Joy by Jeanne Hendriks
Michele Roelofsen, Gordon’s Bay
How do you know if the person coming towards you through the haze is really an angel? Feathers and wings and a halo, of course.
It’s the uniform you expect of extraordinary and wonderful beings. God’s appointed messengers coming to give you a message, or to carry you home.
Lying on my back staring at the ceiling these last few days I have been surrounded by angels.
They rustled when they moved, swishing by in plastics busying themselves with altered light and gently muffled murmurings, catheters, needles, pills and drips.
My angels leaning over me were dressed in green gowns and wore space masks in an attempt to keep me from leaving Planet Earth.
My angels work ten hour shifts on with a five-hour break to go home, scrub clean, sleep and feed and protect their families.
Then back for another low-paid ten- hour shift. This for three days and then the mighty gift of two days off.
I press a button and an angel appears in moments. I wish for water and it appears with good food and a smile. Am I delirious?
Truth is, there are many angels that come into our lives along the corridors of our difficulties, patient unselfish and caring angels who put the needs of others before their own.
And in this crisis they are everywhere you can look if only you look. My own angels (four of them) had each had Covid-19, and yet still returned fearlessly to the front for more and endless battle with a deadly enemy.
God’s appointed messengers, in a uniform you can expect of extraordinary and wonderful beings, coming to give you a message, or to carry you home.
I would like to express my great appreciation and thanks to those wonderful doctors and nurses who tended me at E-Ward, Vergelegen Mediclinic, for Covid-19 and pneumonia, quite possibly saving my life, and returning time and again to the front line to selflessly attend the urgent needs of others. Both heroes and angels!
* This letter was sent to Bolander by Philip’s partner, Michele Roelofsen, who has the Ndiza Gallery in Gordon’s Bay.