my guardian angel

I first started wearing the (rigid) contact lenses when I was twenty. If you want to know my age now, it's over on the left. That's a long time. I bought contact insurance for a year or two at first; it was worth it at the time if you lost more than one a year. Contacts are only supposed to be worn a certain amount of hours per day, but I have always put them in when I got up and taken them out at the very end of the day when I'm tired and ready for bed. Consequently, there was many a night when I was up an hour later than I wanted to be, looking for the one that got away. And many nights would find me crying in tiredness and frustration, unable to find it.

I don't know how long this went on, but at some point I got the idea to ask my guardian angel to help me. It's Catholic belief that each of us has an angel given to us by God, to be our help in everything all our lives on this earth. Many people depend on St. Anthony to find their lost things, but I've never been able to get too far with him, so my angel it was going to be. I'd drop the lens while popping it out, search for it, and if I couldn't locate it, ask my guardian angel to help me, with the idea that he knows where it is - he just has to get it across to you somehow, and you have to try and be open to it. (A little iffy-sounding, isn't it?) Anyway, I would ask, compose myself and just start looking quietly wherever I "felt" I should. Sorry, but it's kind of an instinctive thing - I guess. I would always feel doubtful. But I always found it. I can not tell you how many times I've dropped my lenses. How many times I've asked him (I just think of him as a "him") for help. How many (each and every) times I've felt doubtful. How many times he's led me to it. I have never again had to search around for an hour, so tired and weepy.

One night, a long time ago, I was kneeling by the side of my bed, saying my prayers I guess - anyway, I must have gotten something in my eyes because I took them both out and laid them on the sheet. The bed was turned down, so it was the fitted sheet. By the time I was finished, I had already forgotten and just got into bed. Slept all night. Got up in the morning. Knelt down to pray, and what should be winking at me - exactly where I laid them! - but my two lenses. Even though I'm not one who thrashes around in my sleep, still - I've always thought of this episode as miraculous. I did not make this up - I'm not such an idiot to think that anybody would believe something so incredible!

Anyway, you may have guessed I'm leading up to something. A few nights ago I took out one lens, put it away and then popped out the other. It fell, but I didn't find it anywhere on the sheet, or on my hair hanging down (and believe me, they are so light they get caught on your hair or they can sit on your clothing or up your sleeve) or any place. I asked my angel friend to help me. I think I said it before but I'll repeat - I always doubt that he'll help me *this time*. I tell myself that he'll just think, Oh, not again, this girl is too much, etc.. But it apparently doesn't depend on any inner certainty on my part because he always does help me find it. But this time I groped around, all over the place, and I wasn't finding it. It was late already -  I should have been to bed long before. I said I have to give up. In the drawer I found that I did have an extra that I could wear to work the next day, so I just went to bed. There was an itty bitty part of me that still hoped it would turn up, but I told myself not to expect this. In the morning I kind of looked quickly but didn't have much time.

To tell the truth, by the time I got home from work I'd forgotten all about it. But I was in and out of my room, changing my clothes, getting my knitting, my book, sitting at the laptop and back and forth, etc., etc., etc. And when bedtime came I suddenly remembered it! I looked down on the rug beside the bed, and there. it. was. I put it on a piece of paper and took a picture of it.

Thanks, Friend. Again.