Little Red Wagon and the Angels Pulling It By Patricia Lorenz To be perfectly honest, the first month was blissful. When Jeanne, age six, Julia, four and Michael, three, and I moved from Missouri to my hometown in northern Illinois the very day of my divorce from their father in 1975, I was just happy to find a place where there was no fighting or abuse. But after the first month I started missing my old friends and neighbors. I missed our lovely, modern, ranch-style brick home in the suburbs of St. Louis, especially after we'd settled into the 98-year-old white frame house we'd rented, which was all my "post-divorce" income could afford. In St. Louis we'd had all the comforts: a washer, dryer, dishwasher, TV and a car. Now we had none of these. After the first month in our new home, it seemed that we'd gone from middle-class comfort to poverty-level panic. The bedrooms upstairs in our ancient frame house weren't even heated, but somehow the children didn't seem to notice. The linoleum floors, cold on their little feet, simply encouraged them to dress faster in the mornings and to hop into bed quicker in the evenings. I complained about the cold as the December wind whistled under every window and door in that old frame house. But they giggled about the "funny air places" and simply snuggled under the heavy quilts Aunt Bernadine brought over the day we moved in. I was frantic without a TV. "What will we do in the evenings without our favorite shows?" I asked. I felt cheated that the children would miss out on all the Christmas specials. But the children were more optimistic and much more creative than I. They pulled out their games and begged me to play "Candyland" and "Old Maid" with them. We cuddled together on the gray tattered couch the landlord provided and read picture book after picture book from the public library. At their insistence we played records, sang songs, popped popcorn, created magnificent Tinker-Toy towers and played hide-and-go seek in our rambling old house. The children taught me how to have fun without a TV. One shivering December day, just a week before Christmas, after walking the two miles home from my temporary part-time job at a catalog store, I remembered that the week's laundry had to be done that evening. I was dead tired from lifting and sorting other people's Christmas presents, and somewhat bitter, knowing that I could barely afford any gifts for my own children. As soon as I picked up the children at the baby-sitter's, I piled four large laundry baskets full of dirty clothes into the children's little red wagon, and the four of us headed toward the Laundromat three blocks away. Inside we had to wait for washing machines and then for people to vacate the folding tables. The sorting, washing, drying and folding took longer than usual. Jeanne asked, "Did you bring any raisins or crackers, Mommy?" "No," I snapped. "We'll have supper as soon as we get home." Michael's nose was pressed against the steamy glass window. "Look Mommy! It's snowing! Big flakes!" Julia added, "The street's all wet. It's snowing in the air but not on the ground!" Their excitement only upset me more. If the cold wasn't bad enough, now we had snow and slush to contend with. I hadn't even unpacked the box with their boots and mittens yet. At last the clean, folded laundry was stacked into the laundry baskets and placed two-baskets deep in the little red wagon. It was pitch dark outside. Six-thirty already? No wonder they were hungry. We usually ate at five. The children and I inched our way into the cold winter evening and slipped along the slushy sidewalk. Our procession of three little people, a crabby mother, and four baskets of fresh laundry in an old red wagon moved slowly as the frigid wind bit into our faces. We crossed the busy four-lane street at the crosswalk. When we reached the curb, the front wagon wheels slipped on the ice and tipped the wagon over on its side, spilling all the laundry into a slushy black puddle. "Oh no!" I wailed. "Grab the baskets, Jeanne! Julia, hold the wagon! Get back up on the sidewalk, Michael!" I slammed the dirty, wet clothes back into the baskets. "I hate this!" I screamed. Angry tears spilled out of my eyes. I hated being poor with no car and no washer or dryer. I hated the weather. I hated being the only parent responsible for three small children. And if you want to know the truth, I hated the whole blasted Christmas season. When we reached home I unlocked the door, threw my purse across the room and stomped off to my bedroom for a good cry. I sobbed loud enough for the children to hear. Selfishly I wanted them to know how miserable I was. Life couldn't get any worse. The laundry was still dirty, we were all hungry and tired, there was no supper started and no outlook for a brighter future. When the tears finally stopped I sat up and stared at a wooden plaque of Jesus that was hanging on the wall at the foot of my bed. I'd had that plaque since I was a small child and carried it with me to every house I'd ever lived. It showed Jesus with his arms outstretched over the earth. Obviously solving the problems of the world. I kept looking at his face, expecting a miracle. I looked and waited, and finally said aloud, "God, can't you do something to make my life better?" I desperately wanted an angel on a cloud to come down and rescue me. But nobody came…except Julia, who peeked into my bedroom and told me in her tiniest four-year-old voice that she had set the table for supper. I could hear six-year-old Jeanne in the living room sorting the laundry into two piles, "really dirty, sorta clean, really dirty, sorta clean,…" Three-year-old Michael popped into my room and gave me a picture of the first snow that he had just colored. And you know what? At that very moment I did see, not one, but three angels before me! Three little cherubs, eternally optimistic and once again, pulling me from gloom and doom into the world of "things will be better tomorrow, Mommy." Christmas that year was magical as we surrounded ourselves with a very special kind of love, based on the joy of doing simple things together. One thing's for sure: single parenthood was never again as frightening or as depressing for me as it was the night the laundry fell out of the little red wagon and three angels appeared who permanently changed my outlook and filled my heart with the presence of God. -end-