Angels in My Hair (2 page)

However, my life at school was made much more bearable
by one particular angel, called Hosus. One morning I was
running to school, trying to keep up with the older girl who
was with me, when suddenly I saw a beautiful angel hiding
behind a lamp-post. He made a face at me, and from that day
on Hosus used to appear most mornings on my way to school.
I still see him regularly today.

Hosus looked – and looks – like an old-fashioned school
teacher. He wears a swirling robe which is blue most of the
time (but can change colour), and a funny-shaped hat and he
carries a scroll in his hand. His eyes are radiant and sparkle like
stars and he looks like a young professor: a man full of energy
and with great authority and wisdom. Hosus always looks the
same, unlike some of the other angels who surround me.
Michael, for example, adopts a human appearance most of the
time – something I asked him to do, because I find it easier –
but he changes his appearance frequently, depending on
where we are or the message he has to give me.

To me, Hosus represents knowledge: he looks very serious,
and he can be, but he is also wonderful at cheering me up
when I feel a little down. It was Hosus who would comfort me
and tell me to ignore the other children when I felt ridiculed at
school, or when I saw adults talking in a huddle and then
turning and looking at me. Hosus would say to me, 'They
know nothing.'

At the beginning I didn't know this angel's name, and he
didn't actually talk to me. Hosus would appear in the classroom;
mimicking the teacher or another child or playing
games in the classroom, or doing something else to make me
smile. Sometimes, on the way home, he would be waiting at
the school gate or on the far side of the road. I remember the
first time I spoke to him: I had no one to walk home with that
particular day, as my sister was going dancing and had left
early, so I took my time coming out of school and wandered
slowly through the playground. I made my way towards the
big gates at the entrance to the school in the hope that I would
see Hosus and be able to talk to him, so I was thrilled to see
him peeping around the pillars. He shouted to me to hurry up:
'You've got to get home before it starts to rain.'

I stopped at the gate and looked around. There was no one
nearby so I asked him his name.

'Hosus,' he said. I just giggled in response. I skipped home
from school and he skipped along with me and all I can
remember is laughing most of the way.

Da didn't make much money out of mending bikes – in fact, no
one had much money to spend in that area, so they were
always asking him for help and promising to pay 'next time'.
My Da was a good-hearted man, so we frequently went hungry.
The meals we had were often bread and margarine, or bread
and jam, but I never complained of pains in my tummy
because I knew that Mum and Da were stressed enough.
Eventually, though, I started breaking out in sores and so I was
taken to the doctor. He told my parents that I was vitamin
deficient and they needed to give me fresh fruit and vegetables
every day. But with all the pressures on money I rarely did get
fruit and vegetables, other than when our neighbour – who
had a big garden – gave us some. For clothes we depended a lot
on parcels coming from relatives in the United States, and
whenever one arrived we thought it was marvellous. Things
were tough for us, as they were for so many others.

Da's shop was a dark little place and behind it was a lean-to
with a tin roof which was his workshop. It was full of benches
and tools – all kinds of things – and it smelt of oil and grease.
Sometimes, before Da came in to the house for his tea, he
would call me into the workshop and get me to help him by
holding the tin of grease he used to clean his hands. It was
black and sticky and smelt horrible, but it did the job. After
rubbing the grease into his hands for a few minutes he would
wipe them with a dirty old cloth and rub them hard. Then he
would go into the kitchen and wash them with cold water (the
only way to have hot water was to boil a kettle on the fire);
after all this his hands would be all clean again. I loved helping
my Da – even just to hold the tin for him – and sometimes he
would ask me to stay in the shop while he was having tea with
Mum, in case someone came in.

At school, Hosus would sometimes sit in the teacher's desk
when the teacher wasn't there. The first day I saw Hosus in the
classroom my eyes nearly popped out of my head: and I asked
aloud 'What are you doing here?' The teacher heard something
and turned and glared in my direction. I had to put my hand
to my mouth to stop myself from laughing.

The reason I was surprised was that while there were always
guardian angels in the classroom Hosus was different. He was
not a guardian angel. The guardian angels of the children were
extremely bright, extremely luminous, like bright lights.
Hosus looked completely different, much more human; his
robe would brush against the desk. Hosus looked different to
help me differentiate between guardian angels and special
angels given to be a part of my life. As a child, I had to learn
how to differentiate between different types of angels.

Different types of angels have different skills. Just as I and
every child had to learn to differentiate between a teacher and
a doctor, I had to learn to recognise different types of angels so
as I had some idea of how they could help me and others.

Frequently Hosus made me laugh and I once asked him, 'Do
you think they think I am simple, or that word I've heard them
use, "retarded", because they see me smiling and laughing so
much and don't see what I am laughing at?What do you think
they would think if they knew you were sitting there on the
teacher's desk dressed like a teacher?'

Hosus laughed, 'They would run out screaming that the
place was haunted.'

'Wouldn't they know that you were an angel?'

'No. They don't see us the way that you do.'

As I say, I had always thought other children could see and
talk to angels as I could, and it was only then when I was about
six that I started to notice that this was not always the case.

'You know, Hosus, I know some children can see angels.'

He replied, 'Yes, of course they can, but only when they are
very little and then they grow up. By the time they are your age
most children don't see us anymore; some stop seeing us when
they are as young as three years old.'

In fact, all babies see angels and spirits, but at about the time
a child starts to talk they begin to be told what's real and what's
not real, and so if things are not solid like their toys, then that
they are only pretend. Young children are conditioned and
lose the ability to see and experience more. Because education
starts earlier nowadays, fewer people are talking to angels; and
this is one of the reasons the angels gave me when they told me
I had to write this book. This is something I am scared about
doing because I don't want to be ridiculed, but I know I have
to do it; I always do what the angels want eventually . . .

There are millions of angels out there – they are impossible
to count, like snowflakes – but many are unemployed. They
are doing their best to help, but they can't always get through
to people. Imagine millions of unemployed angels hovering
about! They have nothing to do because most people are
working hard at getting through their lives and are not aware
that these angels are there to help them, and that they are
everywhere.

God wants us to be happy and enjoy our lives, and so he
sends angels to help us. We have so much spiritual help
waiting for us to grasp, and while some of us do reach for help,
many of us don't. Angels walk beside us telling us they are
there, but we are not listening: we don't want to listen. We
believe that we can do everything ourselves.We have forgotten
that we have a soul and we believe that we are simply flesh and
blood. We believe that there is nothing more: no afterlife; no
God; no angels. It is no wonder that we have become
materialistic and self-obsessed. Human beings are much more
than flesh and blood, and as you become aware of this and start
to believe that you have a soul, your connection with your
angel will blossom.

As you sit there reading this – whether you believe it or not
– there is an angel by your side: it is your guardian angel, and
it never leaves you. Each one of us has been given a gift: a
shield made from the energy of light. It is a part of the guardian
angel's task to put this shield around us. To God and the angels
we are all equal; we all deserve to be protected, to be cared for
and to be loved, regardless of what others might think of us –
good or bad. When I look at someone I can physically see this
shield around them; it's as if it's alive.

Your guardian angel is the gatekeeper of your body and your
soul. He was assigned to you before you were even conceived:
as you grew in your mother's womb, he was there with you at
every moment, protecting you. Once you were born and as you
grow up your guardian angel never leaves your side for an
instant: he is with you when you sleep, when you are in the
bathroom, all the time – you are never alone. Then, when you
die, your guardian angel is there beside you, helping you to
pass over. Your guardian angel also allows other angels into
your life to help you with different things; they come and go. I
call these angels teachers.

You may find all this hard to believe; if you don't believe,
you should question your scepticism. If you are cynical,
question your cynicism. What do you have to lose by opening
up to the possibility of angels, by opening up to your spiritual
self and learning about your own soul? Ask the angels to start
to help you now. Angels are wonderful teachers.

As a child I had the angels with me so much of the time,
teaching me and showing me things, that I was very happy to
be on my own for hours on end. One of my favourite places
was the cosy little bedroom that I shared with my sister Emer.
The ceiling was low and sloped and the window was low
down so I could kneel or crouch on my hunkers and watch
all the comings and goings on the street. I would watch
neighbours passing in the street below and sometimes I
would see beside them what I now know was their guardian
angel – it was as if there was a beautiful, bright person with
them. Sometimes the guardian angel seemed to be floating,
but at other times he looked as if he was walking. Sometimes
he even seemed to have become a part of the person, or was
behind them with his wings wrapped around them, as if in a
protective embrace.

These angels also came in all kinds of sizes: sometimes they
would appear as a spark which would then grow and open up
to full size; sometimes they would be massive, much bigger
than the person they were minding. The guardian angels were
radiant and were often dressed in all gold or silver or blue, or
wore a variety of colours.

At other times I would see a spirit – just as I saw my brother
Christopher. One neighbour, who lived at the top of the hill,
used to pass the window sometimes with her children hanging
on to her – a baby and young child in a big old pram and two
older children who were hardly more than babies themselves
– and I would see an old man walking alongside them. One day
this neighbour was with my mum in the shop and I heard her
saying that she missed her father, who had died recently. I
knew then that the old man I had seen was her father and the
children's grandfather. I smiled because even though she was
missing her father, he was still there with her – she just
couldn't see him. He loved her so much that his spirit had
stayed with her to offer her help and consolation, and would
be with her until she was ready to let him go.

At first it was easy to confuse the appearance of these spirits
with humans – I had done it myself with Christopher – but
over time the angels taught me how to recognise the difference
between a spirit and a real person. It's a little difficult to
explain: a spirit looks just like one of us, but more luminous –
as if they have a light inside of them. They can turn this light
up and down; the higher the level of the light the more
translucent and transparent they are. If the spirits have their
lights turned down (which they do occasionally to make
themselves less obtrusive), it's possible to mistake them for
real flesh and blood. In simple terms, it's as if you say hello
when you walk past a neighbour on the other side of the road,
then a few minutes later it dawns on you that it was Johnny
you had greeted, but that he died six months ago. It might only
be then that you realise that Johnny looked brighter than
normal people.

One of the other things I loved about watching from the
windows was seeing the energy flowing around people.

Sometimes I would see one of my friends' mothers and I would
see swirling rays of light coming from her – shiny, sparkly
mauve, purple, red, green or turquoise – which derived from a
central point, like a whirlwind. It was an energy that was
different to the woman's energy, and it always fascinated me.
Sometimes, later, I would hear my mother say that this woman
was going to have a baby and I would smile to myself.

In the same way, I also could see if people were ill, even if I
didn't understand what I was seeing. A flowing dark shadow
would move around the person's body, showing me that
something was wrong with their blood. Sometimes a bone
would flash and I could see that the bone was damaged or not
forming properly, and I would know instinctively that
something in their body was not right, even though I had no
words to explain it.

One day I was sitting crouched at the window and I saw a man
cycling down the road on a big black bicycle with his little
daughter on the back carrier. The angels told me to keep
watching them and not to take my eyes off them as they passed
the window. I didn't ask them why; as a child I would do what
the angels told me to without questioning them. I knew I was
being asked to help this father and daughter, so even when
they were passing my window I was praying for them. I didn't
know what was going to happen, but I asked that it mightn't
be too bad.

As the man and his daughter passed in front of the house
everything seemed to slow down, like a film in slow motion.
While they were cycling along a big double-decker bus overtook
them, and the next moment, the little girl let out a scream
and the man started to fall. Somehow, though, the child didn't
fall off the bike. She had caught her foot in the spokes. I
watched the father carefully disentangle her little foot and leg
from the buckled and bent wheel with his shaking hands. He
carried the crying child – she was gently sobbing rather than
screaming – to the footpath just below the window where I was
watching. Adults ran to help, including my mother. I dashed
down the stairs and out the door to see if she was okay. As
usual, no one took any notice of me. The little girl's shoe had
come off and her foot was all raw and bloody; she'd taken the
skin off the sole of her foot, but there was nothing broken. I
asked God and the angels to help her still.

Even then, at five or six years old, I felt that I had a role to
play in helping people. I believed that, because of my watching
and praying as the father and daughter passed, something
worse hadn't happened. Maybe she would have fallen under
the bus, or fallen off and hit her head, but in the end she had
only hurt her foot and, thanks be to God, she was all right.
From then on there have been many occasions when I have felt
I was put in a place to help; to prevent something happening
or, if I couldn't stop it happening completely, to make the
situation a little better. This was part of the training that my
angels were giving me: I may have had problems learning in
school, but I had no problems learning from the angels.

One day I was able to use this gift to help a friend's da. Josie
was my best friend. She lived up the road from me and I liked
her because she was different too – she had a stammer. In fact,
she stammered quite badly, but when she was playing with me
it practically disappeared, and then it would come back if
anyone else joined us. She had long, straight-reddish hair and
green eyes and she was taller than me and very skinny. Her Da
had a garage down the road – it wasn't like a petrol station, or
the garages we have nowadays, it was an enormous yard full of
wrecked cars and car parts. Her Da was always telling us not to
play there, but there was a little space to the right as you went
in the gate which hadn't much in it, and eventually he said we
could play in there on the condition that we never went
anywhere else in the yard.