Cody bolted from my side, sprinted down the hallway to the Mommy ‘n’ Me group, and jumped through the door:

“I have SEA-zers!”

Because he was four and couldn’t say “seizures.”

Yet one of the other moms understood him. She gasped, grabbed her toddler onto her lap, and turned away.

I had made it to the doorway just in time to see this. Just in time for the Mack truck of fear and stigma to slam into my chest. I stood there as little pieces of my newly shattered heart rained down to the floor.

Then an angel stepped in front of me. Dazed, it took me a moment to focus on her and register that she was speaking to me.

“My best friend’s son has epilepsy. Would you like me to connect you two?”

I nodded, unable to speak.

That was our first public announcement that Cody had epilepsy, exactly one week after we received the diagnosis from the doctor.

I wrote last week about being hugged by a boy with autism and letting the parents know it was ok. I also included the mom calling me an angel – which resulted in multiple comments by several of you also telling me I am an angel.

But I didn’t write that to elicit agreement. I’m much too…spirited to be confused with a mild-mannered angel.

If I’m kind, it’s because I’ve been broken.

I said: What about my heart?
He said: Tell me what you hold inside it.
I said: Pain and sorrow.
He said: Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Rumi

Being broken also lets the light out.

I encountered the boy and his family at a Christmas concert last week where we actually sang about angels, the ones who appeared the night of Jesus’ birth.  Do you know this song?

Angels we have heard on high,
sweetly singing o’er the plains,
and the mountains in reply
echoing their joyous strains:

Angels We Have Heard on High

If you know that song, you likely also know it’s based on the Bible verse Luke 2:13: “Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel…”

What we lose in the English translation, though, is what “host” really meant:

“angelic army”1

“an army of the troops of heaven (a heavenly knighthood)”2

“a great assembly of the heavenly forces”3

“a vast army from heaven”4

“a multitude of heavenly soldiers”5

These were bad…um, badbum angels. This was a military presence taking back the dark.

One of my friends commented on last week’s post that, as parents of special needs kids, we are each other’s angels. 

Maybe humans are meant to be “boots on the ground” angels for each other, regardless of our various struggles.  It’s messy and mucky here on Earth though, so we need some heavy-duty boots and more than a little attitude.  Hmmm.

A soldier with boots and attitude? Ok, maybe I am an angel.

1 AMP; 2 AMPC; 3 CEB; 4 CJB; 5 NMB