I'VE FINALLY FOUND SOME TIME TO RESEARCH AN EVENT IN MY LIFE, I'VE NEVER UNDERSTOOD BEFORE, AND NEVER KNEW HOW TO APPROACH PROPERLY
THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS! IT'S GETTING TO KNOW THEM, AND WHY THEY VISIT
Suzanne, my dear bride, must be thinking I am closing in on my final days as a writer. Maybe because of the way I get exhausted, after writing three paragraphs, and then needing a coffee break, she probably assumed I must be winding-down my writing commitment. It would explain why she asked, how I saw semi-retirement in my wildest fantasy, as someone who has vowed to turn fiction writer for the last kick at the old cat. I offer an apology to the cat, and I would never kick one. Hope you know that!
I said to her, with the conviction of a career writer, sputtering to a much smaller output, that "First, I want to start smoking a pipe, (doesn't have to be filled with tobacco to be effective as a writer's prop), and I want to have a desk in front of the window, like my favorite author, Washington Irving had at his home, at Sunnyside (New York), a big old chair, that creaks along with my old bones, and I want to write about The Bog, our own "Sleepy Hollow," as Irving did, hunkered-down in his haunted area of the Hudson River watershed, in New York. I'd be looking to see the headless horsemen come flying through The Hollow on moonlit autumn nights. Well, I sort of said this, but over many different conversations, of course, to get it all out. My first challenge, as a winding-down writer? I've got some trouble with an angel to get past, to clear the way so to speak. Hopefully, here's where I start getting some answers. Munching down on the mouthpiece of my new pipe, pretending to have something in the bowl that will offer up a classic literary wisp of smoke, to make it look like official authordom. I shall sit here in all my self importance, muttering to myself like a retired profession, still conducting lessons, and I will look out over this small dominion we call Birch Hollow, and feel as if, at any time, a story will pop into my head that will be the future ink of a best seller. Or maybe, as Suzanne has seen of my retiring ways in the past, I will just roll my head to the side, close my eyes, and soon be snoring over this same dominion, as if the very character of Rip Van Winkle himself. I'm sure she would wake me, if she happened to hear the clatter and thump of hooves, should the headless horseman and his mount come thundering over the front lawn. My mother was right, when she told my public school teacher, who had claimed I spent too much time staring out the classroom window, that her son was "a dreamer, lost in his own fictions." I didn't know what that meant frankly, until now!
It's time I did this research. No more avoidance. No dodging what I should have done twenty years ago. I've been putting it off for years, and have, this moment, no good reason for putting it off any longer. I kind of think God, or the Angel-kind, didn't figure I had matured enough, in fifty-four years, to handle the truth. I guess it all changed in the past month, during some family conversations about death, the afterlife, and what the heck to do with my ashes when I'm gone. They don't think it's appropriate, as per my suggestion, to throw them in the faces of my enemies. The net result of this action, would be to spend time in the gulag just for honoring my final request. So we have been chatting about the whole after-life scenario. As we, as a family, do believe in life after death, and the ability to communicate with those who have "crossed over," it would seem, in the print context, we must all believe in God. We do believe in a higher power, but it's not the case any of us attend church regularly. Even after my visit with an angel, it didn't push me into the pews the very next Sunday. It did however, impress upon me that there's something wonderful out there, I would like to experience again. In fact, it may have been the case, according to some material I've read, that it was a little taste of heaven for a mere mortal, and it was part of the enlightenment process foisted upon me, without my consent. I'm just not complaining, because it was the most beautiful, peaceful, rejuvenating experience I've ever had; no fooling!
I don't really understand why this research has seemed so precarious! Such that I would avoid it for so many years. It's not like I haven't been enormously interested in the subject and, if you've been visiting this site for some time, you've probably already read my accounts of a childhood angel-encounter. I've taken some time away from many other projects begging my attention, but are all slightly less pressing now, than spending some quality time delving into an event in my life, I don't quite understand; when I was sick, losing weight daily, and vomiting every time I coughed. For weeks it carried on, beating me half to death. Back to a time, when honestly, to end the sickness, I might well have chosen to die, rather than spend another day feeling I was going to cough-out my lungs and stomach. It was at the pinnacle of this resident misery, and nearing the time when my parents finally prepared to haul me off to the hospital (where I should have been from the beginning), for whatever doctors could do, to bring me back from the brink of what I remember as a lingering horror twenty four hours a day. I could only sleep for an hour at a time, before waking-up with a bone jarring coughing jag, that always made me sick as an end result. I was probably six at the time, but I can't be sure of this now. My parents are deceased now, so no one else would know exactly, when this horrible affliction invaded my young, otherwise healthy body. But like a demon it did.
In order to work my way through this rather strange but enlightening period of my life, which has lasted in perpetuity, flickering like an old film on a wonky projector, in memory, as clearly today, as if it had just happened, I have re-run one of the blogs I wrote a year or so ago, on the subject of angel-meetings. I suppose, as a self-serving mission, that hopefully, would spark interest where it has always been an assignment best suited for another day! I feel compelled, you see, to devote more time to understand what had happened that night, at our Burlington, Ontario apartment. I have, you see, been climbing the steps of this story, slowly, and increasing the frequency between research jags. Sort of like the way we immerse ourselves in the lake, that seems so cold those first few steps, making us want to turn around and run back to shore. This is how I have felt for most of my life, when the matter comes to mind, which it does dozens of times each month for a variety of reasons.
Suzanne, my long suffering research assistant, works with me whenever I ask for her help, (what a king soul she is) and this she tells me, has been increasing in frequency over the past year. This would make sense, because I am thinking more these days, about death, because I've lost quite a few of my old newspaper and hockey mates in the past couple of years, and seeing as I lived just as wild as they did, back then, well, it seems reasonable Mr. Reaper has sharpened his scythe to take me down as well. Thinking about life after death is stepped-up for me, as a direct result of my angel-dream, and the fact, I believe with all my heart, and of course the essence of my soul, that my Guardian Angel, that night, had a message for me. It was unspoken, and really unknown to me, until recently, when death has presented itself much closer, than I consider a comfortable distance. In many in-studio chats I've had with son Robert recently, whenever he's on hiatus, I'm sure he knows I'm trying to convince him, as much as he might scoff otherwise, to stay tuned to signs from beyond, that he may well be ignoring. I worry of course, about both of the lads, not believing my angel story. This is something important to me, and may be the major reason I need to find my angel, pretty soon, in order to prove its existence beyond doubt. I'm betting she doesn't do personal visits to suit my agenda. I haven't factored-in the degree of difficulty doing this, so you'll have to be patient. Well, truth be known, I'm trying to convince everyone I know, that they must keep an open mind about such things as life after death, and considering I'm not a writer who has a lot to do with fiction, far be it from me to spin a web to catch any uncommitted souls, so I can preach, and save them from a terrible fate in the afterlife. I'm not a zealot when it comes to stuff like this. Really. But from what Suzanne and I have researched thus far, it's pretty much the case, I'm part of a very large group that has had parallel experiences, and by description, almost the same with minor differences. I saw a drawing online last evening, that stopped my breathing momentarily; it was so close to what I had witnessed, at a time in my life, when I had very little knowledge of what an angel was, or what religion our family practiced, if and when Merle and Ed had ever decided to attend church. Which they didn't while I was at home.
Whenever I think about my angel-dream, I feel the same sensations as experienced during the encounter. I feel a powerful essence of what I can only describe as nirvana, and hear the chorale music, as if sung by angels, and smell the perfumed atmosphere, that I am told, most witnesses describe as unearthly. I would concur. I feel this way now, writing about this guardian angel, who possibly was in attendance, in my dream, to let me know that it wasn't yet my time to pass from this mortal coil. I get goose-bumps just thinking about what the experience looked and felt like, at a time, when the only angel I had ever known, was the ornament that went on the Christmas tree.
In earnest, I am taking the time now, to learn more about the angel-kind, as might have visited a sick little fellow in and around the age of six, who, for long and long, has believed in the afterlife, but never known why exactly. What you would expect from someone who has only ever sat through six church services in his life; three funerals, two weddings, and for a girlfriend's confirmation.
I am not writing this on behalf of any religion, or from any desire to convert any reader to become angel-believers, or join a particular church congregation. As I have been writing about ghosts and the paranormal generally, for the past thirty years, in an array of books with national circulation, I'm no stranger to this kind of research or story-line. My visit with an angel bothers me, profoundly so, because unlike some of the paranormal experiences I've had, I feel a message has been lost on me, and gosh that really upsets my sense of lifelong balance. I hope you will find this story a little bit enlightening yourself, even if you think me a bit of a fool (or a lot of one) for going public about something so intimate, and to the non-believers out there, wildly crazy-thinking!
I read a book on "Angels" a few months ago, looking for answers to a rather intimate situation I had as a child, and found a paragraph amongst many I didn't understand, which explained how mortals, having experienced an "angel encounter," are never the same again. Apparently, being exposed to the angel-kind, gives witnesses a heightened enlightenment, and it becomes the mandate of such individuals, to thereafter spread the message. It wasn't very helpful in this regard, but I'm presuming enlightenment in this case, means to spread the word of God. I didn't feel that way for the past fifty-three years, except the "enlightenment" part of the meeting with either my Guardian Angel, or Angel of Mercy. I haven't felt any urge to preach, or to convert anyone of my family or friends to a particular religion as a result, of well, my "angel dream."
If you have any angel encounters to share yourself, I'd be glad to know about them. Feel free to drop me a note.
THE ANGEL, THE KITCHEN, RAMBLE CREEK, AND HARRIS CRESCENT
BURLINGTON AND GRAVENHURST - I LOVE THEM BOTH
I CERTAINLY NEVER FELT COMFORTABLE, SITTING DOWN WITH MY HOCKEY BUDDIES AND TELLING THEM ABOUT THE "ANGEL DREAM," I HAD AS A KID. IF I HAD BROKEN OUT THIS LITTLE GEM OF PERSONAL HISTORY, IN FRONT OF SOME OF MY NEWSPAPER COLLEAGUES, IN THE PUB AFTER WORK, THEY'D HAVE MADE ME FEEL AWFULLY SILLY. IT WASN'T UNTIL A FEW YEARS AGO, THAT I EVEN FELT COMFORTABLE TELLING MY WIFE, SUZANNE, THAT I ONCE HAD A RELIGIOUSLY SIGNIFICANT DREAM. ALL SHE SAID TO ME WAS, "ONLY ONE!" AS IF ONE ANGEL DREAM ISN'T ENOUGH. OR THAT I SHOULD HAVE HAD MANY, MANY FOLLOW-UP VISITATIONS FROM A VARIETY OF RELIGIOUS FIGURES. I KNEW SHE WAS HAVING FUN WITH ME, BUT IT'S ONE OF THOSE SITUATIONS, THAT NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU TRY TO EXPLAIN IT, AND REMOVE THE MYSTERY, THERE'S SIMPLY NO DENYING IT AFFECTED MY YOUNG LIFE. HOW MANY OF YOU, READING THIS NOW, HAVE HAD A DREAM IN YOUR MIND FOR MORE THAN FIVE OR TEN YEARS? WHAT ABOUT TWENTY-FIVE? FORTY? WELL, MINE HAS BEEN AS CLEAR AND POIGNANT FOR HALF A CENTURY. THAT'S WHAT I CALL RETENTION. SEEING AS I CAN'T REMEMBER THE DREAM I HAD FROM LAST NIGHT, BUT I WOKE UP THIS MORNING WITH IT FRESH ON MY MIND. BY THE TIME I'D WASHED MY FACE, IT WAS GONE. THE ANGEL IN MY DREAM, IN AND AROUND MY SEVENTH YEAR OF LIFE, IS STILL WHERE SHE WAS BEFORE, HOVERING THERE, IN THE CORNER OF A ROOM, WITH ENORMOUS WINGS, A SHADE OF WHITE I HAD NEVER BEFORE, OR AFTER, EXPERIENCED IN COGNIZANT EXISTENCE. THE SCENT IN THIS ANGEL'S PRESENCE, WAS LIKE NOTHING ON EARTH. SHE WAS SPEAKING TO ME, WITHOUT ANY MOVEMENT OF HER MOUTH, AND I WAS GETTING THE MESSAGE. IT WASN'T MY TIME.
"ANYONE WHO EXPERIENCES THE ANGEL PRESENCE IS CHANGED BY IT AND BECOMES, IN A VERY REAL SENSE, PART OF IT." THIS IS NOTED IN THE 2004 BOOK, "AN EXTRAORDINARY GATHERING OF ANGELS," BY MARGARET BARKER. "ANGEL' MEANS MESSENGER, AND HUMANS EXPERIENCE ANGELS PRIMARILY AS MESSENGERS. BUT THIS IS NOT WHAT THEY 'ARE,' THIS IS WHAT THEY DO."
IN THE CHAPTER, HEADED "PERCEIVING ANGLES," THE AUTHOR WRITES, "ANGELS CAN BE PERCEIVED BY ANY OF THE HUMAN SENSES, BUT ONLY WHEN THEY ENTER OUR STATE OF TIME AND MATTER, ARE THEY PERCEIVED AS DISTINCT BEINGS. A RECENT SURVEY SHOWED THAT MOST PEOPLE WHO EXPERIENCED AN ANGEL HAD NOT SEEN ANYTHING, BUT THERE ARE PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES IN CONVEYING A SENSE OF PERFUME OR ETHEREAL SOUND, A WARM UNFOLDING PRESENCE, A PARTICULAR TASTE SENSATION, OR A MOMENT OF SPIRITUAL OR INTELLECTUAL ILLUMINATION." SHE ALSO NOTES THAT, "THE PERFUME OF ANGELS IS DESCRIBED IN VARIOUS WAYS; THE SCENT OF FLOWERS, PERHAPS, OF SWEET MYRRH." BUT IT IS THE ASSERTION, BY THE AUTHOR THAT, "THERE CAN BE NO OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF ANGELS, NO GLIMPSE OF THE STATE BEYOND THE VEIL THAT IS JUST INTELLECTUAL ENQUIRY. KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANGELS, BOTH KNOWING ANGELS AND KNOWING WHAT THEY KNOW, IS KNOWLEDGE OF A DIFFERENT ORDER. IT IS BEYOND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, AND ONCE RECEIVED, SUPERSEDES ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. IT CANNOT BE UNLEARNED; THERE IS NO GOING BACK." EXPLAINS RATHER BLUNTLY HOW LONG AN ANGEL DREAM CAN LAST.
SOME TIME AFTER I HAD THIS INCREDIBLY CLEAR, INTER-ACTIVE DREAM, WHILE LIVING AT THE NAGY APARTMENTS, IN BURLINGTON, I ASKED MY MOTHER IF I COULD GO TO CHURCH. SHE WAS ABSOLUTELY STUNNED WHEN I ASKED THIS QUESTION. "WHY DO YOU WANT TO GO TO CHURCH TEDDY," SHE ASKED, AS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE FURTHEST THING FROM HER MIND, AT THAT POINT. I DIDN'T HAVE AN ANSWER AS TO WHY, AND I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO ADD FIFTY YEARS LATER. THE ONLY THING SHE ASKED, WAS THAT I GO TO THE BURLINGTON UNITED CHURCH, AS IT WAS APPROPRIATE WITH HER OWN RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND. AS A KID, GROWING UP IN A RELIGIOUS HOUSEHOLD, IN TORONTO, SHE USED TO GO TO CHURCH AT LEAST TWICE ON SUNDAYS, EVERY SINGLE WEEK. LATER IN LIFE, AND ONCE MARRIED, MY PARENTS DIDN'T GO TO CHURCH. MY MOTHER CONFESSED TO ME, ON OCCASION, THAT SHE THOUGHT I SHOULD GO TO CHURCH, BUT IT NEVER HAPPENED. UNTIL THE DAY I THOUGHT I SHOULD GIVE IT A TRY. MERLE FOUND OUT ABOUT SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASSES, AND I WAS INVITED TO ATTEND. I LASTED FOUR SUNDAYS. IT WASN'T FOR ME. BUT IT DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH FAITH, AS I HAVE LONG BELIEVED IN GOD, AND THAT THERE IS AN AFTERLIFE. I HAVE TO ADMIT THIS NOW, THAT BEING IN CHURCH DIDN'T MAKE ME FEEL CLOSER TO GOD, OR MY GUARDIAN ANGEL. RECALLING MY DREAM, WHENEVER I HAVE FELT BLUE OR UNINSPIRED, HAS ALWAYS MADE ME FEEL A LOT CLOSER TO HEAVEN. IT HAS FOR ME, BEEN A FEELING OF SECURITY, AT TIMES OF WEAKNESS, AND A WARM SENSATION IN THE SOUL, WHEN I'VE BEEN ILL AND WONDERING IF MY TIME WAS COMING. THE ANGEL SPOKE TO ME, DURING MY CHURCH DAYS, AND MADE ME FEEL THAT FAITH WAS PERSONAL, AND THAT BELIEVING, IN MY CASE, WASN'T GOING TO BE ENHANCED AT ALL, BY GOING TO CHURCH TWICE ON SUNDAYS, OR JUST ONCE IN A BLUE MOON.
FOR THOSE READERS WHO AREN'T AWARE OF MY ANGEL ENCOUNTER, IT OCCURRED DURING A WICKED ILLNESS I HAD, BEFORE I GOT THE IDEA TO GO TO CHURCH; WHEN DOCTORS DEBATED WHETHER I HAD WHOOPING COUGH OR JUST A SERIOUS CHEST INFECTION. EVERY TIME I COUGHED, I WAS SICK TO MY STOMACH. I SAT UP IN A CHAIR FOR ABOUT A WEEK, AND HAD FEVERS ON AND OFF. EVERYTHING I TRIED TO EAT WOULDN'T STAY DOWN, SO I HAD LOST A LOT OF WEIGHT IN A SHORT PERIOD. I KNOW THE WAY MERLE AND ED WERE TALKING, THAT I WAS ON THE BRINK OF GOING TO THE HOSPITAL, BECAUSE I COULDN'T EVEN KEEP FLUIDS DOWN. IT WAS DURING A BAD BOUT OF FEVER, AND A FITFUL SLEEP, BETWEEN COUGHING JAGS, THAT I EXPERIENCED THIS ANGEL DREAM. I REALLY DIDN'T KNOW WHAT AN ANGEL WAS, EXCEPT WHAT WE HAD ON OUR CHRISTMAS TREE, AND AS I HAD NEVER BEEN TO CHURCH IN MY YOUNG LIFE, THE ONLY OTHER ANGEL I MIGHT HAVE SEEN, WOULD HAVE BEEN IN A MOVIE, POTENTIALLY. I DON'T KNOW IF I HAD, TO THAT POINT, EVER BEEN EXPOSED TO A VISUAL DEFINITION OF WHAT AN ANGEL LOOKED LIKE, BEFORE THIS DREAM GAVE ME ALL THE INFORMATION I REQUIRED. IF I WAS AN ARTIST, I COULD DRAW HER EXACTLY. EVEN TODAY. THE ODDEST PART OF COURSE, WAS THAT THE ANGEL APPEARED IN A CORNER OF THE APARTMENT LAUNDRY ROOM OF ALL PLACES. IN THE DREAM, I OPEN THE DOOR TO THE BIG OPEN ROOM, WALK DOWN THE FEW STAIRS ONTO THE CONCRETE FLOOR, AND TURN TO MY LEFT, AS SOMETHING HAD CAUGHT MY ATTENTION.
Hovering in the corner, with large white wings, and a whiteness that was brilliantly bright,……an illumination, that should have been blinding but it wasn't. Even as a kid, without any real knowledge of what was earthly and what wasn't, the angel in front of me, was definitely not earthly. The knowledge transmitted, as I stood there, made it clear, this was beyond anything I could decipher as a mere mortal. This is exactly how I felt. Mortal. The angel was compelling me to pay attention, but in a loving, dominating way. I remember not being able to move at all. But it wasn't the case I wanted to leave. I wasn't scared, but I was enormously curious. I didn't even know what death was, and how a mortal becomes immortal. There was a sweet aroma, that I have never smelled again. There was a slight chill, but I wasn't cold. I felt as if I was floating, as she was, and there was no way of exiting this situation. There was a sound but it was as if something was "whirring," but in a deep, subtle vibration, and once I laid my eyes on the specter, it was as if my head was in a vice, and I could not look away. As I've noted before, she was telling me something, but there was no movement of her lips, yet the words were being received. I felt at great ease, and physically, it had been more than a week since I could sleep for more than an hour, without a fit of coughing, and wrenching into a container at the side of my chair. I felt at peace. Calm. There was no trepidation being in her presence. There was, however, a keen awareness at the time, this was an unusual circumstance from what I had come to know of life, thus far. I understood what was happening, and that the angel was letting me know I had many more years of life to enjoy. This sickness would pass. The look on her face was so peaceful and calming, that I would have chased death, to take hold of her wing, and fly away to heaven's gate. This was not my destiny. When I woke up, Merle was sitting beside me, half asleep, with a cloth in her hand, she had been using wet, to cool my temperature. She startled awake when I opened my eyes, and she immediately stood up and checked my temperature. She yelled to my father, slumbering in another chair, that the fever had broken. I didn't know what this meant exactly, but I felt much better. I never confessed the alleged meeting with my guardian angel. It wasn't important that she knew about this, because nothing was going to shake the belief I had, something wonderful had just occurred. I did get well, and in only a few days, I was back to Lakeshore Public School, and playing baseball again with Ray Green and the lads. Is it possible, this was a genuine meeting with the angel-kind? What are the odds? What has it meant for this writer, over a lifetime? Was I the benefactor of enlightenment, at this age? Have I been enlightened ever since? My mother told neighbor friends, one day when I was in the lower hall, eavesdropping, that "I was praying to God that Teddy would pull through." Geez, maybe I was in trouble that night. As far as enlightenment, well, that's for you to decide, based on what I've written. I feel enlightened, but that doesn't mean I am thusly endowed.
For years now, I have been drawn to books about angels, china figures, carved wooden angels, pictures and paintings of angels, and just about anything else that reminds me of the strange meeting I had with a dream angel. The only book I have at my desk-side today, is the one I quoted from earlier, by Margaret Barker, because it contains the most information, of all the source books I've consulted, most relevant to my own experience. There are a few reprints of famous paintings, depicting an angel or cluster of God's messengers, that remind me, even in a small way, of the characteristics, and features, I witnessed during that dreamland encounter. I can start re-living the dream from just the slightest provocation or inspiration, of feeling, smelling, touching or seeing something that reminds me of the conditions of that meeting. It has, I suppose, been one of the things that has routinely kept this dream alive, for me, over this half century, when by all the precedents, it should have dissipated years ago. These points of light, jig me back, almost as an imposition of condition, that I not forget, that by the grace of God, I am still very much alive.
You will understand then, how difficult it has been to admit the context, of what might only ever have been, a delusion brought on by fever. There are certain contemporaries who would think me quite a "nutter," if I was to admit such a belief in something that was, by my own admission, most likely, just a vivid dream. I don't think my revelation would hold up to scrutiny, by others, even if you now, were to consider aggressive dreams you've had, when terribly ill…..but never had a problem discerning a dream from the qualities and quantities of real life experience. If an angel was to come to you, while wide awake, and it was witnessed by several others, and you got a feather as evidence, that would be slightly more compelling, than me telling you, I had a visitation from a dream-angel. The only qualifier here, is that I did survive, as she told me I would; I did go to church to find out about angles, and their relationship to God, and I have never, in 50 years, been able to forget the dream to its finest sensory detail. It was an ethereal, beautiful experience, of peace and tranquility, and a feeling I hope to experience again. If this is what death represents, then we fear unnecessarily, what the after-life represents.
I have often pondered, whether my great fondness for Burlington, and the Nagy Apartments, had something to do with this experience. Was it the reason that I paid much more attention to my surroundings, and feel today, as if part of my spirit remains there today, liberated, to carry on the play of once…..the adventures that didn't have an end……the times with friends who were blood buddies, to eternity? I can retrace my steps, sitting nearly two hundred miles to the north, and feel the sensations of the Nagy's cool grass on my bare feet, smell the cherries from the old tree, the gas that Alec poured into the tank of his lawn mower, the blossoms on Mrs. White's fruit trees, and the glorious…..heavenly smells coming from Ann Nagy's kitchen, where her bread was cooling on a rack, and her famous apple pies, were just finishing-up in the oven. It is a sensory bombardment, if I wish, and over the past week, it has been so much fun, re-living those good old days, when my family and I resided at 2138 Harris Crescent.
Ann Nagy had a masterful way of peeling an apple. She liked to be able to make one cut into the apple, and provide one long, spiraling peel at the end. It was like a challenge for her. My victory, was that I got to eat the peels, and the longer the better. I got to sample everything she cooked. Her culinary talent was beyond what one might call exceptional. Her food was the kind that satisfied every hunger pang you had. It was food for a lumberjack. It was hardy and nutritious, and for years and years I used to say to Merle….who was a mediocre cook at best….."this isn't as good as what Nagy made me." There was no way on earth, Merle or even Ed, who became a good cook in later years, could hold a candle to the master cook, Ann Nagy. Did I mention her cabbage rolls? I would have cut off my arm, for her cabbage rolls. Her hot buttered bread, was sinful. When Alec and I were called from the living room, to come to the kitchen table, we arrived with eyes wide-open…..a minor amount of drool at the corners of our mouths, and feeling our hearts palpitate in respective chests, as casserole dishes steamed, and soup runneth-over, and beautiful brown pie-crusts oozed apple syrup around the edges. When Alec dug-in, it was for the long-haul. He'd wink at me, like a sergeant, getting the platoon ready for a charge onto the battlefield. When he reached for the bread, and the butter knife, he was, you see, telling me, "be brave son, tear off a chunk…..today, is the first day of the rest of our lives." There was an aura of good living in that kitchen, I will never forget, or surrender to old age. I will always remember the smile of satisfaction on Alec's face, when he sat back in his chair, folded his hands across his full belly, and said, "Teddy, have you had enough to eat." If there is a definable heavenly smile, it was painted on my face. Because this was what any one would like of heaven, but this place was on earth.
I am so pleased to have re-connected to Ann, Alec and Mary Anne Nagy, proprietors of the Nagy Apartments, in Burlington, Ontario. It is a little less hazy, and distant today, than it was several weeks ago, before I was contacted by Tracy McKelvey, my knew Burlington friend. After some online searching for references regarding the Harris Crescent neighborhood, out of general interest, she found a written connection to Ann Nagy, I had written some time ago. The night Suzanne came to tell me, that I'd just received a message from somebody in Burlington, and that Ann Nagy was still hustling in that kitchen of hers, all these years later, I was overjoyed to reacquaint with old friends and a good home town. Tracy provided some great photographs of the apartment building, and the neighborhood, especially my old haunt, in the ravine of Ramble Creek, and Lakeshore Public School. It all brought back cherished memories, and reminded me how negligent I've been, not doing this sooner, and seeking out the Nagys long before now. So the past seven parts, have all been written on the spur-of-the-moment, with nary a written note, or outline……just the good feelings I've always possessed, about those years in a wonderfully kind neighborhood, where a kid could be a kid, and be forgiven for his trespasses. Ann and Alec were great overseers, and saved me on numerous occasions, when I seemed bound and determined to break my neck, or sever an artery. They were family people, and as both my parents worked outside of Burlington, and I spent a lot of time alone, Ann and Alec were always around, to make sure I was okay……and wasn't in possession of anything that would spark a fire, blow something up, or electrocute any one of my friends. They watched over me, as if I was their kid, and that meant a lot to me, even then. While I did dislike Alec running at me, with his bottle of iodine, when I'd cut myself, or been in a bike mishap, he was deeply concerned about my welfare. I can tell you honestly, that I could never feel lonely, as long as I have these memories, to remind myself of the good neighbors we had on Harris Crescent, and at the Nagy apartment building, where residents cared about each other……as extended family members. How could you not love something like this, or wish for any place else to live? That's my feeling, anyway, and the reason I will never tire, of thinking back to the way it was…….
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