People occasionally believe they envision the face of an angel in the gallantry of other people, but rarely spend more than a fleeting moment with one; therefore, I consider myself blessed to know Mary, my grandmother. Mary has been alive during the beginning of time, or at least since time began for my mother and I. Her strong and concrete face is that of a beautiful statue come to life while weathering the elements of time. Her boldness while wearing a dark-skinned face in a white-skinned place that was dark in depression. Resilient and spirited, she faced the loss of her oldest child, while death shadowed over his body lying in her arms. She wore a face of courage and fortitude as her drunken, raging husband battered her frequently. His rushing arrival was like a midnight train slamming into the humble, silent abode. She always wore the same simple style of shoes. She bore the same simple clothes so that she could afford things for her children, spending money on the poor before herself. For the next decade, Mary pulled and stretched clothes over the hot and steaming face of an iron, wiping away the moisture from her brow. She raised four children, which softened the prominent lines that were on her high cheekbones because of the hard work, long hours, and years of worries brought to her life. Her term of twenty-two laundry years long gone, Mary helped raise her grandson. She concentrated on teaching me the values of humanity, the respect for life, the responsibility to love, and especially the need to laugh and giggle. Once I became an adult, Mary took her broadly smiling face and multilingual skills to a hospital staff. Mending injured pride and filling saddened souls by day and dancing by night, Mary could be seen buying shoes for a homeless man on her way home or stopping by early in the morning to check on a sick friend. She maintained this happy, unselfish life at the hospital another 25 years, never taking, asking or expecting anything in return. Now in her twilight years, she stares into a mirror, unknowingly looking deep into the eyes of an angel. She turns to me and says,
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