Angels walking the earth

I knew a friend.

I say ‘I knew’ her because she’s no longer here. She passed on. She was one of the good ones. One of those amazing beautiful souls to ever walk the earth. She didn’t have loads of cash, so no she couldn’t bail you out if you needed a million bucks but she had much more than money could ever buy. She had a humongous heart. She always gave herself, her time, her energy, her laughter, her grace, she gave herself.

It was almost like she was on an hour glass kind of timeline on earth. Well, now I know that she was on one and that we are all on our own fast fleeting timelines. But for her, it just felt like she didn’t have time to not be there for you. Even when she was completely beat, and had spent herself to the last ounce of strength and there was a need, she would always find an extra ounce.

You were sure that she would show up for you. She showed up for weddings and funerals that few people thought she’d show up for. She found time, made time even for people around her. If she said she was busy, she was, but even with that, she would always find time for you later. If she missed your call, she would return it and find out why you had called. Whether you are okay, whether you needed anything. If she didn’t call back, she would have to have been unwell or something. But it was very uncharacteristic of her not to call back.

She didn’t like to fight. She loved peace. So if she walked into a chaotic place, she would calm everyone down. She didn’t like to see conflict. She believed that everything could be sorted out. She sought peace and mostly found peace. If she couldn’t find peace then even Kofi Annan would fall flat on his face trying to mediate that conflict. She wanted people to live together in harmony. She wondered why people even ever raised their voices at each other. How now? She always thought that that was totally uncalled for.

If there was someone who could pick up my heart from the trenches and encourage me to wake up and keep trying, it was this woman. If I called her and I was tired of everything, she would talk to me and by the time she’d be done, I would have strength to keep going. It is like she had the capacity to recharge me every time my batteries were down. She always laughed heartily, a laughter that was crazy infectious. You couldn’t sit with her and not be gloomy. You had to laugh.

I couldn’t lie to her or conceal truth from her. She had these intense eyes that felt like she could see right into your soul. And she could, she could literally tell when I wasn’t telling her the truth. She’d stop me mid conversation and tell me to cut the bs. She would tell me that I wasn’t in a PR class so “just tell me what’s up Mwendwa!” She’d say. There was a way that she’d probe into a matter like she had a leading line of questions. When I didn’t want to tell her stuff, I would do best to completely avoid her.

There’s this time that I was going through a horrible season. I needed a break so I left my hometown and went to her county. I asked her to find me a place to stay for a week or so. She met up with me and took me around several places until I picked the one I felt most comfortable. I needed time to recuperate; life had done me a number, a thorough one. I wasn’t leaving the hotel much; actually, I didn’t leave until I was ready to go back home. She allowed me time to be alone the first day but she’d call to see whether I am well. I wasn’t okay. All I did was sleep from morning to evening. I didn’t even bother to draw the curtains or have the room cleaned. I just wanted to be alone. She respected that.

On the third day, she showed up in the evening. We had dinner together. She asked about my situation. I told her what was going on. She listened intently without uttering a word. There was no judgment in her eyes and you could tell that her heart wasn’t judging at all. There was just concern, a lot of it. When I was done, she asked me what I wanted to do about it. Did I have a solution? I told her what I felt my solution was. She said that she understood if that’s what I wanted to do. Then she asked a profound question. She asked, “But what does God want?” I didn’t know. I don’t think I cared much about what God wanted. But I heard her. I said I would ask him. I felt better, relieved.

Then I asked her how she was. And for the first time, ever, her countenance fell. Her eyes became gloomy. She paused for a long while before she said, “Mwendwa! I am tired.” I had never ever in my interaction with her heard her say that she was tired. This was a first. Looking at her, I now could see it. She looked heavy. She looked a tad sad. She looked laden. She wasn’t okay. She told me that she had had a conversation with God and told him that she was tired and that if He wasn’t going to give her rest, then He needed to take her home. She looked serious. I didn’t think it serious. I wish I had.

I recuperated. Came back home. A few months later I was travelling through her town. On our way back we needed a place to stopover and take lunch. I called her. She didn’t pick up. So we found a place, ate and got back on the road. We had gone about thirty minutes from her town when she called. I told her that I had been in her town but she hadn’t picked up so I had left. She was furious! She asked how I could do that. Was it too much to just look for her? What kind of friendship was this anyway? I reminded her that I had actually called to announce my presence. She could hear any of it. I apologised and said that I would purposely come back just to see her. I didn’t know that that would be the last conversation we would have.

We didn’t see each other for about three months until I got the news that she had passed on. God had honoured her ask. He had taken her home.

We buried her.

I have been thinking from thence that this friend was no ordinary person. I have been thinking that this friend was to me an angel that God had sent into my life for the period of time that I knew her. I have been thinking that there are people who God places in our lives to make our lives bearable, easier, to help us carry the loads that life so often throws at us. We rarely recognise or even know that these are angels walking the earth. They will be here for a few years and then suddenly leave. They are on a timeline. They are never here for long, just a short while because they are on a mission. And once the mission is done, they exit.

Angels don’t always come as huge terrifying beings covered in glorious white linen. No, sometimes, God sends angels in human bodies. They walk the earth, and we never know because, truth is, God would have not know.