She is the crazy old lady who talks to her plants, welcoming a new blossom or a new shoot with a soft exclamation of welcoming delight. She marvels at the sight of a freshly-laid egg. She tenderly rescues the insect who got into her home and is now frantically trying to find its way out. She softly caresses her favourite tree as she passes under its cool canopy. She never picks wild flowers: instead, she gently sends them a wave of gratitude as she gazes with appreciation in their direction and then lovingly moves on.
Each time, I could feel a terrified shiver run down my spine.
It has been years since that day,
And still I wonder how I could feel so much evil
Emanating from an ordinary woman
Doing nothing but buying groceries with her child in tow.
I prayed – and still do – that we never cross paths again…
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My maternal grandmother could find objects: things that were impossibly lost. When my mother was a teenager, she was outside and lost a ring in the snow. My mother’s family was very poor so this would have been a disaster: you were expected to take good care of your things, and if you lost something special, there would be no money to buy another one. With this in mind, it is no surprise that my teenaged mother came into the house crying hysterically. According to Mom, Grammy walked purposefully out of the house; walked across the dooryard; reached into the snow and brought her hand out – holding the ring. A proverbial needle in a haystack- except that she didn’t have the benefit of knowing which haystack.
According to my mother, Grammy could heal burns, too. With just a touch. And a prayer, of course, for added measure. Grammy was a devout and fearful Catholic.
I have absolutely no gift for finding things but I do have a certain knack for healing – especially emotional wounds – and I am one of those people who gets ‘feelings’ about things. As I have heard no other family stories about such things, I have often wondered if these gifts came from my grandmother.
I am not a person to have dozens of friends and a lively social circle but I often connect practically instantaneously to the people who end up becoming my dearest friends. After we have been friends for a while, we will muse at how ‘it just seemed to happen’; no work involved; no real ‘start date’. It just simply ‘is’. As cautious as I can be about building new friendships, every once in a while, I simply throw caution to the winds and forge right in.
I also occasionally get a really bad feeling about an individual. And four times in my life, I have instantly felt a cloud of evil emanating from a person. The strangest – and most terrifying – happened, of all places, in a grocery store. I was wending my way up and down the aisles with my cart at the grocery store when at one point I became aware that I kept ‘meeting’ a woman shopping in the opposite direction: just a normal woman, pushing her cart with a small child in tow.
Every time I saw her approaching, I could feel this awful, black weight on my shoulders and chest. Every single time we passed one another in the aisles, this terrible shuddering shiver would start at my shoulders and course down my spine. I recall trying very hard to keep the shudder from showing. I did not want this woman to know that I was afraid of her. I did not want her to notice me at all. I felt very much as though I were in grave danger.
I have since prayed – many times – that she and I never cross paths again. And I have prayed for the child she had with her – who would be all grown up now. I do not understand what happened but I am sure that something inexplicable – but very real – did indeed take place that day.
To be fair, I have also felt the presence of great good – many times more than I have ever felt such evil as the woman in the grocery store. As I have gotten older, I have started telling the people I meet who send off wonderful light and energy. They always ‘get’ it because, well, they are filled with light: how can they not be aware of it?
But I can tell it always makes their day anyway.
I used to hide this part of myself: people are superstitious and such things smack of the supernatural. But oh, I am tired of hiding. I’m not getting any younger. If I am very lucky, I might have twenty more good years left. I won’t waste another second holding back.
Me with a fellow odd duck, many decades ago. And yes, I know it’s a goose…smile…
You see them everywhere, the Odd Ducks.
But only if you look; only if you are paying attention.
They dress differently from everyone else: some wear thrift-store clothes, have unkempt or unusual hair and don’t care a lick about fashion. Others are elaborately coiffed, flamboyant and colourful.
Some are loud and boisterous; others quiet and introspective; blending seamlessly into the woodwork.
They speak easily to the birds, the animals and the little spider in the corner of the room. They hug trees. They feel – and sometimes see – energy all around them. They speak gently to the weak, the tired, the broken and the seeking.
If they let you get to know them, they are interesting. And they are always interested.
They know things; they feel things; they are lifelong learners. They are seekers on a never-ending quest.
They have quirky, esoteric points of view. They don’t fit into moulds (although some of them try, for a time).
They are the strange child; the quirky cat lady; the long-haired octogenarian; the quiet friend.
They are often alone but they are rarely – if ever – lonely.
They are the Odd Ducks.
And you would be all the richer for getting to know them…
When I was 8 years old, one of my best friends overheard the mother of some neighbourhood kids telling them; “I don’t want to see you playing with those Moore kids!” 
WEDNESDAY'S CHILD 