The Thirteen Stones

by Finegan, KT

  The woman sat down on the other end of the couch before carrying on. ‘Look at me now. I’m making a living doing what I love to do. I meet wonderful people. I have fun. I might not have a big house or fancy car, but I realised that I don’t need anything like that. And it’s all down to meeting my Guardian Angel. Can I tell you what happened?’

  I nodded. I was desperate to know. It’s not every day you meet someone so content and with an inner glow, doing what they love. I realised that was what the glint in her eye was – fun, joy, happiness, confidence, contentment. All the things that I realised I wanted in my life, but were sorely missing.

  ‘If I go back to when I was nursing, I was so stressed. I was unhappy and unfulfilled, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I suppose I kept myself really busy so that I didn’t have to look at how I felt about my life. And although I was married, I didn’t have any fun in that either. We didn’t have any children, not because we didn’t want them, we just didn’t seem to make time and then it was too late for me. All my friends had got pregnant and were raising children, and it didn’t happen for me.’

  Her smile faded a little and for a few moments, she looked sad. ‘We didn’t talk about it. In fact, we didn’t talk about anything that mattered. I felt I was on a hamster wheel: I got up, went to work, stress, stress, stress, I shopped, cooked, ate, watched telly, and went to bed. There didn’t seem to be much fun in my life. It was as if Malcolm and I were going through the motions. We hardly spoke to each other, and when we did it was about things that had happened to us, always about outside events, if you know what I mean.

  ‘I suppose I put it down to the fact that we were both working long hours, he was an ambulance driver, so often our shifts meant that we didn’t see each other for days at a time. He liked to work night shifts as there was more money in that, and it took me a long time to realise that in a way I preferred when he wasn’t there. It was as if we shared a house but not our lives. Does that make sense?’

  It was as if she had just described my life with Derek. Like she was ahead of me in some way. I knew exactly what she meant. ‘So how did angels come into your life?’ I asked, desperate for her to continue.

  Her happy smile returned. ‘Now that’s an amazing story. I really wasn’t happy with my life at that time, but I couldn’t have told you why or made any effort to change things, because I didn’t know how, or even that I had a choice.

  ‘I was approaching fifty and I realised that I was over halfway through my life and felt it hadn’t started yet. My mum and dad both died within a couple of months of each other, and that knocked me for six, I can tell you. Nothing prepares you as an adult for becoming an orphan. It seems silly, and I know you’ve had tragedy in your life, but I felt I was adrift on an ocean. Malcolm hardly mentioned their passing, and that’s when I realised that nothing was going to change unless I made some changes.

  ‘I was so hurt by the way he carried on as normal, without acknowledging how my life had changed. I had been so close to my dad especially, and I missed both of them all the time. Anyway,’ she paused briefly, while I waited anxiously to hear her story. ‘I decided to make some changes by going to a diet club, and started a yoga class. To me, yoga sounded posh and for rich people with lots of time on their hands; I was terrified that they’d look down on me and that I wouldn’t fit in. But I decided I had to test myself and get out of the comfort zone, so rather than watch the soaps two nights a week I signed up for yoga at the sports centre. That’s where I met my Guardian Angel.’

  ‘What? At a yoga class?’ I squealed.

  Angel laughed. ‘Well, you know at the end of the yoga class when you lie on the floor and they do a wee bit of relaxation?’

  ‘I’m not really into yoga, but I think I know what you mean.’

  ‘My yoga teacher had all sorts of symbols around the room. I didn’t really understand what they were, but every week she would talk about the energy in our bodies. At first it was lost on me. I couldn’t even pronounce half of the words she used and I didn’t like to ask anything. I was so self conscious and scared of saying or doing the wrong thing. Gradually I learned over a few weeks that yoga was about balancing our energy centres, called chakras. The teacher explained that was the word for wheel in Sanskrit, which is an ancient language used in India. We each have a wheel of energy at different parts of our bodies, even under our feet, at points along our spine, and above our heads.

  ‘Each of these chakras has a specific colour, symbol, and sound, and can be brought into balance and when they do we feel better. It was exactly what I needed to hear, the idea that I could be helped into balance. It sounded so good, and I really enjoyed our after-class relaxation time. Our teacher called it yoga nidra and said twenty minutes was equivalent to four hours of good sleep. Well, as you can imagine, I hadn’t been sleeping well. I was still grieving for Mum and Dad, and I knew that Malcolm and I were going nowhere –to be honest, we were heading in different directions.

  ‘He didn’t want to talk about anything and couldn’t seem to help me. I was drowning, adrift somewhere in my mind without a lifebelt. It was as if every day I sank lower and lower. I’m not one for going to the doctor’s for myself, and maybe that’s where I could have gone. Instead I was at a yoga class.

  ‘So.’ She sat a little straighter on the couch, and I found I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she spoke. ‘That particular week the teacher started to talk about angels. I kid you not, I was lying flat on my back with my eyes closed and she said that angels are all around us, and that if we gave them permission they would come close. I remember thinking, “Please, please, please, come to me!”’

  ‘Oh my gosh! What happened?’ I was enthralled by her story. It was impossible not to be.

  ‘As I said, I was lying there, on my yoga mat on the floor of the church hall, when I felt a light come into my head. That’s the only way to describe it. Like someone switched on the light. I got this strange feeling in my heart, like a sensation, a pulse, a strong feeling. I didn’t know what it was, but I started to cry. Tears poured from my eyes and I was so glad that we were all lying there in the semi darkness. It was a feeling of light so hard to describe, but I knew that something was there.

  ‘Then a voice in my head said, “I’m here for you.” I knew it was my Guardian Angel. I dried my eyes and got up and out of the hall as quickly as I could, and headed home. But guess who I bumped into right outside the hall?’

  ‘I don’t know… your angel?’ I whispered.

  She laughed again, and this time there were tears in her eyes when she spoke. ‘Your gran.’ She nodded at me. ‘She knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’ I was confused.

  ‘She knew I’d felt something. She asked if I wanted to talk, and said that someone wanted to talk to me. So I ended up at her kitchen table that night and we talked for hours about energies, and spirits, and angels. For the first time in ages I felt good, I mean really good about myself. I knew I could ask her anything and she wouldn’t judge me for not knowing. That was your gran’s gift. She accepted people as they were, and in that fun way of hers, she coaxed you along. Being scared of what people thought or said about me sounds so silly now I’m saying it to you, but it was the way I felt. It was like everyone else was in charge of my life. I was a supporting actor in my own life, running round trying to keep everyone else happy.

  ‘Then your gran asked if I wanted to meet my Guardian Angel. I did. I so wanted to find out what was there and feel that light in my head again, but I was really scared. I started to cry and she asked me why. She was so kind. I told her that I was really frightened. If angels were beings of light, what would they make of me? I felt such a failure in my life. I really couldn’t imagine an angel having time for me, never mind loving me in the way she said they did.

  ‘Your gran said that there was nothing we could do that would make our angels turn away from us. She said they loved us uncon
ditionally, just for being us. Do you know how much I wanted to believe that? But it seemed unlikely. And I supposed I had a bit of an epiphany. I realised that all the people I loved, I did it with conditions. I had one of those moments in life where everything was clear. I could see all the relationships I had, including with Malcolm, and how I was continually setting conditions. I felt I had to do stuff for people to love me. I had never thought that I could be loved no matter what I did or didn’t do.’

  She paused to push her hair away from her face, and gave a gentle sigh. ‘I don’t know if I’m explaining it well enough to you, but it was as if a veil fell from my eyes. Like I could properly see my life and all my choices as just that. Choices. And because of that I suddenly knew that I could make other choices.

  ‘Sitting at your gran’s kitchen table, I said I was ready and she brought in some healing to me. It was like I felt a fluttering at my heart, and she said she sensed layers and layers of barbed wire which I’d constructed to keep myself safe from pain. But in doing that I’d created a barrier between me and life and love. She asked if I wanted to let it go, and I whispered that I did. I was crying again but it was like good tears, like I was releasing something sad in my heart and in my stomach.

  ‘I had my eyes closed, and as she did that I started to see in my mind the image of a pair of large dark eyes. They were huge almond-shaped eyes, and I could see them looking at me with what I can say was pure love. Then the only way to describe it was I was aware of a sort of human-shaped creature appear around those eyes. I wasn’t scared or anything. I didn’t know if it was male or female; it was both and neither. I wasn’t aware of colour either, but it was large and as if it floated and was opaque, not fully formed.’

  Angel’s eyes were shining now as she described her experience, and I could feel a real longing inside me to know more.

  ‘It was a strange experience,’ she went on, ‘and I suppose part of me was thinking it was my imagination, but I focused on the expression in the eyes and it was beautiful. For the first time in my life I felt accepted, supported, admired, and I didn’t have to do a thing. I saw it all in those eyes.

  ‘Your gran whispered that this was my Guardian Angel and that she wanted to come closer to me so that I could feel her energy some more, that she was there to help me and always had been, my whole life. I must have nodded as I was aware of her, or it, coming closer in my mind but also in my senses. I felt arms coming around me – and this probably sounds crazy, or maybe you think it all does – it was as if there were feathers against my face. I could have sat there forever. I felt like I was surrounded by blessings of love.

  ‘So that was it for me. I knew she was an angel. And I knew I didn’t have to see her with my eyes, because she was an energy, so I felt her and saw her in a different way. She was an energy of love.’

  ‘That sounds incredible!’ I was almost lost for words. ‘And my gran helped you with that?’

  ‘Your gran did some amazing work.’ Angel nodded. ‘She worked with all types of energy, and she helped people feel better about their lives and their losses. She had an incredible way of supporting people practically as well as emotionally. This town has had her as an angel all these years. You’ve no idea.’ She laughed again. ‘She even found this place for me.’

  ‘How did that happen?’ I looked admiringly around the coffee shop. It was lovely, and now that I knew my gran had been involved I felt more peaceful.

  ‘Well, after I met my Guardian Angel in your gran’s kitchen, I went home and for the first time ever I looked at my life properly. I suppose you could say I re- evaluated my life. I started to talk to my angel throughout the day when I was in doubt, when I was worried, when I was stressed, or feeling lonely. And over the next few weeks my life started to change.

  ‘I knew that I had to talk to Malcolm, but I also knew he wouldn’t want to hear about my angel experience, so instead I asked if we could talk about us and our future. My angel told me not to blame him or me for our relationship, instead I was to trust that the right words would come to mind. And they did. We talked for hours about our lives, about what we wanted, and then about our relationship. I told him that I wanted things to change. I was able to say “living like this isn’t honouring me”, a word I had never used before but it felt so right.’

  Angel’s words hit me, and I suddenly realised that was how I had felt for so long. I wanted a life and a love which honoured me.

  She went on with her story. ‘Malcolm agreed that he hadn’t been happy either, but that he wanted to separate. I was so shocked because I really hadn’t thought it would have come to that, and I could feel the old fears flooding into my mind. But at that moment I had a sense of my Guardian Angel drawing near, and I felt Malcolm’s angel as well. It was as if there were two conversations going on – Malcolm and I talking, and our two Guardian Angels communicating with each other as well. It was sad but okay.

  ‘Malcolm moved out that night, and after a couple of months we sold the house. I knew I wanted to stay in the town, but I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. My Guardian Angel told me to speak to my boss at the hospital. I was really worried about doing that, but I realised I had to trust her guidance, so I arranged to speak to my boss, and guess what? She offered me a redundancy package, as she wanted to reorganise staff. She told me that she had been worried about who to let go, as it would probably have been one of the younger team who hadn’t been there as long as me. So I suppose my Guardian Angel helped that whole situation, and it all worked out beautifully for everyone.

  ‘I was nearly fifty and didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do, but again your gran came to help me. She arranged to meet me outside here when it was nothing but a partial ruin, and who came along the road at that very moment? Father Timothy, the priest for St Mary’s, and a few minutes behind him, Davie Gallagher, a local builder. Your gran started a conversation with both of them about how wonderful it would be for St Mary’s to have a coffee shop close by, and introduced me to the builder and Father Timothy, as the woman to set it up.

  ‘It was the perfect idea and the ideal project for me. I heard myself agree. So within a few weeks we had all the planning sorted out, I’d bought the building with my proceeds from the house, and the flat above was made habitable. And here I am.’ She looked proudly around the coffee. ‘I added on the conservatory to create some brightness for people to sit in, the pews were already here, and I wanted to let people know about angels. So I started stocking and selling them, and of course your gran knew that I loved to bake cakes.

  ‘Within a few months of meeting my Guardian Angel my life was completely transformed, and then I learned more from your gran about energy and healing. Now I like to share that knowledge with others, helping them to tune into their own wisdom by turning down the chatter in their heads. I run meditation classes and workshops on the Divine Feminine, all about honouring women and, in doing so, standing in our own power and enabling all around us to do so, too. I like the idea of a win-win society!’ And with that she laughed again.

  It was so inspiring to speak to someone who loved their work so much that I could feel it. I don’t think I’d ever felt that. Work was sometimes interesting but never a passion. When Angel had stopped talking, the older lady who had been chatting to her at the counter came over, reached out her hand, and introduced herself in a very, cultured deep voice. ‘Grizelle Hamilton-Brown. My dear, I am so sorry for your sadness, but that your grandmother is no longer on the earthly plane and instead can carry on her work in the higher realms, gives me great comfort..’

  ‘What?’ I almost choked on the last little crumb of cake I’d managed to eat while Angel was talking.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I stuttered. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but what did you say? Carrying on her work? What’s that supposed to mean?’

  I realised that my voice had risen and I could hear it bounce off the stone walls of the
now empty coffee shop. The flickering candle-effect lights added to my ‘out of this world’ confusion. I felt so terribly emotional, not like my usual self, and I could hear my pulse beating loudly in my ears. I was sure if I stood up my legs would give way. My face must have paled, and at once Grizelle put a gentle hand on my shoulder.

  ‘I don’t want to distress you, my dear.’ She looked briefly at Angel, and seemed to gain unspoken confirmation to carry on. ‘There was something your grandmother undertook, some promises she made, and some work she did and still has to do…’

  I could feel anger rising in me, outrage, panic, and the need to get away from this woman. It’s funny how only a few words can completely change everything. I looked anxiously around the room, but there was no-one to intervene, or break up this crazy conversation.

  ‘Please don’t be angry.’ Angel touched my hand gently. ‘This might all sound mad to you, but we really have to talk.’ I looked down at her hand where it touched mine, her nails neatly cut. ‘We worked with your gran, we loved her, we promised to look out for you and help you… to tell you what was happening.’

  There was something in her calm voice that reassured me. Deep down inside I knew they were not trying to scare me or anything like that. But I was scared. I had been ever since I’d heard the news of Granny’s death, and the strange experiences of the last twenty-four hours had added to my distress.

  There was a knot of fear somewhere inside me, and I didn’t know why. I stood up more abruptly than I realised when I saw a look of surprise pass over their faces. Maybe they were as scared as me.