Singing with Angels

Recently I made the journey to my hometown of Joplin, Missouri. Previously I would try to get there twice a year to see my mother, but with her death in December of 2012, I had not been since September of 2012. As a family we had things in storage for some time and I had promised my brother that THIS year I would come and deal with my things, mostly unseen for many years. Also my grandmother’s table was in the storage unit and that was the one thing of hers that was passed from her to my mother and my mother to me. I had saved room for it in my small apartment and wanted to have this piece of family history.

Now this article is not about my things in storage or my mother, but another person who I inherited something from. When hearing or reading the town of Joplin, do you remember that a tornado ripped through there May 22, 2011? That phenomenon has been called “a catastrophic EF5 multiple-vortex tornado “ whose path was one mile wide and heavy destruction went on for over 15 miles through a place, I grew up. It took so much property, houses, business, cars, trucks, trees and most difficult to lose, lives. This storm was the most deadly to occur in the US since 1947 and it claimed 160 men, women, teens and children. Two of those people were close to me, two out of 160! First was my auntie Joyce, my mom’s younger sister. I had known her my entire life, she was the cool one of the two sisters, I remember the bobby sox and convertible!! Oh yeah, what fun I had with her and always was close to her in adulthood. My other loss was the sweetest most talented sister in the Lord you would ever meet, Wendy! She could balance anyone’s books, then turn and make a costume for a production in about an hour. The last time I saw her, she and her daughter Tracy were wrapping ornately presents for family members for their Christmas.

Surely God put us together years before, I’d spoken at her church’s women’s group and had a display of things for them to see from Central America. Wendy loved some ceramic angels I had and tried to buy them from me. I said, no, they were not for sale. Little did I know her love of collecting angels. That night I felt God prompting me to just give her the angels. After a few phone calls to find out who she was, I let her know the angels were hers. She was delighted and that was the beginning of a friendship/ sisterhood that spanned over 15 years before God called her home.

Wendy was director of a play for a Christian based theatre in Joplin. That Sunday was their final production matinee of “I Remember Mama”, a classic, produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1944 and adapted to film in 1948. Some of Wendy’s family members were in the cast and most of her family had come for the closing that May 22nd. The theatre was right behind the St. John’s hospital where the funnel came down and instantly to save her grandson, Wendy threw herself on his body and sustain major trauma. Mercifully, she lived a few days, so all her children and grandchildren come see her and painfully say goodbye. I was on my way driving 90 miles an hour to get there knowing she was going, but just missed seeing her one more time by 15 minutes. Her husband Jason, of course was totally shell shocked. I put him in my car to care for him in those first few hours of loss. Even now you should know how hard it is to write and recall the emotion of those days.

When we got back to Joplin as Wendy had been airlifted to a medical center up in Kansas City, their house was untouched by the storm and everything just in place as she had left in over a week before. I just went into their bedroom and cried over her hairbrush!!

Wendy had a massive collection of angels throughout the house, everywhere I went she got a few more and mostly her husband wanted to keep those, but I ask if I could have just one from her collection. Jason said, yes and I saw one that was two angels together singing and I knew that was Wendy and I before the throne of God singing His praises. I did not take the angels at that time, it was all too painful, but this trip to Joplin I was reunited with this little darling reminder of my friend and the angels are on my wall here in Albuquerque letting me know that one day she and I will be together to sing with angels!! It is my prayer that YOU too will join us in praise and honor of The Ancient of Days.