Random Angels in the Wings

 

Ever had random angels in the wings?  They say or do just what you might have needed at that moment.  Afterwards you find yourself thinking, did that just happen?

These angels seem all the more random because they are in public spaces and make you feel happy, helped and safe, when perhaps you could be suspicious, struggling and scared.

I share with you three angels who must’ ve specialised in young mums. I have never forgotten their actions, although to be honest I don’t remember their faces at all.

The first angel

I’m in a university library, looking for some books I need for research.

We can handle this, we have before, my first born and I are intrepid explorers.  However today he starts to get teary. I give him something to play with from what I wished was a bottomless magic mum bag!

This book search is long though and we are running out of options.  The librarian is watching, is this good or bad?

She lets me know although there is not a children’s section as such there is a curriculum section which has all sorts of goodies I can borrow even if temporarily to keep him happy whilst I wander the library. There’s even puppets there.

We go straight to curriculum and I find something which really entertains him. I am able to find the rest of the books for my essay.

The second angel

I’ m stuck at the bottom of some stairs at a railway station. I don’t know where the lift is. There is a massive surge of people going up the stairs. I fold up the pram and ready myself to hold it in one arm and my toddler in another.

Someone just appears and chirps,  ‘need a hand with that.’

He walks beside me, takes my pram to the top of the stairs, unfolds it for me,  smiles and leaves me to go my way.   The day has begun well.

The third angel

I’m stunned, someone just said to me ‘You are a great mother,’ these words came from a complete stranger, watching me in the library, negotiating the shelves with my children.

This was something which I hoped I was and strived to be. I am a bit anxious about it sometimes, and don’t have much of a support network of other young mums or family around me, but I keep trying my best.

I live for the dreams of my children but I do have my own as well.  I have been reading so many books on parenting but sometimes books just don’t hold all the answers on a day- to-day basis.

What did I do? Just kept my cool even when the kids were getting a little snarky. Just gently disciplined them with reason until they just behaved.

It wasn’t creepy to have a stranger say this, this angel seemed to genuinely to want to put a kindness post it note on me and say well done .

It feels like someone somewhere is clapping me and giving me a big cheer to sustain me through any other times when mothering will seem tough.

 ***

Then I see the news this week, a young woman on a bus, assaulted, in broad daylight, no-one does anything. How can this happen? Where were her random angels waiting in the wings?

What must her mother be feeling right now?

I hope there are many more angels waiting in the wings of the lives of the mothers and their children who need them.  Even when you practice self reliance they do have the power to make the world seem a better place.

Then I open up the newsfiles and find out about all the people wanting the girls in Nigeria released.  Are they Random Angels,  deliberately joining forces ? Bring back the girls!

There’s a place for global and local random acts of kindness, and deliberate and random acts of kindness.  Just maybe there is hope?