Touched by an angel

Dan Verner
Published: April 27, 2008

Bea Jackson doesn’t look like anyone’s idea of an angel. She wouldn’t be mistaken for one of the flaxen haired creatures with iridescent wings and flowing robes that grace Christmas cards in season, but she is an angel nonetheless.

We came to know Bea after my mother had been in the hospital and nursing home four years ago. She had Alzheimer’s and was unsteady on her feet, but my father wanted to take care of her at home.
And that’s how we met Bea. She’s short, with short dark hair, and powerfully built. She has dark brown eyes and a wide smile. When she laughs, which she does often, she doubles over and rocks back and forth. Like I said, no one would mistake her for a renaissance angel, but she is one.

Bea took care of my mother for the last years of her life, tending her twelve or more hours a day. She told me, “I love old people and children, and you’d better not mess with either one while I’m around.”
She took delight in dressing my mom up, in taking her for trips around the neighborhood in her wheelchair, in talking to her during the long afternoons when they both ostensibly took a nap. Mom was
sometimes combative with her, as Alzheimer’s patients are, and Bea nicknamed her “Sonny Liston” when she was in those moods. But most of the time she called her “my Ladybug.” It didn’t occur to me until after her funeral that my mom loved ladybugs. She was a master gardener before her illness and prized ladybugs as helpful creatures who took care of garden pests. Bea didn’t know about her affinity for ladybugs, but “Ladybug” she was.

Mom would talk with Bea when she wouldn’t talk to or recognize any of us in the family. Bea said, “She’s the grandmother I never had,” and Bea herself came to be part of our family. We shared stories and jokes —she detests Michael Jackson, and we both admire Martha Stewart, who served her prison time in the town in West Virginia where Bea came from. “She taught everybody in the prison how to cook,” Bea told me. We couldn’t believe Michael got off and Martha went to prison.

Bea walked us through the last few weeks and days of Mom’s life. “It’s close,” she would say to me. “She’s ready to go home.” The last morning of her Ladybug’s life, she called me to come over. “Something is different,” she told me. “You’d better get over here.” We were with her during the last hours, holding her hands and talking to her. Bea made sure she was comfortable, and, about a half hour before she died, bathed her and put fresh clothes on her. “She’s ready to go now,” she said. “She’s all clean for her journey.” And she sang an old hymn, “When I’ve Walked the Last Mile of the
Way.”

“Her time is close,” she told me, and a few minutes later my mom breathed her last. Bea arranged her hands and smoothed her hair. Then she walked out into the kitchen and fell to her knees, wailing her grief. The tears she cried were those of a loving and gentle caregiver whose charge has gone beyond her care. They were also the tears of an angel.

Later that evening, as we were both leaving the house, we talked for a while. “You took her home,” I said. “Your work with her is done.”

Bea has moved on to take care of other old people, her people. We still see her from time to time and she still has the same smile and still doubles over with laughter.

And the last time I saw her, as I watched her walk away into the sunlight, I could have sworn I saw growing from her strong shoulders a pair of large iridescent wings, the wings of an angel.

Dan Verner is a Manassas resident. He will be contributing his thoughts and stories to the Perspective page on the second and last Sunday of every month.