Angels

I have given it a lot of thought, and as much as I want to, I don’t believe in angels. Well, to clarify, I don’t believe that people become angels when they die. Since March, I have been told many times that God needed another angel or that Kirsten is now a beautiful angel looking over us. I know people say those things to be comforting, and it almost works, but I couldn’t help thinking it through further. I began to wonder if my mother and brother were angels, and if so, who are they looking out for if not me? And my grandparents…on both sides. And their grandparents, and so on and so forth. I started wondering if there were more “angels” than people on earth so I looked it up. Based on estimated population rates since the known appearance of humans on earth, 100,000,000,000 people have died. That’s 100 billion. Given my personal belief in the inherent good of man (thanks to my Dad), I believe a small percentage of those might have gone to “hell,”(if there is such a thing) leaving about 900 billion people who would have become angels. There are currently 6 billion people on earth so that’s 150 angels per person...and this is the best they can do?! Whose side are they on, anyway?! Read any newspaper and you will see that there is a lot of suffering in the world.  And what could be worse than the pain I am enduring now? No, I don’t believe in those angels.

What I do believe in is the possibility that there are angels on earth. That they are in the form of ordinary people... people you know, unappointed servants, unaware that they are quietly carrying out God’s work. They are the people who step up to the plate in times of crisis, like the people who cared for me when I didn’t during that first month. They did laundry, managed visitors and made me eat when I would have let myself starve. They helped with the horrifying details of the funeral and they made me brush my teeth. They were the people who brought meals to us every day of that first month.

I believe that these hidden angels are also the people who take time out of their busy lives to do something to lighten the burden of others. They are the people who send me heartfelt text messages or emails, some of which come at just the right moment, and they are the people who have spent countless hours with me, keeping me company either at home or at coffee shops, allowing themselves, willingly, to be immersed in such anguish and sorrow.

They are the people who have given us thoughtful gifts which help us keep Kirsten’s memory alive…the engraved granite bench next to the pool, the pink cherry blossom tree in the backyard, the beautiful David Yurman charm bracelet with its heart and letter "K" charms on it and the necklace and pendant which was imprinted with Kirsten’s fingerprint at the funeral home, just to name a few.

And they are the people who have faith in me, more faith than I have in myself, who believe that someday I will come back to them.

"I will not wish thee riches, nor the glow of greatness, but that wherever thou go some weary heart shall gladden at thy smile, or shadowed life know sunshine for a while. And so thy path shall be a track of light, like angels' footsteps passing through the night."
   
                       - Words on a Church Wall in Upwaltham England