…how wonderful it is to have a purpose.

In 2008, my younger sister died. We were very close. We had lived together for five years, we even finished each other’s sentences! We shared daily living tasks. She cooked, I cleaned up…food was here favorite “sport”. Before she moved from Massachusetts to live with me, we would talk nearly every day on the phone. We visited once a month. On the 4th of July we’d watch “Pops goes the 4th” across the miles and were on the phone with each other awaiting the flag to unfurl at the end of the Boston Pops festivities. We’d stand up. In our separate living rooms, we’d stand up. (Well, I did and I’m reasonably sure she did too.) We’d remind each other when the Wizard of Oz was on, so we could watch at the same time. She made cloth dolls. I knitted afghans. She was my last living relative.

It was so hard.

I went through the grieving process rather poorly and about a year and a half later, driving home from work (I was on staff of a 6,000 member church), I was crying/crying out that I simply didn’t want to live.

I got home, took my wonderful little Eliza Doolittle for a walk and was as sad as sad can be. Eliza was my sustaining joy and she was very old and I anticipated her “crossing the rainbow bridge” sooner than later. The joy in helping others in the church was missing. Anyway, I wore a baseball cap with a big visor and walked while looking down at the sidewalk…avoiding trip, fall, fracture…and suddenly there were two feet stopped in front of mine. I looked up and there was a young man standing there. Clean cut, right out of the 50’s, preppy-dressed, mid-20’s, and he said, “You look like someone I can talk to. I just came from an AA meeting and I’m going into a rehab tomorrow. Will you pray for me?”

There were other people on the sidewalk. Why stop me? I never saw him before or since. I thought it odd but took his hands and prayed for him, right there on the sidewalk.

We went our separate ways and as I finished my walk with Eliza Doolittle, I became aware that the encounter was meant to encourage me and confirm my purpose of helping others.

Was he an angel?

I don’t know, but that meeting changed my life and my joy-full purpose of helping others has grown and continues to this day.

Gassho, Namaste, Blessings