Silent Move the Feet of Angels Bright

Silent Move the Feet of Angels Bright

By Ronnie Bray

Since I learned what she had done, my mind has been occupied with images of her creeping furtively from her door under cover of darkness, passing through my neighbour’s garden, into my garden, and then clambering up the three-foot brick wall under my bay window to peep through the lace curtains of the room in which I slept.  I never saw or heard her and I did not know she had been until she shared her secret with Gay and, after more than two years, Gay mentioned it in conversation, believing that I had known all along.

Many months after Norma died, although I tried to bring back some semblance of normality into my life, I no longer went upstairs to sleep in our bed but slept on the rosy couch we had bought from Neil and Wendy McEwen, and covered myself with a quilt.  In the cold winter months, I put on the maroon blackberry-knit cardigan that Norma made for me, and kept the gas fire on a low setting all through the night to save money on running the central heating.  Then, if I had trouble getting to sleep, I left the television on and that finally soothed me to sleep just as the radio had done when I was a lonely child in my attic bedroom in Fitzwilliam Street.

We had been very happy there, and I loved the house and its warm memories of Norma that spread through it recalling her joyful qualities and infusing me with an indescribable cosiness, even as I missed her company. 

Apart from my good neighbours the Kohlis and the Iqbals, my good friends Silva and John Scott, and Frank Westerby, my insurance man, no one came across my threshold, including those that might be expected to have taken an interest in my well being.  Yet, woven through the peaceful contentment and comfort that I felt stirring through the sights and sounds of my memories was as inexplicable sense of something intangible but superlatively real for which I had no explanation until I learned her secret.

After Norma’s funeral, I had gone down to Telford and stayed with Jo, Nick, and their little family.  They made me very welcome, and without their love and support, and that of Karen’s family, I do not know how I would have coped with life. 

Our marriage was a marriage made in heaven and attended by angels.  Norma grumbled about my driving and occasionally felt that I spent too long at the computer.  I disagreed about my driving, but conceded that I did at times overdo the writing.  Apart from that, there was never the slightest contention between us, and we enjoyed the best relationship of all the married couples we knew, and would not have changed places with any of them, including those of our children.

Our date night was Tuesday, and most often, we snuggled down on the settee with a box of chocolates and some dandelion and burdock to watch an old movie.  We laughed, lived, loved, and laughed some more, and this was the tenor of our days with no grey clouds on the horizon of our course, and never a squall, let alone a storm.  We enjoyed visiting family, loved being with them and their children, but we were always happy to get back home and relax into our mellowing, ripening, sometimes lackadaisical, but always comfortable, lifestyle.  Being home together was the highest joy of our blessed existence.

All of that came to a halt when Norma died and went to her reward, and her well-earned rest from the pain, discomfort, and indignity that she suffered during the three weeks she survived before her illness took her. 

My greatest consolation was the unique love that Luke developed for me.  Words can never express what I felt from him and feel for him.  It is a love beyond the capacity of our earthly understanding, but has its counterpart in heaven where true love is the common language. 

Yet, in my lonely times, an indefinable presence comforted me.  Even though I was not aware of it, I enjoyed its unseen blessings and sensed its pure love, as if from the hand of an angel.

What I did not know and was not to find out for almost three years was that a sweet and lovely girl, Samara Iqbal, used to tiptoe out of her home late at night to visit my house to see if I was alright.  She did not knock at my door, but climbed up on the low wall that surrounded my front garden and peered in through the lace curtains to see if I was all right. 

Sometimes, she confided in Gay, she uneasily watched, as I did not appear to breathe, until she saw some slight movement from me that assured her that I was still breathing.  Then, once she was satisfied that I was alive and well, she returned home where she prayed to Allah for me.

Although I was deeply touched by finding out about her nocturnal errand, I was not surprised.  Since she was just a toddler, Samara had always been a kind and loving girl, eager to please, and with a generous heart concerned more for the welfare of others than for herself.  In many ways, she had been a daughter to me, and still is.  I remember the times she appeared at my door either with a plate of her family’s celebration meal, or with a summons to go to help fix something, help with correspondence, or eat one of Shahidah’s sumptuous Asian meals with the family.  Every visit was attended by an invitation to eat something, and it was very hard to refuse the patient persistent pleading of Shahidah and her eldest daughter, Samara. 

There is comfort in knowing that as I slept in my lonely house, a bright young angel took care to watch and see that all was well with me and, while I am not surprised, my life is brighter, my heart lighter and more joyful for having found out that it was so.  Well did William Blake write:

           …  Silent move

The feet of angels bright;

Unseen they pour blessing,

And joy without ceasing

(‘Night’)

for no angel moved more silently, or poured out more blessing and joy than the unseen Samara keeping her selfless watch of love in the dark hours of cold nights over the unconscious form of a grieving widower who felt that life would never again be pleasant.  I thank Allah for sending His angel, Samara. 

Copyright © Ronnie Bray

28 October 2002 - 2013

All Rights Reserved