Category Archives: Angels

Tuesdays With The Angels-Angels Butterflies & Little Miracles

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Eleven years ago on my birthday, I flew to California to be with my son. My husband had passed away a few months before. I stayed at a hotel by the freeway and the wall of the freeway was just outside my room. The wall was covered in vines and summer flowers. As I settled in, a myriad of butterflies caught my attention. I’ve always loved butterflies. I sat by the window and began writing about grief, butterflies and angels.

That night, my son took me to dinner on the patio of a lovely restaurant. In the cool of the California evening, I read his card with a butterfly on it. “Mom, You will get your wings and fly again soon. Love Mike.”  It was a meant-to-be moment. Butterflies on the wall and in the card and sentiment. 

In the years that have followed,  I have written more books in the Mystic Bay Series and then a children’s book called, When The Angel Sent Butterflies.

However, months after my book was published, a little miracle happened. My daughter, her husband, son, and new baby girl, sat on the steps of their apartment building in New York City. A butterfly landed on my son-in-law’s finger first and then fluttered to the shoulder of my daughter. Then surprisingly, the butterfly landed on my baby granddaughter’s  shoulder too! They captured each moment with their cell phones.

I believe angels are always around us. Sometimes we  see butterflies at just the right moment to give us the light of hope in our hearts.

In my Mystic Bay Series, my character, Angel Ken, sends calming love on the wings of butterflies. I believe angels send us butterflies  at the very moments we need them like on a birthday card or  miraculously to land on our fingers and shoulders. This to me is heaven’s way to  remind us of God’s love.

& This beautiful saying:

          Just When The Caterpillar Thought It’s Life Was Over It Became A  Butterfly. CoverAngelsButterfliesCMYK

Tuesdays With The Angels-Special Needs Children-Angels Unaware

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My life would change years ago while in high school. It was  during the days when kids with special needs weren’t allowed in public schools. My gym teacher asked me to monitor four girls with special needs because they had swimming lessons at our high school. I was to help them get ready for their lessons. Why was I asked? I was a teenager with low self esteem and an underachiever academically. But the teacher asked me and I obliged. Did my teacher find a way to help me feel good about myself? Did she see something caring in me  I didn’t see? I had a heart for the kids ever since I was little and saw a child bullied outside of the school.

After college I had two thoughts. One was  to pursue acting and the other was teaching kids with special needs. I decided acting wasn’t for me  but I didn’t have a degree in education. But miraculously or shall I say with synchronicity, I was given an opportunity to work with the children again in a private school setting in a church.

I loved my job. I learned by interacting with the children as I had no training. I was blessed with two fantastic assistants who knew more than I did about the diagnoses and behavior. But I learned. As I went  on,  I learned more by getting a masters degree then by raising my own children. I went  back to work when my kids were in school.

Instinctively, I knew the children were my teachers. They were like angels to me. Their love was uncondiditonal. There was never an agenda but mostly kind souls navigating their own lives. Some had supportive families while other did not. I found they brought out a gentle nature in me, a calmness. There was always a  kindred spirit  feeling when I was with them. I knew they were the most important teachers I would ever have.

When sadness came and my daughter passed away, these children with special needs were kind and empathetic . Like my own children, they needed me and I needed them. They were comforting, caring and seemed to have a wisdom about the needs of the emotions of others. 

Years later, my sister encouraged me to write a memoir about my experience teaching them. I realize I am the mother and grandmother I am now because they  taught me about life, loving  the now, forgiveness and finding joy in all  accomplishments as well as the little things. The students embraced learning and loved succeeding. They seemed to know instinctively who were their advocates.

It is with such gratitude toward heaven that their grace glowed around me. The shy girl with self esteem issues changed the day when I first volunteered. I thrived, and had goals for the future. Helping them helped me mature and grow.  For twenty-five years I was blessed to have the privilege of teaching Special Needs Children The Angels on my Shoulder.

 

 

Tuesdays With The Angels-Be The Light

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‘Be The Light‘ is a simple phrase with oh so much meaning. Here I am, a writer for many years now, and with books to share I’ve not had the forethought  to use these very words that mean so much to me.

To me being kind to all and being the light for those you love in as many ways as you can means everything. It’s like my other favorite phrase, ‘Random Acts of Kindness‘. Kindness is a theme in all my books. It is in my thoughts each day if I talk to my husband, children, grandchildren and friends. But it is also  the perfect way to speak to a stranger. A kind word, a nod, a smile are rays of light for someone else’s day. It’s a way to show gratefulness to God and the angels that we get how precious our lives and the lives of others are to humanity.

Being the light in other’s lives brings hope, peace, and joy to the world. But also we must remember to bring light to ourselves. The older I get, the longer I live, I know this to be true.

Years ago, a homeless man ran up to me in New York City as  I walked to my daughter’s apartment. “I need six dollars for medicine,” he said as he tried to keep up with my fast walking. Never closing my handbag, a habit of mine, I reached in and gave him a twenty dollar bill. He said, “Thanks,” and ran on ahead but abruptly turned around and said, “You’re an angel.”  He then ran on and I didn’t question he really needed the medicine. I pictured him going into the drug store to get what he needed. I was pleased with myself.  I knew I was a light for him that day.

But now years later I wonder,  maybe he was an angel, teaching me how showing random kindness is such an intregal part of love. How being the light helps me grow into all I can be. Being The Light is forever in my hopes for a good day. The character, Madam Norma, who is in all my books always says, “Kindness is the first ingredient of love.”

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Tuesdays With The Angels-Message From Above

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Kate, my late daughter, was the sunshine of my life. She passed away years ago but her memory is embedded in my heart. I dream of her upon occasion, yet it one dream she spoke to me.

She  was sitting on the couch with her twin brother and sister. I had been worried that day about whatever problem  had come up. In fact I was ruminating about it. But love has no boundries between heaven and earth. Kate looked up at me and said, “Just live.”

Wasn’t this a voice of reason for me to ponder at just the right moment?  I woke up  realizing that today, the now, is all we ever have. We can look back with regret on many decisions or happenings or we can look forward and believe in today.

I have precious memories of her that no one can take away. She was the sweetest little girl and welcomed her twin brother and sister with love, caring for them calling them, our babies and then, our twins. She lived a life full of love for her family knowing we loved her and she knows that still. Kate is in heaven’s realm with angels by her side. I feel her with me every day. I’ve written ten books with angel themes. My latest, ‘New Angel In Town‘, reflects all the true angel encounters  family, friends, and those I meet at book signings have told me. I treasure her memory and go on. I have people to love and animals to care for and hope for the future. “Just live,” Kate said. It was a beautiful message for everyday from my heavenly daughter.

Tuesdays With The Angels- New Mystic Bay Series New Angel In Town

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My latest novella, New Angel In Town, is a labor of love as all my books are. However, this one is different from the others in the Mystic Bay Series. This book has a compilation of all the angel stories ever told to me from family members, friends, and people at book fairs. These are true accounts of  real encounters people have experienced in their lifetimes.  I decided to write a  book in the series  bringing all the characters,  townsfolk and the angels living as humans together telling their angel stories. The secret is known to a few but the angels have their own favorite stories of helping those in need in Mystic Bay. These stories told to a filmmaker will  become a film to inspire humanity.

How did writing the Mystic Series start? Thirty years ago, my  treasured first child, Kate tragically passed away.  I was beyond hope yet found heaven had a plan for me. An angel was sent to me  to comfort me. He appeared as a human undexpectedly as a friend took me on a girl’s trip to help my grief. He was at a department store and spoke to us then appeared again the next day walking up to Nancy and me again in a tiny store forty miles away. I can see his face in my mind. It seemed an unlikely and miraculous encounter. He told us he’d see us at the airport. Then Nancy and I turned away for a moment and turned back and he was gone. We looked for him up and down the street but he was nowhere. Believing he is my guardian angel, I started writing stories about angels living as humans in a town where the secret is kept that angels are all around us guiding us, sometimes appearing as humans. 

And so it is an honor to write the stories I’ve been told by friends, family and people I met at book fairs. These are true stories from their hearts, their encounters that changed their own lives. I ask them, ‘Tell me your angel stories’ and people do.

Writing this book was a labor of love and hopefully readers will see the humanity, the soul searching, the honesty and vulnerability many have shared with me. The themes involve child advocacy, friendship, bullying, romance with magical scenes of flying angels and visions of their missions. The storyline weaves it all together in a tapestry of hope. I’m sure that meeting my angel long ago gave me  hope to keep going and to ultimately write angel stories to inspire hearts. Tell me your angel story if you can. This novella is filled with encounters from the hearts of many who confidied in me their precious miraculous stories. I’ve put them into a fictional novella to radiate kindness and love. Angels are everywhere.

Tuesdays With The Angels-Hopes and Dreams

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As a child I never dreamed I could become a writer. I was a shy girl who loved to write little stories and poems and yet this evolved  years later through moments of hope through dreams of a better future.

When my daughter, Kate, passed away years ago I thought I couldn’t go on. But hope sometimes comes in dreams and one dream weeks after Kate’s death changed the course of my life.

A dream,came unexpectedly to read the book, Charlotte’s Web, a children’s book. There would be a message in it. Never having a message like this before during sleep and with hope in my heart, I bought the book. The message at the end of the book was clear. Just as Wilbur the pig would go on without his friend, Charlotte, the spider, I would go on with my life, loving those left for me to care for, my surviving childen, my husband, my friends and students.

When I met a  man I know was an angel months later, I felt compelled to write about angels, grief, loss, forgiveness, over coming bullying and moving forward with kindness in my heart and hope for the future. This culminated in years now of writing stories from the heart. 

Over the years, my writing has evolved with a memoir, Special Needs Children The Angels On My Shoulder,  my children’s book, When The Angel Sent Butterflies, and many heartfelt stories in my Mystic Bay Series.  My tenth book coming this new year, will surround the same themes and angel stories with a new character, an angel in town.

So many hopes and dreams have come true for me. Grief and loss happened but how I’ve handled it is thanks to my belief in angels and God. I believe the ability to write came from above. Some readers feel my books bring hope for a more kind tomorrow. It’s happening all around us now, a change, a love for our fellow man, an awareness, a spiritual awakening of the gratitude for our earth, our lives, and each other. I had my spiritual awakening years ago once upon a dream, a dream which came true. 

Tuesdays With The Angels-If I Were An Angel I’d Whisper, “Kindness Stays”

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Why do I write books about angels? Is it because I think I met an angel once or is it because kindness has stayed with me  even through the darkest times?  I remember all the kindnesses others have bestowed on me, those I know and strangers passing through the moments of my life. Being kind helps my life with an indescribable feeling of love.

When I see the daily hurt others in our world inflict on those less fortunate or troubled, I realize the energy of  hate and bullying never can match the gift of life and ability to love we’ve been given. Why doesn’t everyone see this? When I write myMystic Bay novels  kindness is always a main theme in the fictional town of Mystic Bay.

If  I were an angel, I would whisper all  to remember kindness is a gift that can be shared. It is a holy thing sent to us from above. Having a heart full of kindness for others with an avenue to forgive has seen me through the losses in my life, the hard times, the restless nights of solving problems. To be kind brings joy to my life. Kindness stays.

 Madam Norma, the wonderful character in all my books, is based on my dear friend of forty years who passed away at ninety-four. She was always the dearest friend, a surrogate mother to me. She lost both her children and her husband yet she continued to be kind to others, loving her life while creating joy for others. So in my books, I impart a phrase of wisdom that must have come from an angel’s whisper. My character Madam Norma always says, “Kindness is the first ingredient of love.” 

Tuesdays With The Angels- Hope Grow Love

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I had lunch with old friends and one asked us what advice we’d give our grown children if there was one important message. My answer was a simple one. Stay close and love each other. Be together.

It’s part of my daily attitude of how precious life is and how fast it goes. One friend spoke of a bully in our high school. I always think of bullies as troubled souls and write them as characters in my Mystic Bay Series. In the novels, the bullies always learn lessons and some of them change for the better. Hope is always present in my thinking. To me, hope is a prayer for things to change for the good.

It seems like yesterday my kids were babies and now I have grandchildren. The years have  gone by so quickly. Wisdom does come with the years and I put what ideas I feel the angels send me into all my books.

Hope Grow Love is a message to ponder, isn’t it? I’ve just finished my latest Mystic Bay novel. It’s at the editors for her final and brilliant editing. I put my heart and soul in these books. Long ago, when the high school bully tried to hurt me, somehow I had the strength within through the years to move forward.

As a teacher, I knew and could intrinsically feel, the heart and needs of my students with special needs. I knew how to be a team with my late husband and my present husband. I knew how to be a supportive mother to my living children and that I had done the best I could at the time mothering my late daughter.

We can find joy if we traverse through all the troubles of life, living the best we can, growing  without even knowing it, and loving as hard as we can. The bully never wins and love is always triumpant.

 

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Tuesdays With The Angels-Angels & Sunflowers

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In the summer my husband and I happily live in a mountain town. There, I marvel as August comes and the wild sunflowers emerge from the ground with spectacular precision as they sway with the wind. This year two grew in the yard and I knew when I saw the little bit of green they would be wild sunflowers blown in from the fields and forests nearby. The wild ones grew tall in September and as late in the summer came they still hadn’t bloomed. One is just opening up and the first one bloomed  two days ago. October has arrived with fall chilly morning air, so I wait for the second one with hope to fully bloom before the frost comes.

The little miracles happened  as they grew when both their closed faces seemingly overnight  turned toward the east and the morning sunlight.  It made me think of the problems of our world. I’d asked the angels to help sunflowers, and the pumpkins in my garden. I asked for the flock of  black birds to return in August for their brief time at the feeder and they did. I ask everyday for  humanity to help each other around the world..

Since I’m a writer of angel stories, I ask the angels to help people see the need to help each other  the way nature cares for all the trees,  flowers and plants. In these times when hope seems to fade toward peace, we have everything we need to help ourselves and our world. Turing our  faces to  heaven, we can feel the gift of life just as the late blooming wild sunflowers in my yard instinctively did.

Tuesdays With The Angels-Threads of Love vs. Bullying

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Many of us have been bullied as children or adults. We remember it don’t we? What we remember mostly is the love for us that is never ending from family, friends or a just from a moment of kindness from a stranger. Threads of love are here to stay. They can’t ever be destroyed by hate and are stronger than bursts of anger and fear which are the characteristics of bullying.  

  The thread of love is impenetrable.  Love is the winner in most of the films and shows we view like the films of superheroes who not only have  brawn but might,  the strength of love in their souls. There are millions of people who are superheroes to their families, their friends, their jobs, their constituents. Their might is made of love threads. If we only can recognize the superhero in ourselves. Bullies don’t have superhero qualities. They don’t  choose love over revenge, jealousy or hate.

What we, who fight hate in the world, can do is to just keep building upon our love for our fellowman, those less fortunate, those in need wherever in our world. Working together is a love thread for someone or something other than ourselves.

We need to be voting for people in our government positions who care about people and their families, their futures, applauding  goodness like  the superheroes on the screen. Humanity is humans being kind to other humans in spite of our different races, religions and creeds. 

In reality there is no place for the bully in society. For  bullying is synonamous with hate. But bullies can change if they really want to. What will it take? Will they learn from those of us who believe in fairness, love and kindness? Hope is always possible. I obviously believe in angels and write about love and bullying in my books. The bully always changes as I write. So I ask with a heart full of hope that all  bullies change somehow after an incident of kindness someone has done for them.

People who are role models of goodness can spark an idea, do a good deed or do something that might turn the bully’s head around.  The love thread is unbreakable.  I can almost hear the angels whisper to me in my mind, ” Love is forever triumphant. Nothing is impossible with love at the helm.”