<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> �Angelic Light�
Eulogy for Sallie Busch Wheeler, 1931-2001
�Angel!� she would command. �Hi, angel.� �I love you, angel.� �Would you be an angel and call me back before noon?� �What an ANGEL he is.�
I have learned more about angels, just thinking of Sallie, and thinking about how to remember her with you, and with the rest of the world, than I ever expected to.
Please let me share some of it with you.
An angel is a messenger. Literally � a messenger. That�s what the word means, and it�s been part of the English language for a thousand years. For at least a thousand years before that, it has been part of the language of mankind, going back to the Hebrew and Persian.
Our angel Sallie brought us so many profound messages from eternity, it was easy to be blinded and dazzled and even confused by that bright a light. So now, with some perspective, we can just begin to see them more clearly.
How did you meet Sallie? Think back to that unforgettable flash in time.
Most of you, I think, might have known who Sallie was, or thought you did, before you met her.
By the grace of God 30 years ago, I did not. I knew who Kenny was, and I kept having to talk to THIS WOMAN to try to get to Kenny. Until I finally, just barely, started to see the light, and accepted her help.
�Angel,� she probably said, �why don�t you let me help you get a message to Mr. Wheeler?� Sallie and I were strangers. As the Bible says, �Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.�
Sallie lived these words. And I was just starting to glimpse the meaning of real love.
Josie Forbes, one brilliant angel in Sallie�s choir, has helped me so much to remember the archangel Sallie, as we all loved her. Like reminding me of the time that someone in Memphis asked Sallie how she got her clothes on with those wings on her back?
We all know her three favorite words were, �I love you.� Followed closely by, �Thank you, darling.� Or, �Thank you, angel.� She loved us and thanked us so much that we were sometimes paralyzed in trying to love her or thank her back � enough. From our standpoint, we never did. From hers, we ALWAYS did.
Sallie seemed to live a fairy tale, and just wanted us to have that ball right along with her. Right from the start, born in a castle, she was intent on enjoying the banquet of life. I remember someone suggesting to me that this was easy for someone like Sallie. As though every one in this room, and in this world, doesn�t know countless people of Sallie�s advantages who yet have no idea whatsoever of how to combine happiness and hard work, love and heartbreak, and joy and sorrow. Overcoming jealousy and envy, especially when they are added mercilessly to every other human obstacle, is not easy. In Sallie�s life, as in no other I have ever witnessed, love and generosity triumphed over all else, no matter what. This is and was foremost among her angelic messages, delivered in all deepest and most sincere humility.
The candle that is Sallie Wheeler flared and flamed, often from both ends, with a bright and lovely light, while other candles of equal advantage and potential firepower only flickered tentatively in comparison. Is it any wonder that she loved fireworks so much, but only the best, biggest time, brightest and loudest ones?! With apologies to Spenser, he would have observed that �her angel�s face as the great eye of Heaven shined bright, and made bright sunshine in every single shady place.�
She loved everything from Virginia to St. Louis, Arizona to California, from caviar to bacon to baloney, Escada to t-shirts, evening gowns to blue jeans, from Madison Square Garden to Roundup, Montana, from Fine Harness to bucking bulls, from Piper to Pardner. I never saw two creatures enjoy themselves and love each other any more than when Piper begged for and then got that command to chase her tail!
Sallie could organize anything from the National Horse Show to Anheuser-Busch to Cismont Manor Farm on a piece of paper or an old utility bill, around the edges, about 4� by 6�, in notes written in her southpaw�s Sanscrit. I asked her one time if I could look at them. �I don�t THINK so,� she winked. I would sit across that kitchen table � command central � up the road at Cismont Manor and make very intelligent and businesslike recommendations to her on something, and she would look at me, raise an eyebrow, and say, �Angel, you know I love you; but you are SUCH a jackass. Let�s just stop this nonsense and have some FUN.�
Like shopping. Now that was Sallie�s idea of fun. And I have to think that what made it the MOST fun for her was just watching those shopkeepers hyperventilate with sheer ecstatic anticipation and joy when she walked through the door or up to the cash register. We were such opposites: I always wanted her to buy some shop out, ring it all up, and then say, �Oh, sorry, I changed my mind,� and watch THAT reaction. True to form, she didn�t see any humor in that at all.
Sallie bought another western saddle last year, and it had to be because of this tooling on it, by an old cowboy saddlesmith:
�There�s two things in life that I really love.
That�s wimmen and horses,
Of this I�m sure of.
So when I die please tan my hide,
And tool me into a saddle-so-fine.
Give me to a cowgirl who likes to ride
So in the hereafter I may rest
Between the two things
That I love best.�
Sallie loved us all, especially family. The big, growing family of children and grandchildren was her priority and first love, above all else. Then, miraculously, she welcomed us all into the family. �But Angel,� she would say, �you HAVE to come. You�re part of the family.� But I think she loved cowboys in a special way, her own bunch the very most, of course, and then anyone else who could ride and rope and wrangle. And by wrangle, I mean anything from water buffalo, to elephants, to tigers, to zebras, zonies, and horses.
She had such great love and respect for horses, and for horsemen.
No horseman was a match � is a match, with all due respect to the other great ones here today � for Kenny. Today is not about Kenny, but it is, too, since Sallie�s wings and glow were always tended � then perfectly groomed, burnished and brightened in his presence, and because of her love and respect for him and his ethics, his abilities, his droll and inscrutable humor, his tolerance and love for her right back, above all else. He is her hero, and it is his soft breeze, always beneath her wings. Her gift to him was and is the gift of the greatest love. Cemented and tempered countless times by fits of uncontrollable laughter and sarcastic joking.
Speaking of gifts, her tangible gifts would without exception arrive at just the right time, not only for all of us, but for so many others � often strangers – everywhere. The strangers who entertained the angel who was Sallie, themselves unawares � a driver, a doorman; a CEO, a tycoon, a traveler in the next seat; a doctor, a prince, a priest, an orphan. We were all orphans and strangers until we met her. She is and was the essence of St. Paul�s brotherly love. A gift to us herself, whether or not we have a tangible remembrance.
So just now, after our too few golden hours with her, our archangel Sallie looked homeward. She heard her father and uncle, and Our Father, and all the cowboys of eternity calling her back. They were calling to say they loved her too much, and needed her love there too much, to let her be gone from them any longer. They needed her help more in heaven right now, than here, because they had so many unexpected arrivals all at once, different kinds of heroes than she. She is needed right now to entertain and minister to more worthy strangers than we were. So when we see the sky sparkling now each night, we know with certainty those are her real diamonds. The most beautiful ones.
The poet of the ages* described Sallie this way hundreds of years ago, in anticipation of her realization in our lives:
SHE was a Phantom of Delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment�s ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight�s, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.
I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature�s daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveler between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
Each one of us was bathed and warmed in Sallie�s angelic light. She told us � over and over again � that we were her angels. She expects us now to celebrate, not mourn, to be always generous of spirit and self, and above all to be not afraid to say, and to mean, as she always did, �I love you.�
[Delivered by Alan F. Balch, president, USA Equestrian, Inc., Keswick, VA, 9/26/01]
*William Wordsworth, 1807
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