Guardian Angel

There is a little old lady who one of mum's loyal customers. She is a dear old Portuguese woman, who every time she comes into town, will visit my mum and bring her little goodies. She really is the sweetest old lady by far.

The relationship that she shares with my mum is somewhat a strange one. See she can't speak much English and my mum cant speak a word of Portuguese, yet every time she visits they somehow seem to have a conversation that only they can understand. When my parents were getting divorced, she would pop into the shop every week and tell my mum that she lit a candle for her and us at Church. She doesn't know us by name so she refers to us by - the Girl, the Big Boy and the Small Boy - all said with a very strong portuguese accent. Every time she visits she will bring goodies for each one of us. She gives my mum Rosaries to pray on and she must mention that she lights candles for us every time she goes to Mass.

Even though we are not Catholic, my mum always tells us that you don't know with whose prayers you carry on and succeed. This little old Lady Maria is like our guardian angel who even if she has nothing to buy from the shop, will stop by to bring little sweets, cakes and goodies for my brothers and I.

One Christmas Eve we went to visit her. My mum always buys Christmas Gifts for her loyal customers so we stopped at her house on our way home. She was ecstatic. She insisted that we sit down, poured these tall glasses of coldrink and started bustling away in the kitchen. My little brother and I downed our cokes and when she saw that we had finised it, she proceed to fill the glasses again. She gave us each a huge box of chocolates and sweets and a huge cake and some other little goodies.

It was only natural that we want Maria and her husband present at my wedding. The day mum went to invite her, she was so happy. Yesterday she stopped by at the shop and she had 3 little envelopes. She told my mum that in each envelope was money and she must pass the envelope to the Girl that is getting married and my little brother. The other envelope was for my mum. In the envelopes - R500.00 for me, R200.00 for my mum and R100.00 for my little brother. She really didn't have to, but she keeps saying how can a single mother carry such a burden and she must help her.

She truly is a little guardian angel and I am so glad to have someone like that in my life. She is a gem of a lady and may she always be blessed for she is truly a special lady with a heart of gold....