Guardian Angel

Mary Esther Baker Lamparter

I’m not sure, but I think today may have been the first time that I cried out loud for my grandmother. It was like spontaneous combustion with the words of a song as the accelerant. I have listened to this song by the Dixie Chicks many times and never really paid attention to the lyrics to the point of making any personal connection with them. Today was different.

"Silent House"

These walls have eyes
Rows of photographs
And faces like mine
Who do we become
Without knowing where
We started from

It's true I'm missing you
As I stand alone in your room

Everyday that will pass you by
Every name that you won't recall
Everything that you made by hand
Everything that you know by heart

One room
Two single beds
In the closet hangs
Your favorite dress
The books that you read
Are in scattered piles
Of paper shreds

Everything that you made by hand
Everything that you know by heart

In the garden off the living room
A chill fills the air
And the lilies bloom

And I will try to connect
All the pieces you left
I will carry it on
And let you forget
And I'll remember the years
When your mind was clear
How the laughter and life
Filled up this silent house

I don’t know how it happened, maybe because I have been working with some old photos of her, maybe because whenever I see 7:14 on a clock I think of her since that was her birthday, maybe she was just very present today… but there I was, driving to work, bawling out loud remembering my grandmother who died 18 years ago, tears streaming down my face as those lyrics sent me back in time to her house on 917 North Queen Street.

We had a special bond, my grandma and I; she was my primary caregiver from the age of 2 until I was 6. All my young life I knew I had someone I could go to who thought everything I did and said was wonderful. Not to say that she couldn’t be a strict disciplinarian if I got out of line; to this day I don’t see a wooden spoon without thinking of her wrath at the other end of one!

Her house was always a second home to me. When I think of my grandma, it is always in that setting; watching TV in her living room with her jumping up every two minutes to bring out more goodies, another glass of lemonade, more napkins, etc. or us sitting together at the kitchen table discussing everything that was going on in my life. It was always my life we talked about; I now realize she never shared much about herself.

I only found out later, from my mother, that my grandma was raised by her family’s neighbors because her own mother died while giving birth to her. Her daddy could not deal with a fresh infant on his own, with other children to raise, so to the neighbors she went. She grew up an outsider in the home in which she lived and an outsider among her own blood family right next door. It was a very sad existence that created an extreme lack of self worth in young Esther.

When she met my dashing grandfather, he swept her off her feet and into the house at 917 North Queen. Typical of the era, she stayed at home and kept house and raised my mother, and my grandfather worked and spent most evenings doing his manly club things. He was a member of the Masons, the Elks Club, the Lions Club, Rotary and I don’t even know what all else. She never learned to drive and depended on grandpa for everything. He always called her Essie Belle, and that term of endearment was what my children, her great-grandchildren always called her.

She died in 1988; it was sad, but as she had been sickly for several years, not surprising. I grieved but not in a break-down-and-cry physical way. Soon after I began to feel her presence, like she was with me in some way. In 1997 this was confirmed by a psychic who, apropos of nothing, suddenly told me that she was standing right beside me as we spoke, and that she was most likely my lead guardian angel. I had not mentioned my grandmother and the reading was about something else entirely. Confirmed now was something I already knew on a deep sub-conscious level.

Since then I have had three more psychics tell me the same thing, that she is right beside me, especially when I need her the most. One such time was several years ago. A dear friend of ours was under the influence of a dark spirit and Pat and I summoned up every light and bright spirit we could think of to keep our friend safe. Leading the charge was Essie Belle.

I will never forget the night she put on a spectacular show for the benefit of the aforementioned dark spirit, who was in our home, along with our friend. The dark spirit was explaining to us how she was able to communicate with her “grandmother” by using her necklace as a divining pendant; up and down meant yes and side to side meant no. Just then, although I was sitting perfectly still, my earring flew horizontally out of my earlobe and landed in my lap. We all sat there stunned for a moment, and finally I said I thought it must have been hanging half out already. The other three assured me it had not.

Several minutes later I went into my bedroom to get a sweater and as soon as I walked into the room I noticed the light coming through the curtains was sparkling as if hanging onto a mist and the air actually felt wet. A feeling of calm came over me as I walked through the thick, moist atmosphere to the closet. Almost trancelike, I opened the door, pulled a sweater off a hanger, closed the door, and walked out of the room. Back in the hallway I stopped short and just stood there, realizing what had just happened and every single hair stood up on my arms and neck. I remember saying out loud, “Whoa, Essie Belle, that was intense!”

Over the next year, until our friend eventually escaped the hold of the dark spirited one, I felt I could count on Essie Belle to be where I could not, by my friend’s side, keeping her bathed in light despite the life of darkness and despair she was living. I finally realized that my grandmother angel was also a guardian to my friend and I also intuited that in another lifetime my friend was my sister and Essie Belle was our mother. Just this past spring another psychic confirmed this belief and also informed me that it was no “grandmother” the dark spirit was consulting with her pendant, not unless “grandmother” was a black blur with big yellow teeth. I now know that Essie Belle was showing that evil spirit just who was boss in our house that night! She’s quite powerful.

There are times when I don’t feel her presence and I wonder if she’s moved on, maybe into a new incarnation. Just when I start feeling that way, she makes sure I know that isn’t the case. My morning drive was definitely one of those times and it is interesting that it happened the morning after I spent time with my friend. I’d call that a coincidence if I believed in such a thing. Now I just have to figure out what she was trying to tell me.