My Guardian Angel.

When I was ten years old, my family moved from an urban area to "the country". It was a difficult move, for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that I left behind all my safe places, and my coping strategies disappeared.

The culture shock involved in relocating to farm country from an inner-city neighborhood was immense. The fact that there were no safe places or safe people took precedence, though. Survival has a way of getting one's priorities straight, leaving little time or energy for a lot of naval gazing.

From this new, foreign, uncomfortable landscape emerged the defining relationship of my childhood.

I met Helen when I was ten and she was sixty-eight. She was unlike any adult I had ever known, not only because I had never experienced life in a farming community, so didn't know farmers, but she sang opera, was a very gifted potter and painter, made hooked rugs, baked glorious pies and cared for her mother (Gram was ninety years old when I met her) and two grandsons while running a large farm. And she looked like a female version of Andy Griffith. Her husband was alive at the time we arrived in the community, but he drank himself to death a few years later.

Helen never, ever treated me as anything but an equal. The day we first met found me looking for a place to hide my little brother and me. Helen saw my desperation, recognized that I needed help, and gave it. She let us stay with her until it was safe to go back home. She asked no questions and gave no advice, but she did give me a key to her house and the permission to let myself in whenever I needed to.

The world was a different place in the seventies. Families in trouble were, by and large, left to deal with their problems their own way. That left children terribly vulnerable. I now know that the entire community knew what was happening at our house, and nobody did a thing to make it stop. This is not about condemning a community, though, it is about celebrating one woman who made a difference.

Helen never confronted my father. She never called the police or social services. She never suggested I run away, "tell someone" or try to get help. What she did do is far more valuable. She cleaned my wounds. She told me I was smart, strong, and capable of doing anything. She fed me. She taught me about plants and flowers, stars, oceans and nature. She told me I was loveable and proved it by loving me. She talked to me about everything....politics, religion, history, travel, honour, truth, unfairness, pain. She cried for me when I couldn't cry for myself. She took me to the hospital when I needed to go. She taught me about the art of pottery. I made about a thousand pinch pots before we both admitted that my creative talents lay elsewhere.

Helen kept me sane. No matter what was happening at home, her house smelled like cinnamon, she smelled like lily-of-the-valley, there was always food in the fridge and a warm hug to chase away the terror.

I don't know why she took me under her wing. I was a chore she could have easily avoided, and God knows she had enough chores to keep her busy, but she welcomed me, damaged, distrustful and defiant, into her world.

Helen was not perfect, I'm sure, but as a child I would have defended her honour with my life had I been forced to. As an adult, I have had ample opportunity to look at our relationship in the cold light of day, and yes, she should have called the authorities, she should have stopped what was happening, but she couldn't, for whatever reason, and that bothers me a little. Not nearly enough, though, to make me change my feelings for her one iota. She felt powerless to change my reality, so she helped me adapt so that I could survive until I could escape. She did all she could.

Our relationship changed, of course, as childhood melted into young adulthood and then adulthood. Helen shared more of her own history as I became mature enough to appreciate it. Her life was hard, but she saw the beauty in simple things, and was always willing to lend a hand to anyone who needed help. She chose to see the best in people, even when she had to look deep to find even a hint of goodness. She wasn't a wealthy woman, but she shared everything she had.

After I escaped my childhood home and went to University, I continued to see Helen and Gram daily. Helen let me borrow her car to drive my mother to Detox. I would spend a day with Gram so that Helen could visit friends, shop, get her hair done, keep a doctor's appointment. We would play Scrabble for hours on end. I mowed her lawn. She was my only guest at my graduation from University.

As Helen aged, she grew lonely for the companionship of a partner. She remarried at eighty. I didn't like her new husband, he wasn't good enough for her, but I was thrilled that she found happiness, and always treated him with the respect due Helen's husband.

When Helen was struck with Rheumatoid Arthritis and then Alzheimers Disease, she changed. Gone were her ability to play the piano, do pottery, rug hooking, gardening, painting. Without her creative outlets she became depressed and angry. We decided, she and I, that her family history needed to be recorded for posterity. Our two year project cemented our adult friendship. She dictated her history, and I wrote it, longhand. She told me stories her own family had long since become tired of hearing. She sang songs of her childhood, painted pictures with words. We spent every one of my free hours working on her book of remembrance.

We finished the project just before forgetfulness morphed into something more sinister. Dementia turned into the diabolical Alzheimers, and I lost the Helen I loved, but gained an opportunity to support my supporter, nurture my nurturer, and accompany this woman, who taught me the definition of "grace" on her journey to the end of her life.

I loved her then, I love her now. I will love her always.