Nancy, My Guardian Angel

Elita fell to the ground after she had walked into a shopping cart at a local craft’s store on December 7^th, 2004 in Timonium, Maryland.

The left shoulder was dislocated and had to be popped back in at the hospital emergency room and an orthopedic doctor examined the x-rays . After many sessions of physical therapy and many hours of icing the injury and performing numerous exercises at home, Elita did well. The first thing she asked the physical therapist was when she could go back to ballroom dancing. She replied on or about eight weeks from the original injury. That is, if all things go well.

Thinking about not ballroom dancing was a prime thought Elita had after the pain had somewhat subsided many days later into the month. She was making good progress with all the exercises at home and at the physical therapy office and she was becoming quite bored from no ballroom dancing. She thought to herself, if only, she had not gone that rainy day to the craft store and if only she had not taken that terrible fall. If only is a phrase, we often use to backtrack on bad things that happen to us. If only, we had not taken that ride that day, we would not have been in an automobile accident. If only, we had done this or that, things would be different.

Blaming one’s self in the if only situation is a useless waste of brain thoughts. We cannot go back and undue the act or situation. We can go forward. and that is not a waste of brain thoughts. A friend of mine, Dora Lee, a former school principal, long retired, told Elita that progress sometimes has to go backward in order to go forward. What that means is that on the days one thinks they are not increasing their progress in any kind of situation or activity, this is not so. One step backwards can enhance two steps forward. A nurse who was walking by when Elita fell called ahead to the emergency room to alert them that her "new friend" was on the way. Elita and Nancy had never met before until Nancy saw Elita on the ground that December 7th afternoon at 2.30 p.m. Her name is Nancy Thompson.

Nancy told Elita later at the hospital that Elita must be a really good person. Why Elita asked her,” why you say that.”? Nancy had come down to check on her new friend, a senior citizen, who had taken the fall. Nancy, a virtual stranger passing in the afternoon on her way to the hospital for her work day said that she, Nancy was meant to be Elita’s guardian angel that particular moment. By being there and seeing the fall and advising Elita to go to her place of work, St. Joseph Hospital in Baltimore County, Maryland, her angel duties took over. Her angel duties were to make sure Elita, a virtual stranger no more was taken care of at the emergency room in the timeliest of manners by the workers there including the physician assistant and the nurses on duty. Nancy Thompson, the nursing supervisor, wearing four beepers on her uniform, established to anyone seeing all of them lined up, that Nancy was indeed a virtual angel waiting to help a senior who had taken the wrong step walking into the shopping cart. Nancy said only a good person would have the good luck to have a guardian angel right at the spot when all this happened. She, Nancy, was meant to be there to help out Elita and her husband, Jerry, to advise them, to call ahead to the emergency room and to be by Elita’s side before the final x-ray was taken and Elita was released.

One can apply this story to other things such as out of all bad things, many times good things emerge. Elita and Nancy meeting, Nancy being the guardian angel of that moment and the several hours spent in the emergency room and the x-ray room etc. . .Elita was writing at that time for about fourteen and a half years, the senior page of a magazine called Amateur Dancers which all amateur dancers read every other month when it was published. In her essays, she advised people on the gains of ballroom dancing, the enhancement of their lives from doing that. She gets dozens of emails, regular mail and many phone calls complimenting this. Just last Monday, seven years, after the fall, she got a phone call from a reader from Oregon who she has been emailing with for several years now. He called and his first words to the message recorder were " hi there you wonderful lady who writes those encouraging articles. This is Tom Jonas calling to finally speak with you after all these years of emailing You have been my guardian angel”. What a wonderful call to hear herself being this man’s guardian angel of sorts.

He told her how he loves her articles and the goodness he feels from reading them because he indeed, a senior and his dance partner, another senior, receive the sort of uplifting and desire to keep on dancing even despite any physical ailments that may happen now and then, as we seniors experience. He said he now reads my columns on the Patch and on the René website. So each one of us can be a guardian angel to someone else, maybe for a moment or two, one day out of the blue. We can help each other, whether it be an Elita type fall, a written word or even a spoken word, that we utter to encourage someone else to do something in their life that they may never have given a thought to like ballroom dancing, or any other physical activity or even attending an event they would not think of including in their life.

You too, can be that angel, popping out from nowhere to become someone’s helping hand, an angel of course in disguise, who is meant to be, one afternoon that is not a rainy day at a craft store, but a day of sunshine because you uttered a complimentary phrase or a helping hand or an invitation to come out and ballroom or social dance at some place you attend. You can invite folks to meet you at the dance and introduce them around and mainly to encourage them in this new activity that they would never have had the nerve to try. You too will be a guardian angel and that is a wonderful feeling here on earth at this moment in time.

In my previous article called Rainbows, Religion, French Fries and Love, I mention the Pastor Damion Berry who helped us out at the Staples store recently. He is a pastor in his other job and he told me that when he met us the first time buying the big over stuffed office chair, he was impressed with our niceness. He prayed for us at one of his services even though he never expected to see us again. He said “we touched his life and so he would never forget us and when you meet someone like that and your life is affected and impressed, you always care about them and pray for them.” What a nice thought if we all could incorporate that in our daily lives. Always remember the good people who passed through your day with even a little amount of time, because they are the guardians of hope, light, feeling and accomplishments. Nancy Thompson and I have not met again, but even after seven years, I feel her spirit and compassion for a complete stranger that Tuesday December 7, 2004. That was the day December 7^th, 1941 that our country entered World War ll and I was a seven year old little girl. So bad days and their dates can many years later become a special day, because sixty years later on that same sad day, Elita met her first guardian angel, Nurse Nancy Thompson. I believe Nancy at that time in 2004 lived in the Cockeysville area. If she still does, I hope she reads this story.

She touched my life and I have never forgotten her for her kindness and caring on that rainy Tuesday where I had gone to Michael’s Craft store to buy some wool to knit a blanket for the soon arrival of my third grandson. Guardian angels are among us every day and when we meet one, we will know it and be the recipient of their love and devotion, even if we never met them ever before.