This is for you:

 They say angels are not real but I know they are very real.I came face to face with two of them yesterday. The bus was due at 9.45am so my elderly mother and myself began walking down to the bus stop at 9.30. The previous week our car decided to kick the bucket and we thought we would 'rough it' a little by trying to do all our shopping via public transport.Mum is in her eighties but young at heart and not easily beaten by much.Being without a car was not going to stop us from getting out and about...or so I hoped.The day in our beautiful Queensland city was warmish and slightly humid.'We will take it slowly today mum' I said,'no need to rush it and we'll catch a taxi home.' The bus stop was approximately nine house lengths away from our home.Our bus 'pick up point' was unmarked by signs but a small tree marked the spot where we would wait.The shadow of the tree was facing away from the road and mum and I stood in its shadow as we waited.Mum looked at her watch,the bus was due to arrive in five minutes.Mum reached up a little to put her hand over one of the branches,'I have to hold onto this' she said,I'm not feeling right.' I looked at her wide eyed,'what's wrong?' I asked.'I'm feeling faint' she answered.Then anxiously she said 'Kay you had better get me home quick.' 'Oh God' I thought inside my head...'please don't let anything bad happen to my mother.' I took her under her arm to help her away from the tree and back to the footpath from which we had previously come but too late to go further she began to go down and then with what strength she had left she murmured help me to sit on the gutter's step.I helped her down to sit there and she lowered her head to her lap sitting on the side of the road.With one arm on her shoulder I positioned myself to have one foot in the gutter next to her right foot and my other foot was still on the gutter step,'if she falls back'...I thought...'I will push my left knee behind her back and try to cushion her' my heart was pounding,cars zoomed by and no one stopped.Surely they could see something was wrong.A white haired small and elderly woman was sitting on the edge of the footpath's gutter and a well dressed not so young woman was trying to hold her up....more cars passed then amazingly I viewed a taxi coming up the road .Frantically I began to wave with my one free arm,the closer the taxi got the more I waved,there could be no doubt he saw me...he passed on by and was gone.I cussed quite a bit and my mother from her stoop said 'help me up,try to get me home, I think I can make it.' I did as she asked and somehow she made it,my arm locked through hers,across the road to the other side.Though in reality the road was only a stones throw wide our walk across it seemed to be miles.We do not have concrete footpaths,we are provincial here and the footpaths are grass,how glad I was for that. There is a vacant block of land at the end of the street and that is where we were when we crossed the road.Next door to the vacant block is an unusually positioned dark brick house,unusual because you can't see the front door from the street and until yesterday I had never really noticed it at all.A station wagon was parked half way down the block beside the house and a woman with light blonde hair appeared from nowhere walking toward the driver's door of the car,she opened the car door,I began waving with one arm and calling out 'excuse me...can you please help me to get my mother home...she is ill and I live about five houses up the street?"She tossed something (probably her handbag) into the car and then yelled back at me 'sure.'Then from my mother came the words'I am blacking out Kay,get me down.'The blonde lady seeing me struggling to get my mother down gently as possible onto the grass rushed over to me and tried to help get mum safely down.A man yelled out from the road way ,he had pulled up his four wheel drive ,opened the driver's door ,lent over the top of its door and called out ' can I help you I am an off duty paramedic?'Yes please' I yelled back. Seconds later he was beside mum and as if they had known each other for years the blonde woman and the off duty paramedic put my mother into the recovery position.My mother was unconscious,totally blacked out.I was frozen,my skin felt like electricity tingled through it,I could barely speak.I tried to use my cell phone but the sun glared on the glass screen and I could not see to dial an ambulance,my hands were shaking,my voice quivered 'please could you call an ambulance I can't use my phone,I am so sorry can you do it for me,I extended my phone toward them hoping they could use it to call the ambulance but the man had already dialed and began talking to the emergency number,he gave them our position,questioned me about what had happened with mum's health,though in shock I managed to answer.The woman somehow produced a large towel and told me to 'hold it over mum to give her shade ,she held one half,I held the other.The man took mum's pulse,he said it 'was very weak.' By this time my mother began to regain consciousness,she was very distressed to find strangers beside her,she tried to raise herself up but was too light-headed and still feeling faint.The man said he thought her blood pressure was low.He asked mum to stay down and told her an ambulance was on the way....this upset my mother,she dislikes hospitals...'I want to go home' she sad,'please help me to get home.' I tried to comfort her and so did the lady 'she reassured mum that 'everything would be alright' and it would be best to let the ambulance men check her out to be on the 'safe side'.Mum stayed put and listened to these two angels.The ambulance still had not arrived fifteen minutes later so the man made a second call to check out how much longer it would be,they were coming from Bargara which was about twenty minutes away.On hearing this mum pleaded once again to 'go home'.She told them she 'lived just down the street a few houses down.' I do not know why the off duty Paramedic agreed to help her get home but he did...he called again and told the emergency number to send the ambulance to my mother's address.we gave it to him. Perhaps if my mother had been a bigger woman he may not have listened to her request...who knows.My mother,in her eighties,was carried home in the arms of an off duty totally amazing human being.Leaving the blonde woman behind to carry on with her daily activities (a missed appointment) mum and I both thanked her sincerely for helping us....and as we left I knew we were leaving behind a true angel,someone who dropped everything to help a stranger.The man carried my mother to our front veranda where he placed her gently on a comfortable chair and there within seconds the ambulance arrived to do the rest.The off duty paramedic stayed only long enough to give them his findings...comments of the slow pulse,other observations of mum's collapse.The ambulance took mum to hospital and a heart condition was discovered....we are looking forward to a happy ending,she is not one to be beaten,she will recover,I know she will. There are some people in life who walk past and act deaf when they hear or see people waving out for help....the taxi driver was one.Then there are others who put others before their own comfort....give up their own appointments to hold a towel over a sick stranger just to give them a little shade and to lighten their load in times of burden.How can anyone say there are no angels...perhaps they did not have wings...but,believe me,they were truly angelic.God heard my prayer,he sent them to me...and to mum.There are angels I met two.