we knew it was coming, the morning my mum woke to find that he had died in the night was still a shock. Feeling numb with grief I helped plan the funeral. Our family was incomplete now and I wondered if we would ever laugh again. Dad had always been such a practical joker and his lively, curious mind meant that conversations were never boring. I was 45 years old and I had never spent Christmas without my dad – I couldn’t imagine it without him now. There were too many things that would not be the same.
My grief was nothing compared to my mother’s loss and loneliness. After a long and happy marriage it was disorientating for her to be alone in the world without the sound of his voice, without the comfort of knowing he was there in the next room reading his books, waiting for her to join him.
I’ve always been an early riser, like my mother, and now with my dad gone I was up even earlier than normal. I didn’t want mum to go without the sound of someone’s voice for too long, alone with her thoughts and memories. One morning her voice sounded different. It was full of surprise and wonder instead of the sadness I had grown used to.
‘I have a mystery in my hands,’ she said, holding a book out towards me. She then went on to say that when she had got up that morning she found a copy of The Da Vinci Code open on the floor. ‘How did it get there?’ she asked me. I didn’t have a clue. My mum was a very tidy person. She didn’t read in bed and books would always be put away downstairs in the bookcase.
Later that day I shared the story with my husband, Robert, and he stared at me with his mouth open. ‘That is incredible. Don’t any of you remember what your mum said about the last conversation she had before she went to bed the night your dad died? When she helped him into bed he asked her if he could finish reading the final chapters of The Da Vinci Code because he wanted to know what the ending was. And she said it was too late but when he woke in the morning she would make him a cup of tea and read him the final chapters herself.’
Listening to this, my eyes started to sting as I pictured in my head my mother kissing my dad for the last time. So it was dad who had left the book open on the floor that morning. The open book was his light-hearted way of saying that there is another life after this one. He was just reading his final chapters in another room and waiting for us to join him.
Another story – this time from a man called Mark – and another angel with a sense of humour.
Divine Comedy
I was in a state of complete panic when I lost my mobile. Today was a crucial make or break day for me at work. My mobile had all my business contact numbers and without it my day would be chaos. I started to beg for help from on high. I wondered if angels really existed. If they did, would they really bother helping me find such an everyday item?
I remembered that I had stopped in a coffee bar that morning. It seemed logical to go back there to see if some kind soul had handed
