JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Many believe in angels that watch over us. Sometimes, though, it's the angels among us whose extraordinary deeds make a difference in someone's life.
"I lost my best friend," Tammy Shipp said in tears.
Her mom had just passed away. She had an aneurysm and then was in a coma.
"The doctors talked to us and said there was no hope," Shipp said. "She'd never come back. And so we had to let her go."
Tammy says her mom always loved Christmas and angels.
She'd even said one time about some day being Tammy's "guardian angel," when she passed away. Of course, no one saw the medical crisis coming, which took her life.
Tammy says she last saw her mom on her Dad's birthday. She wasn't ill then.
"She just hugged me really tight and said, 'I love you, Tam,'" she recalled with tears falling down her cheek.
Tammy planned to have special angel ornaments at her mom's funeral. She waited and waited, she says, for the Amazon delivery. But it never came.
Now it was less than 48 hours from the funeral service.
"I was panicking," Shipp said.
She called First Coast News anchor Jeannie Blaylock. Jeannie and her colleagues tried to brainstorm to see if they could help.
But it was so last-minute.
However, First Coast News Digital Content Producer Mindy Wadley, had an idea.
She remembered a story from an FCN reporter on a place called Atlantic Beach Arts Market on Mayport Road. The large spot hosts hundreds of local artists and their crafts and artwork.
So Jeannie called the arts market and asked for the owner. Chelsea Leonard called back immediately.
We explained the situation and she hopped right on to the mission and called artist Lynda Marquardt.
"It was very last minute, the night before the service," Shipp said. She is still amazed what the artists stepped up to do.
Turns out Lynda was in Orlando helping with Special Olympics. But she had her paints with her.
"I had an order for a thousand Christmas cards," Marquardt said.
A lot on her plate. But did she say, "Sorry, but I don't have time?"
No. Lynda specializes in painting angels.
"My maiden name is 'Seraphin,' which means angels in Polish," she said.
Of course, "seraphim" has many different connotations, depending on which part of Biblical or literary history you choose as a focus. But to Lynda, it means an helpful angel.
Her booth at Atlantic Beach Arts Marker is called "Seraphin Angels," she says, because it honors her dad, who died in 2005.
"The gift of angels is very spiritual," Lynda said. "As artists, we work to give," and that is why, she says, they all teamed up to help.
She painted angels for 50 ornaments, which her artists' team mounted on wood pieces to hang. Tammy adorned fir trees at her mom's funeral with the handmade angel ornaments.
They gave them all -- totally free-- to Tammy.
"Thank you, ladies," Tammy told them with a group hug. "What you did really meant a lot to me."
As Chelsea and Lynda point out, it's the perfect mission for Christmas.
Nothing asked for in return. Just 50 angels --- made by human angels, who care.
