ALWAYS HER ANGEL

A few years ago I worked for a family owned Hallmark store in Rochester, New York. I worked in the store alone most nights and came to know our regular customers pretty well. Some collected Boyd's, some collected Cherished Teddies... you get the picture.

One of my favorite customers was a woman named Reva. She was a little woman with flaming red hair and a huge personality. When she walked into the store, a smile was instinctive. One Saturday, she walked in to the store, took one look at me and started crying. She said she had come to see me and give me "this" as she handed me a little gift bag. I smiled and asked why. And then she told me.

I was a poor college student and was unable to pay my long distance phone bill. My service was eventually shut off. My family was 5 hours away and I couldn't call home. Radio Shack, which was a few stores down, was having a free phone card giveaway. You could win from 5 minutes to an hour. I was alone in my store and couldn't leave. Just then Reva came in and I asked her to do me a HUGE favor and get one of those free phone cards for me. She said yes and came back with two for me and one for her. She had won 5 minutes and was very excited.

As it turned out, she put the card in her pocket and forgot about it. A few weeks later she was in the car and was thinking about her mom, who was supposed to go into the hospital for some minor surgery that day. She pulled off to the side of the road looking for some change for the payphone. She couldn't find any change, but she happened to be wearing the same coat she wore when she got her free phone card (she had not worn it since that day.) To her surprise, she pulled out the forgotten phone card and called her mom. She wished her mother luck, told her that she loved her and said she'd call later. Something went wrong in the hospital and her mother died that morning.

While Reva was telling me this story, I was crying for her loss and I asked her what all of this had to do with me.

She said that because of me, she had been able to tell her mother she loved her on the day that she died. She had no change, but she had 5 free minutes courtesy of Radio Shack and a poor girl with no long distance. She gave me an angel as a symbol of her gratefulness because I happened to be in the right place at the right time. She told me that I would always be "her angel".

I have since lost touch with Reva but I know she will forever stay in my heart. I never felt like I did anything great, but she made me feel like I had done the most wonderful thing in the world and for that I will be forever honored. I have lost people in my life who I haven't been able to say goodbye to, or I haven't said I love you.

When I look at that angel that Reva gave me, it reminds me to be good to people -- for I may be their angel for that day.

~~~ Stacie Angelo

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on Saturday, May 4, 2002.