HE HAD LOST HIS   TWELVE-YEAR SON TO LEUKEMIA. SOME YEARS BACK. . HE AND HIS WIFE WERE AT A LOST, HE MORE THAN HER AND AFTER YEAR OR SO HE SUNK DEEPER IN HIS SORROW.  HIS MARRIAGE WAS ON THIN ICE SO ONE DAY AS HE WAS DRIVING IN ANOTHER TOWN HE SAW A CHURCH SO HE STOPPED AND WENT IN. HE TOLD THE RECEPTIONISTS THAT WANTED TO TALK TO A MINISTER.  HE WAS TOLD TO GO DOWN THE HALL WAY TO THE SECOND DOOR AND THAT A MINISTER WOULD BE THERE SHORTLY. IN A FEW MINUTES A YOUNG MINISTER ENTERED THE ROOM    AND HEARD HIS STORY.  THE MINISTER WAS QUITE VERSED IN THE BIBLE AND RECEPTIVE TO HIS    GRIEF. A HALF HOUR OR SO THE MEETING ENDED HE THANKED THE MINISTER AND LEFT FEELING A TREMENDOUS BURDEN HAD BEEN LIFTED OFF HIS SHOULDERS AND JOY IN HIS HEART ONCE AGAIN... 

HE WENT HOME AND TOLD HIS WIFE ABOUT HIS MEETING EARLIER WITH THE MINISTER AND FROM THERE ON HIS MARRIAGE GOT BACK TO NORMAL.

     A MONTH OR SO WENT BY AND AS HE WAS DRIVING HE SAW THE CHURCH AGAIN AND THOUGHT THAT HE SHOULD THANK THE MINISTER WHO HAD HELPED HIM WITH HIS MARRIAGE AND GRIEF.  HE WENT IN AND SPOKE TO THE SAME RECEPTIONIST AS BEFORE.  ASKING TO SEE THE YOUNG MINISTER. ? THE RECEPTIONIST SAID: " WE HAVE NO YOUNG MINISTER HERE.”HE SAID: "OH YES THIS ONE WAS IN HIS TWENTIES.WITH RED HAIR, DON'T YOU REMEMBER ME? SHE SAID NO.AND THEN TOLD HIM THAT HE MUST HAVE THE WRONG CHURCH THAT THEIR THE MINISTER   WAS IN HIS FIFTIES AND HAD BEEN THERE FOR YEARS.  SHE ASKED IF HE WANTED TO MEET HIM? HE SCRATCHED HIS HEAD SAID NO AND LEFT.

     I SAID: "THE ONLY CONCLUSION WAS THAT IT MUST HAVE BEEN AN ANGEL."

She came into my life when I was at the lowest ever time. I had done the whole road through drink, gambling, small drugs and finally big time. I was literally crawling in the gutter looking for my next fix, when the Silver Rolls stopped and the driver ran into the local 7-11 forsomething.

She was sitting in the passengers seat, idly gazing around lost in a world of her own when she saw me crawling along.

She should have recolied, and even screamed, but she opened her window and leaning across gave me $10 and a card. She made me promise I would call them before I begged again. I have no idea why she selected me, and I also have no idea why, when I woke up a few days later, shivering and cramped and totally at the end of my road, that I actually took her card to a taxi and gave it to the driver who followed the written instructions.

I could not have paid the fare, nor could I have given the instructions. I was gone.

They called themselves the 'Sisters of Charity' and the name alone nearly put me out running in the street again, but when one has gone as low as I had, there was nowhere to go, and in my haze even I knew that I was beaten.

By now my brighton home had gone, my wife was living with my best friend, and he had taken his half of the business, and with the half that my ex managed to get out of me when we divorced, they held the majority in what was my business, and I knew when I was beaten. I gave her the other half for my children, and closed the doors on what was my life.

For almost an year I hit the beat. The little I had was soon gone, and the dole barely kept me in cigerettes. Hard living took toll of my shape and I had survived by rolling those who were even worse off than me, and keeping an eye on the girls, but they gave up on me too, and the last ponce actually beat me up and warned me off the beat that was mine.

I was totally on my last level when the Silver Rolls rolled along.

They took em in, they cleaned me up, they tied me to a bed and let me scream until the DT's let me be.

What woke me up was her face. I had a new dream...I was going to bring myself back to what I had, and seek another angel. I saw her a few times and never ever knew whether she was in my dreams or whether she had come to see the dregs she had rescued.

As I healed, I made new friends. Others like me sharing the climb out of hell back to Purgatory. I am not going to tell you it was easy, but those Nuns or whatever they were who called themselves names like 'Sister Rose' and 'Sister Petal' were no soft touches. They were carved out of solid granite and behind their wispy silences, they simply were machines created to make a derelict whole.

Soon I was sitting in the park again with a mate or two, but now we wore faded hand me downs, and we were clean and we could converse and share dreams. We all had one dream, to leave here and start again.

One Saturday, she came there, and sat with us on the grass, and chatted as if she was another young girl chatting to charity, except we were no charity. We were real people who had let life deal us a card we had played wrong.

Then she invited us to her wedding, when I told her his own daughter had not let  Old Joe see her get married in the Toorak Cathedral.

"Never mind' she laughed. 'Thats all passed now, and if you guys like you can come and see me get married next Saturday."

We all got scrubbed up and went. Her old bitch of a mother nearly would not let us in, but we waited till her car came, and she smiled and shook our hands, and we followed her in and sat in the back, and her mother glared at us the whole service.

We never cared...she was our angel.

She would never have known, but this was to be the turning point in our lives...the next aftger the card was handed to us. Joe, Nick and I made a pledge to start again, and the Three Muskets started and today we run a very successful company, and my debts are now a matter for Joe whose skilled accounting and eye for the share kept us ahead, whilst martin searched out investors, and I put the money and the action together and kept us afloat.

We did it with her help. We did not know at the time, but the Sisters were out first investor, and we did not question where the money came from, simply took it as anothet miracle in the life that was suddenly dealing us winning hands instead of losers.

I smiled and stretched out for another glass of Spring Water, and smiled seeing it came from Kyneton where David lived. He too had invested rfather heavily in  our companies, and we had rewarded all our investors very well in those first ten years. I was almost back where I started before the high life got me and we were all careful to stay clean and use our talents the right way.

The inevitable happened. It was Madeline who took Joe to the Party, and there she, without realising what she was doing, or did she realise what she was doing, linked us to the "Dirty Trio" as I was to call them later...