When I turned in my last blog about my angel mother, I got a nice surprise from my colleague, Brooke Obie, who works on the digital team. She came over to my desk, smiling big. “Speaking of mothers…” she said kind of shyly, and clicked around for a second on her phone. Then she showed me a picture she’d snapped. I took the phone to see better.

“I caught Mom unexpectedly,” Brooke said, “after she’d fallen asleep while reading.” Brooke’s mom’s hand was resting on an open book, and I was taken with the elegance of the woman’s long piano fingers, her manicured nails, her pretty wedding ring. Simply a hand on a book, but somehow such a peaceful scene. Then I turned the photo a bit, curious to make out what it was Brooke’s mom was reading. A devotional book of some sort. But Brooke and I had never shared family photos before. Why was she showing me this one now? I looked up at her, wondering.

“Look at the bookmark,” she said. “It’s from our magazine!” Sure enough, an Angels on Earth bookmark held her mom’s place.

I work mostly in print, Brooke works mostly on digital. We can get caught up in our busy schedules and go days without so much as a hello. But I love knowing that my colleague across the way and I have at least one essential thing in common, our angel mothers.

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