Sofa pillows arranged around me for comfortable viewing, I tucked the throw around my legs and picked up the remote for the TV. A good movie at the end of the day could give me a lift. But when I hit the power button, all I got was a bright pink screen. What now? I waited, pressed some buttons. Wavy images appeared and disappeared. Dejected, I turned off the TV and answered the phone with a tired hello.
“Hi Mom, what’s going on?” my daughter Amanda asked.
“Believe it or not, my TV just broke.”
“Are you serious?”
Amanda knew how many home repairs I’d had to deal with in the past few months. The refrigerator. The stove. The air conditioner. Now the TV. My husband, Byron, had died only three months earlier, and it seemed fitting, somehow, that things were breaking down all around me, as if the house itself was mourning his passing, just as I was.
“The TV can be replaced,” Amanda said, trying to soothe me.
“Maybe later.” At this point, I just wanted to call it a day.
The next morning, I dawdled over my coffee, trying to work up the motivation to get something done. But everywhere I looked I saw signs of Byron. His favorite snacks in the cupboard. The trees he’d planted for a perfect window view. The garage full of his tools. What was a broken TV compared to all that?
I decided to drive into town to pick up some things I needed. That, at least, didn’t take much effort. At Walmart I tried to concentrate on my grocery list instead of my grief. On my way to the checkout, I noticed the sign marking the electronics aisle. I could replace my TV, I thought, but made no move toward the aisle. I didn’t have the energy to choose a TV, and anyway, Byron wouldn’t be there to help me bring it inside. I left without it.
Carrying my groceries into the house, I noticed something lying on the top step, by the front door. I bent down for a closer look. It was a pretty little trinket. On a pale lavender background was a pair of white wings. Above them was written, “Angels are among us.” The same thing was printed on the back. It definitely hadn’t been there when I left the house. Who had left it? It was a little too heavy for the wind to have blown it here.
Strange, I thought, and dropped it in my pocket. I put the groceries away and went to the other room. Out of habit I turned toward the TV.…
That’s not my TV. A brand-new one sat in its place, with a brand-new remote beside it. I pressed the power button and the set came to life. Angels are among us, I thought, touching the trinket in my pocket. So what angel had flown in with a new TV? A family text solved the mystery pretty quickly. Amanda and her husband had made the switch while I was out.
“We’re all in this together, Mom,” she said when I called to thank her. “We’ll help each other get through it.”
“Yeah, we will,” I said. Maybe I no longer had Byron to turn to for help, but I wasn’t alone. “By the way,” I told Amanda, “you left something behind when you came in. You must have dropped it.”
I texted her a picture, and she texted me right back. “Sorry, Mom,” she said. “I’ve never seen that before.”
I pulled the trinket from my pocket again. Read the message on it. I had people to depend on to get me through this time. I had angels too.
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