Who is That?

When we were kids, mom seemed to run into most anybody when we were out and about running errands. Whether it was someone from church, our school, her high school days or possibly someone from our extended family; we always seemed to meet a familiar face.  Often times as they would leave after talking for awhile, I would ask, "Who is that?"  She would give me the run down of how she knew them.   I'll never forget that infamous statement made by many of those familiar faces, pointing to me as they would say,  "That's Betty Lou"......which by the way was my mom's name growing up.  I took it as a compliment because to me my mom was beautiful.......more beautiful than any mom I knew.  She was the best and no other mom could hold a candle to her.  While we were growing up, she always seemed so put together when it came to her appearance...makeup just right, nails glued and painted, her Este Lauder perfume permeated the air and her bluish, sometimes green-toned eyes sparkled.  Still, as a child, I was confused when someone would compare me to mom.  We didn't seem anything alike.  Our eyes seemed different, our hair length was just the opposite, mom was outgoing and I felt so shy and awkward, and she was just great!   It wasn't until I was into my later teens, looking at old photographs, that I noticed a photo that looked like me as a child, but the quality of the paper was much older, way before my time.  It was a professional photo of my mom, probably around the age of five or six,  and I saw me in her.  It was like an "aha" moment when I finally saw the resemblence of me and my mom like so many old friends and family had mentioned before as I was growing up.

When Chrissy was nearing her time, to go beyond this earthly world, I had hoped she would see mom in her room, but while I was in the room, it never seemed to happen....atleast not in the way I had expected.  Chrissy was having difficulty speaking during her last weeks due to the medications and her disease.  The disease was taking its toll on her body as cancer often does as the body is slowly winding down.   Perhaps she did see my mom but wasn't able to verbalize it.  I believe, though, that there were others or another in the room for sure.  One particular morning, as I was sitting on her bed, only the nurse's aide walked near us when Chrissy whispered to me, "Who is that?"  At first I thought she meant the nurse's aide, and I responded, "That's Cheryl."  She replied, "No, not her, that other person standing over there, who is that?"  As she whispered to me and looked beyond Cheryl, she pointed to her own eye, as if the person she was speaking of, standing in the room had something noticeable about her/his eye(s).  I asked what this person looked like and all Chrissy did was point to her own eyes in a somewhat suspicious  way.  At that moment, words escaped me, because if I mentioned angels, then perhaps that would scare her.....thinking that angel was coming to take her.  Another thought was that the medication was working over-time on her, invading suspicious visions into her brain.  As I sat there a few moments longer, I felt it could have been our mom.  "I think it's mom looking over you," I answered, with a slight crack in my voice.  It had been a long time since Chrissy and I had physically seen her, and much of Chrissy's memory was seeing my mother's ailing body.  The sick years had a taken a toll on my mom's body along with her sparkling eyes during Chrissy's childhood.  Maybe those tired eyes of my mom's that Chrissy was used to seeing while she was alive were now shining brightly on that morning, so bright, that all Chrissy could mimic were her eyes.  She remained silent and continued to stare for a few minutes in that direction.  I can't say for sure who that was that she saw on that morning, but without any hesitation, I believe it was either my mom or one of her angels looking upon her.  I could feel the energy in the room many times, not only on that day, but many times during her illness.   We may wonder who that could have been, and I can only say it was love, whether from someone she once knew or someone who has always known her......it was love.

"Love one another as I have loved you"