Angel in a Snowsuit

CBN.com -- (From God Allows U-Turns: A Woman's Journey) -- Time didn't have much meaning for Mrs. Ramsey. Her only daughter, a darling little girl with long black braids and a sparkling smile, died of leukemia when she was in second grade, and her husband died just a few years later. She felt old, unloved, and unneeded. One day was pretty much the same as the next, and Valentine's Day crept up almost unnoticed.

She was surprised one February morning when she answered the door and saw a rosy-cheeked boy of five or six standing on her doorstep. He was stuffed into a bright blue snowsuit. In his mittened hands he held a bunch of cheery red carnations, "and baby's breath, too," marveled Mrs. Ramsey. The little boy pushed the bouquet at Mrs. Ramsey and dashed off down the street before Mrs. Ramsey had time to protest that she had no one to send her flowers. She carried the bouquet inside and looked for a card that might explain the gift. She found a red construction-paper heart in the folds of the paper wrapped around the flowers. "We Love You" was carefully printed on the handmade card. It was signed "the children of Edgemont school."

Mrs. Ramsey didn't know quite what to make of the gift. I haven't, she admitted to herself, been especially nice to the Edgemont boys and girls. She'd even gotten crabby and scolded the children who walked past her house on their way to school. She'd called the principal to complain about their noisy laughter on the playground and shaken her broom at them when they stomped through puddles on her sidewalk. She was furious when she found a small snow angel on the front lawn. Why would they send her a Valentine card?

She promised herself she'd try to be more pleasant. She began chatting with the children when they walked past. She learned their names and admired the work they carried home. In the spring she started a garden. "So the children would have something pretty to look at," she explained. The following fall she walked over to school and asked the secretary if the school could use a volunteer to help with reading.

Mrs. Ramsey was already a permanent fixture at Edgemont School when I came as a new first-grade teacher. A gaunt but gracious woman, she seemed to spend almost as much time at school as I did. Her smile so warmed the little people she tutored that they begged, "Please, please, can Mrs. Ramsey work with me?" She patted kids' heads and praised their paintings. She called the kindergartners her little angels. She was such a popular volunteer and so effective that I assumed she must be a retired teacher. One day I asked my older teaching partner how long Mrs. Ramsey had been helping at Edgemont.

Allison told me the amazing story of the Valentine card. "Which teacher thought to send her the Valentine flowers?" I asked. Allison laughed. "That's about the strangest part of the story. Miss Perlee was teaching kindergarten then, and she decided it would be nice to send Valentine thank-yous to some of the neighborhood volunteers. She got one of the grocery stores to give her a good price on carnations and then had the children divide them into bouquets. The kids cut out the hearts and copied the words. She gave the flowers to children to drop off on their way home. Little Davey Hamilton was supposed to deliver the flowers to a volunteer on Mrs. Ramsey's street but had trouble with his numbers. Instead of leaving the flowers for the faithful volunteer who lived at 741, he took them to Mrs. Ramsey at 714!"

"Did she ever find out? Mrs. Ramsey, I mean," I asked Allison.

"Davey admitted his mistake," said Allison, "when he was in sixth grade."

Mrs. Ramsey said it wasn't a mistake. "God knew exactly what He was doing the day He sent me an angel in a snowsuit."

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Excerpt from God Allows U-Turns: A Woman's Journey. Copyright 2002, by Allison G. Bottke. Used by permission, Barbour Publishing, Inc.