Tattooed Angel

This morning after digging out from under the secondsnowmaggedon, orsnowpocalypse as it is fondly being called, of the winter of 2010, I headed into work.

Stopping at Dunkin’ Donuts for my treat of a cup of vanilla chai, I pulled into the snow covered parking lot. Wishing I had a camera handy, I watched in amazement as an unlikely looking pair walked out of the store, arm in arm.

They were a 20-something young man; tall, tattooed, with multiple body piercings, including two in his lower lip, a 6 or so striped mohawk adorning his head and a petite, elderly, elegantly coiffed and garbed lady. He was escorting her to her car, so that she could safely traverse the erstwhile slippery sidewalk. She thanked him and then I thanked him. I informed him that he had earned his wings this morning and that he had indeed made my day too. He seemed embarrassed by the praise and nodded in response.

Upon entering the store, I struck up a conversation with the woman in line in front of me. A woman in front of her turned around a gazed at me for a moment and then shook her finger in recognition, sayingI know you. What’s your name? When I told her, she grinned and saidYou married my husband and me.

One of my many hats is that of an interfaith minister and she and her husband were among the first at whose wedding I had officiated after my ordination in 1999. Now married ten years, they have a 5 year old son. I left the store smiling, the feeling buoying me as I drove the rest of the way to work.

I turned on the radio, listening to my local NPR station called WHYY and the show Radio Times with Marty Moss Coane. She was asking people to call in with snow stories and whatever cutesy titles they had for the snow storm.

Powerless to resist, I called in and shared my morning experience. I called it ‘cosmic snow-incidence’ ( a take-off on one of my favorite terms ‘cosmic coincidence’ ). Marty’s delightful response was something to the tune of my being able to see past the tattoos and body piercings to the invisible wings he had sprouted. Perhaps they were there all along.