Written for the Hunter E. Boss Foundation

Topics: loss of a loved one, grief

Angels are a weird concept to me. They aren’t human, God, or animal. They sing. They guard. They have names. They appear in the world and in dreams. They do our bidding and protecting. Sort of. Kind of. A little bit. They’re all over the place with their job responsibilities. Like the personal assistant to the Lord Almighty. (Omg, I would be so good at that job.) 

We also use the word angel to mean a human who behaves in such a way that their goodness feels exceptional.  You’re an angel. She’s an angel. What a little angel! Those types of angels aren’t hard to spot. They make themselves known.

Where were the angels? 

• When Betsy called her brother, Bob, (also our business partner) he rushed the three miles down West River Drive to be with the PMF team. Many of them witnessed the accident. Bob told them it was bad, we were all at the hospital. And then they prayed together. 

• One of the statements regarding the accident was from one of our employee’s husbands. The gentleman was in the car behind the one that caused the collision. He called 9-1-1. He ran into the street. He stayed with Hunter. I listened to the 9-1-1 call: “Hang in there bud, help is on the way!” Hunter was never alone. (FWIW, I do not recommend listening to 9-1-1 calls.)

• It was all over the news. Highway detour, avoid at all costs. Two different vendor reps in the area heard the intersection, they knew the implications. They drove over to PMF. Both have backgrounds in social work. They stayed for the rest of the day to support our team.

• A resident found me alone in a hallway. He asked if I was Hunter’s family. I said yes. He handed me Hunter’s checkbook. “We found this in his backpack when we were looking for his ID. I didn’t want anything to happen to it.” I asked him if he was in the OR. He said yes. I asked him if he believed in heaven. He said yes. I asked him if Hunter went to heaven. God bless that poor resident, he said yes.

• How do you see someone who died in surgery? A little room in the back corner of the surgery recovery unit. As our family walked around the beds of the living to the small room dedicated to sitting with the dead, a familiar voice came from behind the desk. The mom of two kids my brothers and I went through elementary school with was the charge nurse that day. She handed her patient cases off to a couple other nurses and made herself exclusively available to our family.

• A radiology tech saw me weeping in the atrium of Butterworth Hospital. She was on her way to lunch. She was carrying her lunch box. Everyone else in the lobby walked past my ugly tears. She didn’t. She stopped and sat next to me. I told her my brother just died. She asked if I had family here. I said yes, my husband was getting the car. She told me she’d sit with me until he arrived. And then she said, “May I pray over you?”

• We met at our house after we left the hospital. A few hours later, there was a knock at the door. It was our friend Derrick. He came to sit with us. Derrick is a physician. Betsy began asking him a million questions—why did they do that? Why did they say this? What was that for? How did that go? Why didn’t they do X, Y, or Z? Derrick hadn’t met my parents before, and yet he kindly and patiently answered every single question as if they were his own family. He took a situation that was painfully confusing and added gentle clarity. He took my mom’s grief—our family’s grief—and sat in it alongside us.

• Food showed up a couple hours later. My mom’s cousin sent an entire catered meal. Comfort food—chicken, cornbread, potatoes, cole slaw. Not going to lie, it’s all I ate for days; it’s all any of us ate. We didn’t have to think about anything other than grabbing a container from the fridge. 

• Family friends were in the Netherlands on a river cruise. When they heard what happened, they asked fellow Christian passengers to join them in prayer. Halfway across the world, they gathered in the lobby of a riverboat and prayed for us. Strangers lamented on our behalf; they prayed long and hard for a family they didn’t know.

• My sister-in-law Marylynn’s father lost his younger brother in an accident several years ago. When he heard about Hunter, he immediately went to his wood shop. He carved a cross. He put Hunter’s name on it. And then he drove from Lafayette, Indiana (less than 24 hours after it happened) to give it to Ty and Marylynn. Marylynn put it at the intersection. A day later, there were no less than four bouquets of flowers underneath it. From who? We don’t know, they just appeared.

• At the visitation, none of us thought about what we were going to eat between the two sessions. Maybe pizza. Maybe Mr. Burger. Maybe nothing. When we got downstairs at the funeral home, an entire buffet was set up. Crock pots, salads, desserts, beverages. A group from church handled it—they took care of every last detail. 

• My dad and stepmom went over to Hunter’s house and did all the yardwork. A week later, they went back and did it again. And again. And again. They walked our dogs. They ran errands. They brought food. They brought snacks. They made sure the details of life kept moving for the rest of us.

There are dozens upon dozens of more stories. People who showed up, who helped out, who did the things none of us even remembered to ask for. Cleaning. Cooking. Sorting. Problem solving. Organizing. Back channels. Phone calls. Conversations. Care. Concern. Prayers. Help. Love. Hugs. Exceptional actions in the face of insurmountable loss.

Are angels always a separate entity from our humanity? Maybe.

And maybe not.