Writing about Heaven as an Angel on Earth

It’s been three and a half years since I went to North Easton, Mass. to pray at the grave marker of “Rosary Priest” Father Patrick Peyton for my longtime friend Michael Vallins. The beloved Fr. Peyton, who died in 1992 and is now is in the middle of being beatified as a Saint, was right about two things: “The family that prays together stays together” and “God answers our prayers.” Thank you, Fr. Peyton for answering my prayers. Michael Vallins, told his days on earth were numbered to less than 365 days three and a half years ago, is still here.

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Indeed, though still afflicted with terminal cancer, Michael, whose column appears on today’s Canada Free Press (CFP), is still very much among us. Even as illness plays havoc with his energy levels, Michael Vallins remains much the same as he was before the illness struck: He’s always busy doing something for someone else. Of late, reading books about what Heaven is like and writing about what he’s learned in order to share it with others is how he spends his days. I’ve known Michael longer than most other people in my life ever since that day decades ago when he came down to the Toronto Sun newsroom to have a discussion with me about the number 1 hero of his life, the one he calls “The real Prince of Peace Jesus Christ.” Michael has survived more mental anguish than some of the most beleaguered, the death of a dear brother and the heartache of a Mom in England not wanting to go and live in a nursing home only the most recent. This is the same Mother who found the most charming Prince Harry of her own in a love story whose fire burned brightly until Harry died in 2008, age 96. The same mother about whom Michael once wrote “although her toes and fingers are curled from arthritis, she still plays the piano for the old folks at the Centre she visits weekly.” Through the ups and downs of every day life, Michael hung on to his faith in the Almighty, his perspective and the sense of humour that is the true hallmark of his personality. “Poetry and persistence make for a long life” is his personal motto. When Michael went through a divorce in his 50s, there were those who wondered how he’d ever survive as a bachelor after 30 plus long years as a husband and father. They needed not to have worried. Maudlin and looking back were never for Michael Vallins. Once when realizing I would be living alone again after my significant other of some eight years had been deported back to his Mother Land by Immigration Canada, I asked how difficult it would be adjusting to single life again. Without missing a beat, Michael answered: “Not bad at all when you can toss the empty ice cream carton across the bedroom floor when watching TV, knowing no one’s there to tell you off about it.” Since he couldn’t rehearse cancer as a character role for one of the plays he was writing, he merely ignored it and rehearsed others, including his youngest daughter Esther, who acted in her father’s musical, starring some of his his own original songs, Metamorphoriclally Speakin’, launched at Toronto’s Annex Theatre in Toronto, Sept. 23, 2010. Music is as much in Michael’s heart as his Cockney accent is in ours. Any time he wanted to go off to England to visit his Grandson Seth or to comfort his Mom, he always pretended that the pain that plagues him was a stranger worth not more than a passing nod. Anyone who has ever been in Michael’s company knows for sure that his son, Jesse, is one of the City of Toronto’s top chefs and that his youngest daughter, Esther, is a Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts graduate with a promising future in acting. When thinking of Michael, it’s hard to think of anything sad. That’s because sadness never lived in the same space as Michael Vallins. Reading as many books about Life in Heaven is the past-time he spends most of his waking hours on these days. Writing columns encouraging people that there really is one and that even their pets will be welcome is so Michael Vallins. Before getting his wings for the one above, Michael Vallins is spending a life time making a Heaven on Earth for everyone who knows him.