by V.
I had a peaceful sleep, comforted by the knowledge that it was the last night I would spend away from Conrad.
Chapter 31
Angela
The minute I woke up the next morning, I sat up in bed and opened Angela’s letter.
Dear Sarah,
As I write this letter I can see you in my mind’s eye, eagerly waiting to understand why it is that I am writing to you.
It is quite simple, really. I dreamed of you. I have known for many years that you would arrive and would fall in love with my house and my grandson. I have known that you would bring joy and love to him and would join the twin houses in perfect harmony for generations to come.
I have dreamed of you reading to four little children, two boys and two girls, my great-grandchildren, the stories of their history, their heritage, the birth of our twin homes, and much more.
By now you already know that somehow I was born with the gift of communion with nature and with other beings. I did not understand this until I was in my teens. As you witnessed, I ran away from home at fourteen. I knew I had to leave home to search for clarity and spiritual calm.
I did not know exactly how that would come about, but I felt certain that it was the path I needed to follow.
I found out when White Cloud came into my life and taught me how to clear the visions in my mind. She was an elder of one of our local First Nation tribes and took me under her wing shortly after I left home.
Please do not misunderstand why I do not name her tribe. It is only to protect their privacy from the curiosity of those who will want to retrace the ancestors mentioned in your book about us.
Through White Cloud’s teachings, I came in contact with my gift and understood what came before me, what awaited me, and what the future asked of me.
Upon my return I no longer had any doubts about marrying Richard. My need for clarity had been fulfilled. Unfortunately my quest left behind excruciating grief for those I loved, a heavy burden to bear but one that was essential if I were to marry Richard and give him children. I could not share with my parents the images of incest that overpowered my mind. I couldn’t explain the reason for my departure. The images were uncertain and unclear, and if untrue, I did not wish to give them life by speaking of them out loud. So I left in search of the truth.
Even at a distance, I felt the tear in my parent’s hearts and grieved for the sorrow I had caused them. It was through this anguish that I found you.
Unbeknownst to you, many years ago when you first were teaching, you helped a little boy named Christian come out of his reverie and rejoin his family. Christian was White Cloud’s great-grandson.
I first saw you in a dream the day I met Christian. White Cloud had guided me through my grief, and the images of what you would bring back began to fill my heart with hope. Just as you had helped a little boy come out of his cocoon, you helped me by showing me how you uncovered the past and what the future held.
You would be pleased to know that Christian turned out to be a great man of honor and strength, successful in life, and well admired by his tribe.
My dreams showed me that with my help you would open up to your own gift and receive the stories left behind in my attic. So I knew you would come into our lives and bring with you the healing love to those I cared for, not only for Conrad and his family but also for my twin daughters and Sophia. My family will rejoice in the tales of our past and the clarity of our lineage.
That is why I never spoke of this with my children or grandchildren. You needed to be present to weave the tapestry of the past along with the fabric of the future.
By now you should have two frames left, and you know that one is reserved for your wedding photograph and the other is to capture the happiness of Deidre and her daughter, Sophia, once the truth is known. I have seen their photograph in my dreams, next to Casey’s with her son, Justin, along with the others you have placed on the dresser in my old room.
The wedding rings you have agreed to wear were a gift from our beloved friends Heather and James Lewis. They not only designed them and had them crafted just for us, but Heather’s jeweler delivered them in person to make sure they fit just right. It was hard for Richard and me to accept such precious gifts, but Heather and James wrote to us beseeching that we accept them as a token of their appreciation. They said that the individual pieces of gold represented the foliage of the Cascades we all loved so, and the fusion of each individual piece that resulted in the perfect wedding band signified the sanctuary of love. We wish you and Conrad to enjoy the love and bliss Richard and I experienced during our marriage, and we hope you will accept these rings as our wedding gift.
There are many more stories to be told in the photographs that remain and those that capture the future, but you will uncover them together with Conrad. I have not dreamed of them; I just know they will evolve as time goes by.
In closing, I would like to thank you for welcoming your unique abilities, for opening yourself to me and the history of the twin houses, for allowing the spirit of love to catch your heart, and for the joy you will bring to all whom I care for.
With loving thoughts and peaceful dreams,
Angela.
I held her letter close to my heart and wept for a long time. I wept for Angela and her resolve to seek the truth of her heritage in spite of the pain she caused her parents. I wept for her courage to rebuild the past and confront the future, for her fortitude, sensitivity, and conviction, and for the gift that had brought me here.
I also wept for me. In an uncomplicated, candid letter, Angela had restored my honor. My splintered personality had been reunited. I no longer denied and feared the gift that resided within me. Now, I enjoyed its presence and realized it had been with me all along. Even though I tried to bury it and keep it under wraps, it had cohabited with me. Angela’s letter helped me see that.
I’d left a lifelong career in teaching with deep regrets because of my inability to create what I thought to be meaningful change. In my attempts to modernize the establishment, I’d forgotten the most important focal point, the teaching itself, and the joy experienced in the give-and-take between teacher and student.
Angela’s letter brought back the memories of little Christian, his sudden deafness as a result of a head injury sustained by a freak fall down a set of stairs, the concern of his parents, their love for their child, and their need for hope. My encounter with Christian had been early in my teaching career, and I remembered how his parents helped me understand their traditions, their spirituality, and their fears that their little boy might be irreparably broken. Yet, they never gave up hope, and I didn’t either. Unaware of it, I had used my so-called gift all of my life as I helped my students. I had accepted it as part of my devotion to teaching and hadn’t connected it to those frightening supernatural images of my youth.
Clearly, I had used it time and again. I remembered noticing, deep inside Christian’s eyes, the sparkle of recognition after I had stepped out of the middle of the road and the traditional teaching methods and allowed my intuition to reach him. I had trusted my inner thoughts and persisted in my beliefs on how to reach him. Regardless of what the establishment dictated, I’d used my gift, even though at the time I had no conscious knowledge of doing so. I remembered the joy we all felt when, as Angela described, Christian came out of his reverie at the sound of the tones of a cowbell.
The images of those moments rushed into my mind. Christian had gone into shock when he became aware that he’d lost his hearing, and for some unknown reason, he had automatically shut his eyes as well. Although nothing was physically wrong with his eyes, he acted as if he were totally blind and deaf. As Angela described, he lived in a cocoon, a shelter of his own creation.
I’d sensed that the key to awaken his eyes was in reaching a part of him that gave him a sense of security, of confidence. In my attempts to elicit a reaction from him, I tried all kinds of ways to engage his sight but to no avail. I gathered items and musical instrume
nts from his home and his tribe, hoping to reach a part of him that would awaken his self-reliance and free up his eyes. One morning, as we sat on the carpet in the activity room while I taught him tactile sign language, I grabbed the cowbell.
His parents had told me he’d enjoyed working, the summer before his tumble, on his uncle’s farm in Washington State, so I’d gathered a series of items found on a farm, among them a cowbell. The minute I rang it, he lifted his head, and I knew I’d found the key that would open his cocoon.
I rang it again, and he turned toward me, not seeing me, still blind, but somehow hearing the cowbell. Interesting, that with nothing medically wrong whatsoever with his eyes, he couldn’t see, yet although legally deaf, I had reached him through his ears. In the depths of his deafness, he found his soul.
I remember his process of recovery as I rang the cowbell again, and he reached for it. I pulled away from him, rang the cowbell once more, and he groped in my direction. I stood up and moved a few feet away from him and rang the cowbell. Again he reached for it, only this time, he actually moved toward it without relying on my touch to guide him. By the end of that morning, he’d walked on his own all around the room—me ringing the cowbell and him following it.
Eventually Christian’s eyes regained their natural ability. Given that he could hear the tones emitted by the cowbell, they fit him with a hearing aid that helped him capture sound by adjusting it to that frequency. Not complete and perfect hearing but hearing nonetheless.
Christian’s story, one among many others I had forgotten, were now playing in my mind, a series of snapshots reminding me of what I’d been a part of. Creating change in the teaching establishment had nothing to do with the success or failure of my career. Changing the lives of my students and offering them a hopeful future had been at the forefront, even if I had not recognized the inner vibrations that had made it all possible.
As I sat on the bed that once had belonged to Angela, my guardian angel, I thanked her for all that she’d given me, for the houses, for Conrad, for sharing her gift with me, and, most important, for dreaming about me.
Alyana arrived to help me dress by the time I finished drying my hair. Immediately, she sensed that I’d been crying but said nothing.
“My eyes too puffy still?”
“No, they’re OK. Don’t worry.”
I handed her Angela’s letter. “Please read it; it’s from Angela. Once you’re done, I’d appreciate it if you could take it to Conrad and Tom so they can read it. Angela should be present in our hearts today.”
She read the letter and, as expected, lost control of her own tears.
“Now you’ll have puffy eyes too.” I chuckled.
“Well, didn’t expect not to today, but thought I could wait until the ceremony.”
“Before you go, let me share with you the other effect this letter had on me.
I told her all about Christian, about my shattered personality that had emerged as whole, about my career, and about my newfound appreciation for the teacher I had been.
“May I tell Papa and Tom about it as well?”
“Sure. Conrad knows much of it already.”
“I’ll come back as soon as I can to help you with your dress and hair.” “Don’t rush. I can handle it.”
We hugged and kissed, overflowing with the joy.
After she left, I fixed my hair and put on a bit of makeup. Conrad liked my hair loose, so I curled it and pinned it behind my ears with some lovely hairpins adorned with little faux pearls and white diamonds. I finished dressing in no time, everything coming together perfectly.
My dress looked beautiful. Alyana and I had gone shopping in Seattle and found the perfect dress off the rack. Not what you would call a wedding dress, since it looked more like an elegant two-piece cocktail dress, with the skirt tailored to highlight my figure but loose enough to be subtle. It came down to my ankles, made of white silk with a faint floral print that looked like roses sprinkled here and there. The blouse was made of the same material, with a V neck, and came down below my hips, accentuating my bosom and waist. Both the skirt and the blouse were adorned with exquisite crochet lace in white with creamy, soft blue and gray flowers embroidered throughout and with a few faux pearls and diamonds scattered about. I felt radiant, brimming with confidence and joy.
I went downstairs to take one last look at the house before all the guests arrived, when I would have to hide upstairs until the ceremony started. The house looked spectacular, dressed as a bride with white bows and garlands adorning the stairs and the fireplace, beautiful flower arrangements scattered throughout, and the Christmas tree a sparkling centerpiece. Conrad and I decided that the ceremony should take place before our Christmas tree, and seeing the chairs lined up facing the tree, their bows and white flowers adorning each one, tugged at my heart. I could feel the tears ready to burst.
Luckily, Alyana stopped my tears by running into the house at that very moment.
“Sarah! What are you doing here? C’mon! They’re right behind me!” And she whisked me up the stairs.
We ran to my room, both out of breath and laughing like a pair of schoolgirls.
“We must’ve looked so funny coming up the stairs like scared rabbits.” she said.
“Your effusive entrance helped me not shed more tears. You and Tom did a marvelous job decorating the house. She looks radiant.”
“Thanks. We had fun. It’s been a treat to put it all together, and Sophia and Deidre have been a great help.” Having caught her breath, she twirled me around to assess if she needed to do more to get me ready.
“You look beautiful, the perfect bride. You’ve left me with nothing to do.”
“Thanks. Tell me about Angela’s letter and their reaction.”
“Papa put the letter in his breast pocket, close to his heart, to keep it nearby as you asked. In fact, he did that before I told him you thought Grandma
Angela should be with us today. As you can well imagine, they both cried even more when I told them about Christian and your coming to terms with your gift and your career.”
“I’m glad we are all sharing these moments.”
“Tom was pretty taken that his grandma had seen his twins well and alive. He’s been really worried about the birth of the twins, their health, and mine.”
“I didn’t know that. He hides it well. How about you, are you worried?”
“No, not at all. I know we’ll all be fine, but this is one of those times when Tom doesn’t trust my intuition and just worries. The neat thing that happened is that when Tom said how relieved he was, Papa remembered the old double wooden crib you’d seen in the attic. They rushed up there and brought it down. It’s lovely. Papa thinks it may have been made in the latter part of the nineteenth century, maybe for Annie’s twins. We’re going to clean it up, restore it a bit, and have it in our bedroom for our twins.”
“I’m glad.”
“Enough of that now. You need to get ready and go over your vows. Papa’s been memorizing them, and he’s gotten pretty good. I’ll go downstairs to welcome the guests and all that, and then Tom will come up when we’re ready and escort you down.”
I did as told, quietly pacing up and down my room whispering my vows.
Before I knew it, Tom arrived. “You look beautiful. Papa will be blown away.”
I know I blushed, because he laughed.
“Ready?” He offered me his arm.
“Ready. Thanks for the compliment,” I managed to say as we left the bedroom.
We made our way down the stairs, and I heard music.. .guitar music. I hadn’t even considered music as we prepared for the wedding. How thoughtful of Alyana and Tom. Then I recognized Tom’s voice.. .and Conrad’s.
I turned to look at Tom, and he smiled and nodded.
“Yep. Papa wrote the lyrics and music, and we played it together. It’s recorded. Surprised?”
“Boy, am I! Hope I can control the tears until I reach Conrad.”
“Concen
trate on the lyrics and the melody. That might help,” Tom advised as he placed his free hand on top of my hand resting on his arm.
I liked the sense of reassurance his hand offered. I took a deep breath and focused on the lyrics and the melody of the two guitars.
Conrad had written the music to best express the sentiment of each phrase with the guitars in perfect harmony, yet each instrument contributed its own character, its own comment on the music as the melody developed. With each step we took, we were accompanied by a lyrical moment, the strings of each guitar emanating independent yet simultaneous resonance, adding their individual expression to the imagery of the lyrics.
I was transported into the music, its rhythm providing a soft embrace, a cushion welcoming each step, a wave of bliss.
Come and join me by the sea,
And we’ll build castles in the sand.
Or just come and talk to me,
And the world is in our hands.
I don’t want to be alone,
And I like to feel you need me.
If you help me sing my song,
I will have your voice to lead me.
If my hand you want to hold,
All you have to do is take it.
Although winters may be cold,
If we’re together, we can make it.
If I ever see you cry,
I won’t turn the other way,
’Cause there’s more to love than sighs,
And there’s more to life than days.
We can do it all together,
You and I.
We can watch the sunset glowing,
You and I.
We can always have each other,
We can share the joy of growing,
We can do it all together,
You and I.
By the time we reached the bottom of the stairs, you couldn’t find a dry eye in the house.