Angels in My Hair by Lorna Byrne

something to feed it.
I knew the meat had to be fresh, and what made it more
difficult was that the bird would only eat such a tiny amount
at a time. My parents couldn't give me a penny or a halfpenny
to buy a bit of raw meat for the bird, so I'd say to the angels,
'You really make it hard.' I remember going into Killaloe, some
miles away, with the family. I went into a butcher's shop with
my bird and told the butcher I needed raw meat from him, but
that I didn't have any money. I hated having to beg, but he was
very nice and told me to come in any time during the holiday
and that he would give me the raw meat. It sounds simple, but
it wasn't – my parents hadn't the money for petrol to come up
and down from Mountshannon to Killaloe.
    I didn't, and still don't, understand why my parents
wouldn't provide more for the little bird: it's something I still
fight with. People who didn't really know me helped to feed
the bird, but my parents didn't. When my mum was cooking I
might look for a little raw meat – just a teaspoonful – but the
response would be hmms and haws. I was willing to go
without my share to have it for the bird, but she wouldn't let
me and so I was put into a situation where I had to beg. I
always felt that if one of my brothers or sisters had had the
bird, it would have been provided for. It was very hard. But the
bird got fed somehow, and it grew strong.
    One day, when I was feeling sad, Hosus said, 'We know your
heart is sometimes heavy and you are such a little thing, but
you have to remember that God made you different and this
will always be your life. You will have special work to do.'
    I replied, 'But I really don't want to. Why couldn't God pick
someone else?'
    Hosus just laughed at me and said, 'One day you will know
why for yourself.'
    'I'm afraid!' I replied. 'It makes me want to cry.'
    'You will have to cry,' Hosus said, 'because it is your tears
that souls need to set them free.'
    I didn't understand what he meant at the time.
    My grandmother, like many others, thought I was retarded in
some way, so it was rare for her to talk to me. But one day she
did and that day I learnt a lot about her and my family. She
invited me to help her clean and dust her bedroom– something
she had never done before. I had only been in her bedroom
once or twice before, and even then it was just to look and not
touch. This time she was inviting me to help her dust!
    Granny gave me a cloth and asked me to dust a table while
she cleaned a cabinet, carefully picking up all the precious
things on it and dusting them. I watched as she picked up a
photograph in a big oval frame, and I could feel a great sadness
within her. She must have felt me looking as she turned and
brought the photograph over to me, sat down on the big, old,
high bed and patted the space beside her. I pulled myself up
onto the bed and sat with my legs swinging. She showed me a
beautiful old photograph of a little girl about the same age as
me, in a ragged dress with bare feet and tossed hair. Beside her
was a little boy who was down on his hunkers and playing with
a stick in the mud and the puddles. 'These are my two little
children that God has taken and who are now in Heaven with
him.'
    As she said this, her eyes filled with tears. I said to her, 'You
will see them again; you know that, don't you, Granny?'
    'Yes Lorna,' she replied, 'I hope I see them again some day
soon.'
    I asked what had happened to them. She told me they had
been extremely poor and her little boy – Tommy was his name
– got sick, probably because he didn't get enough of the right
food. I could feel this great sadness, this great heaviness when
she was saying it. Her little daughter, Marie, had had a growth
on her throat and my grandfather carried her on his bike for
miles and miles – from where they lived in Wicklow – to a
hospital in Dublin. His enormous effort wasn't enough,
though; she died before the doctors could operate. Granny told
me that when she looked at my Da,