An 8 Year Old Angel With A Potty Mouth

Susan's Mother passed away Easter Weekend. It was an extremely difficult and emotionally draining passing because it was slow and lingering; we were in the hospice room with her for well over twenty four hours straight, with no sleep, before she left us. (This was after making the six hour drive to Susan's hometown after receiving the emergency phone call.) By the time my Grandson made his now famous shout, we had been operating on a total of four hours sleep over that past three days time, so needless to say we were exhausted emotionally, physically and mentally. Susan's Grandmother (Nannie was ninety four years old) could not be at the hospice due to her age and health so that morning we stopped by the nursing home to visit Nannie and to grieve with her over our loss on our way home. Susan and I were also bringing home our 8 year old Grandson.

It was a heart wrenchingly emotional visit; we stayed quite awhile and shared memories and cried a lot. When it came time for us to go, Nannie, asked us all to join hands in prayer. Nannie prayed over our loss, and for our safety in driving home, with a few admonishments along the way about life in general and a couple of specific recommendations for "us kids". Nannie and Susan were crying through out this prayer, which in my mind was going on a bit long and our grandson was getting fidgety as well. When Nannie finally concluded the prayer with an Amen, Susan and I replied with quiet "Amens" and our grandson belts out with heartfelt enthusiasm "Hell Yeah!".

Susan and I were completely stunned and looked at our grandson and then at each other in disbelief; we only then truly realized that we had actually heard what we had only thought we had heard. Nannie (who fortunately was hard of hearing) was looking at our grandson with a comically puzzled expression; she more or less heard him but not quite, she had only heard him just well enough to be suspicious. I thought that our grandson was a bit overly happy about the ending of the long prayer and definitely that he was way out of order and that I would have to have a talk with him on the way home.

Susan began to laugh then, and instead of trying to explain to Nannie why she was laughing, she covered it up by quickly bending over and hugging Nannie around the neck, while heaving with laughter. This was the kind of near hysterical laughter that comes with grief and exhaustion. Nannie had no idea that Susan was laughing, she thought Susan was heaving with sobs again and patted her on the back and comforted her. When Susan stood up and turned away to hide her face, I quickly stepped in and hugged Nannie before she could see that Susan was laughing, which was now way too late to be explained. I stayed a moment or two longer making our goodbyes and giving Susan time to get outside, giving her cover so to speak. Up to this point I had been able to maintain a straight face.

Susan was out in the hall, laughing so hard that she was nearly in convulsions, then I started laughing too. Our grandson was standing there looking back and forth at us like we had lost our minds and he kept saying What? What? He had no idea of what was going on, and certainly no idea that he was the central cause of it all.

After a few questions it became clear that at the Church my grandson attends, many of the members shout "Hallelujah" instead of Amen; and he of course did the same. However in his eight year old mind he was hearing them shouting "Hell Yeah!", so that is what he shouted. I guess that there were enough people in his Church shouting Hallelujah and shouting it loud enough to drown out his "Hell Yeahs" so that he was never corrected; and he of course thought he was doing it right.

On that long drive home Susan and I would occasionally look at each other and bust up with much need laughter, getting some relief. Since then we have both found that anytime we hear someone shout "Hallelujah" we have a hard time not laughing out loud. This can be difficult in Church.

I have heard that Angels come in different forms and guises; On that day, ours came as a slightly confused, but ever so sincere, eight year old boy with a potty mouth.