AN ANGEL IN ARLETA
A soft breeze caressed her face as she relaxed into an easy chair, momentarily admiring the assortment of flowers and foliage bedecking the garden. Leaves rustled by her feet and the sound of wind chimes drifted in the air. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of lavender and jasmine. A sense of calm enveloped her and she cherished the moment, peace and tranquility filling her senses.
It was a modest yard in the middle of Arleta, a patient’s rented house in fact. She came to see Lola Naty, an eighty-year-old lady complaining of pain on her knees. She set out to do her job, to give therapy for her ailing limbs, not knowing that in the end she would be the one feeling healed.
They started out with the usual niceties. “How are you? How are your knees?” She promptly set down the pedaler in front of the old lady’s feet and prodded her to exercise.
Lola Naty studied her face. “You look so much like my granddaughter. You remind me of her whenever you come here“. The girl smiled. “You always tell me that.”
A simple remark, an innocent suggestion. “Perhaps you’re related to her mother’s side of the family. They’re from Tarlac," Lola Naty queried.
She gazed down at the ground, a shadow crossing her face. “That is possible. You see, I hardly know my mother. She may be from Tarlac, I’m not really sure.” She paused. “ She left when I was five.”
Lola Naty looked at her with sad eyes. “How did you feel about that, my child?”
“Well, it’s been a long time and I don’t think much of it anymore. But when I was a child, I would cry in my bed at night, hoping and praying she would come back. I kept waiting for her until I finally realized she wasn’t coming home.”
The old lady shook her head in empathy. She relayed that her husband had gone through the same fate, that his mother had left him when he was six and was sent to live with different aunts as he was growing up. She confessed that even at this moment, he still had no idea where his mother had gone and what had happened to her. “It ruined him, I think. He was always searching for her--in towns or cities where she may have gone, in snippets of conversation among relatives, even in the affairs he ended up having through the course of our marriage.” Lola Naty‘s voice cracked. “It was hard. But God was always by my side”.
The girl reached for Lola Naty’s hand. “You’re a strong woman to have endured something so difficult,” she offered.
“You’re the brave one, child,” Lola Naty answered gently. “Look at where you are now, what you’ve made of yourself. Whatever heartache and suffering you went through, God was always with you".
The leaves rustled around them, a soft breeze caressed their faces. The girl hugged the old lady, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. "Thank you," she said quietly. She handed Lola Naty her exercise sheet and turned to leave. Her heart felt light, and she smiled as she thought to herself, God sent me a messenger today.
