Christmas Story - 2009


Every child created on Earth has a guardian angel. Everyone knows that. Even some humans know that. Those humans who have been told have shared their knowledge in their written language. It seems to Daniel like all the humans should know that, even if they don’t exist in the Heavens.
But humans are not made as angels are. Their life experience is so incredibly short and they do not know things the way that angels do. Angels have an awareness not given to humans. Human knowledge is a matter of faith rather than the certainty that angels possess.
Daniel is a young angel. He has an Earth name, but his awareness is still growing and is very limited, less than a hundred Earth years. In human terms, he thinks he would be considered a baby; but he is still awakening to his knowledge of humans so he isn’t certain about that.
Humans, having only a physical body during their time on Earth, have a physical birth. Angels awaken and their body, being heavenly, has no definite shape or form. It changes according to the need. Their birth is probably more like a human coming out of sleep. There is a gradual awareness that grows. Of course, no angel will be All-Knowing. That was the sad downfall of Lucifer to expect or desire that. Daniel’s awareness includes knowledge of Lucifer but not an understanding. How could any being desire to leave the bounds of heaven or the authority of the All Mighty? How could one bear to leave the light and love of life? It was a puzzle, but it did not diminish Daniel’s awareness and peace. It is not his purpose to know.
Angels are created as messengers to humans. Angels carry to humans the awareness of the All Mighty. These messages rarely penetrate the human’s consciousness, and even more rarely translate into the human language. Mostly, angels surround humans and their assigned humans in particular, with a sense of All Mighty love. Daniel doesn’t know if he will one day have knowledge of all heavenly beings. He suspects he might, but in his present form he has, as yet, no need to know.
Daniel knows that a human’s earthly life is only its beginning. He has already been assigned several humans that did not live to the human process of birth. Daniel has been with these children when their spark of life ended on Earth, gently cradling them in his arms, and carrying those tiny souls to the room of simple joy. He can feel the radiance of those tiny souls long before he arrives at their heavenly destination. Each former human child adds to the glow of unending joy. He has no experience as to the others, although he knows there are many rooms beyond his awareness.
As a newly created angel, Daniel is unassigned. He does not yet belong to a particular human. He will soon be assigned a human child at its birth, as all guardian angels are; but for now his assignments are instructional.
Beyond his assignments of the unborn, Daniel has participated in group assignments. One of his first had been a young girl named Lucia White. She had been surrounded by Daniel and a host of angels as her life slipped away from her body. Her guardian angel had embraced her soul at her transition as is the primary purpose of a guardian angel. Daniel’s job had only been to be part of the warmth and love encompassing her as she made the transition. It was the job of some of the others to accompany her and her angel to her heavenly place. Still others were left to sit with her parents in the darkness of their grief. Each angel there knew of the child that was to come to them, but none were allowed to speak his name. No angel questioned this. Their job was only to be a presence in the darkness.
Angels, being heavenly beings, cannot feel pain. Only the Son has been granted that knowledge. As part of the All Mighty, the Son brings both healing and complete empathy to the human creatures. Angels simply bring the message. Angels see human emotion in terms of lightness and darkness. They cannot empathize as the Son can, no matter how deep the darkness nor how great the light. But Daniel remembers the darkness of that room with the two grieving parents. The light of their love for each other was strong but almost overwhelmed by the darkness of their grief. Other humans would visit with varying bits of light to add to their dim but steadfast glimmer. Daniel knew that these bits of light embraced by this sad couple would strengthen their own in time. He also knew that remnants of the darkness would remain throughout their time on Earth. It was part of the mystery, and the first knowledge of any angel is the mystery of the All Mighty.
Daniel is awaiting his assignment. His awareness of the family is growing. His early, learning assignments have touched on several of its members. The mother, not the mother of the child he would be assigned to, but what humans would call the grandmother, had been a bearer of one of those bits of light brought to the grieving parents of Lucia White. He even thought she might have glimpsed a vision of their presence on that cold, wet night while reading in the Holy Book several days later.
One of his assignments to the unborn had been to her friend. And he was not there, but knew the guardian angel that was assigned to her friend’s daughter and the angel who was assigned to the woman’s first-born child on the same Earth day. This first-born child was born with a brilliance of joy into the darkness of the woman’s grief and that of her husband. The battle between darkness and light had been fierce that day. The darkness threatened to encompass the young couple and continued for years trying to extinguish the light of their human love. But the child was born with an extraordinary luminosity that could not be defeated. Daniel knows that it is possible that this human will bear the child of his assignment and his spirit quickens with delight at the possibility.
But he would be content with any assignment from this family. It is a family wondrously gifted with love. Two more children had been given to this human couple. Each one added its own unique brilliance to the strength of an already unusual quantity of human love. Daniel knows that the light is strong in this family and has battled the darkness with great ferocity. He senses the great hatred of Lucifer in the darkness but cannot actually feel hatred. It is an aberration for angels to know hatred in that way, although he is well aware of the capacity of humans to hate. He is glad not to be given an assignment in another part of Earth or into a family of darkness. His own light quivers at the thought of a child surrounded by darkness, whose brief life will hold so little light. Those assignments are given to older angels with the strength to bear it.
It has been an Earth year of many transitions for this family. Again, far fewer than those in other parts of the Earth, but every transition is a challenge to the light of human love. He had been allowed to wait with the family at the transition of the old man they called PaPa, a human that had been given extra years to absorb the light of his grandchildren and to feed their own. Daniel listened as the old man told his stories, letting go word by word of the memories that had darkened and brightened his life. He marveled at the last words spoken to the girls, the peacefulness of the last story told. Daniel followed the boy home, the boy so instrumental in providing the extra human years for this man. Daniel joined his guardian angel in embracing him in his darkness. Daniel was there as the man’s guardian angel waited to welcome him at his last breath and felt the raging storm of light and dark in the young woman who awaited another breath that would never come.
Angels cannot feel pain but expand with love. Daniel burned with love for these three children, one of whom would give him his first assignment. He had not yet been given the knowledge of which of these three would have the child of his first assignment, but he knew their guardian angels and would be told when the time arrived.
His next group assignment was to Betty Bedenbaugh. What a great transition that was! A human of such simple and unwavering faith, Daniel knew that she would be allowed a great reunion with her earthly family. She would once again be reunited with the brother lost to her in her youth, the daughter whose brilliant light had burned so briefly, even by human standards, and her life companion whom she would now follow to their heavenly abode.
Following so closely behind was the mother of this grandmother to Daniel’s assignment, the one humans would call a great-grandmother. Some humans, bound so tightly to their human companions, were allowed a more gradual transition. This was true for this great-grandmother, who loved her mate and her children so intensely that she would not have been able to bear the darkness of loss if left behind at their transition. She was allowed to suffer physically while her spirit was gently released. In the final Earth days, the thread-like ties that bound her to her body were almost transparent.
The light in her transition room was incredibly bright. The voices of these humans touched on heavenly song with the strength of their love and faith as they sang to her their beloved human hymns. The grandmother of his own assignment was so overcome by the power of her grief that she nearly collapsed. Daniel looked to her angel wondering if she would accompany her mother, but he nodded the negative. She left the room, not the Earth. The transition took place in her absence. Her daughter (another possible mother to his assignment) also left the room, determined to stay by her mother’s side. She, too, was spared the darkness of this woman’s passing. It is a great challenge to be present at a transition and can take an immense toil on the human spirit. Daniel, with his knowledge of heaven, did not quite understand this. It seems that even humans of faith can not see clearly to the heavenly places. Some do see, but as through a heavy mist.
The mate, with a quiet strength beyond even his own understanding, was left in the darkness of her passing, surrounded by a host of unassigned angels to assist his own guardian angel to battle his grief. His earthly family pooled their light to encompass his darkness. Once again, Daniel felt the gratitude of being given this family for his first assignment. There was great love and great light here. Daniel knows that there are transitions where the only light is the light provided by angels. Daniel’s strength is not sufficient for that kind of transition. He knows that if the darkness is great enough, the Son will accompany the guardian angel and the assigned human to their heavenly destination. For there is no darkness beyond the strength of the Son, who has traveled to the place of ultimate darkness and conquered it with All Mighty light.
Daniel knows that his assigned human will know darkness. Each of the three children that might bear his assignment has struggled with his and her own darkness. The eldest of the three experienced her first major transition with the passing of her PaPa. This darkness followed the darkness of the threatened loss of her chosen mate on Earth. Daniel knew that she had been granted last words to ease her darkness. The second daughter has long battled the darkness, facing her first transitions as a child. The battle between darkness and light has long been a part of her life and she has fought it with great human courage. The son, a child given as a bonus blessing to the human couple, battles an inner darkness akin to his own father’s struggles, but the bond between these two men are more powerful in their light than in their darkness.
All of these children are encircled by the steadfast love of their parents, their grandparents, their aunts and uncles and cousins, and their many friends. This abundance of love produces a fiery glow within Daniel at the thought of joining his light to theirs. He knows that the darkness will never quench their light.
Daniel understands that as a beginning angel he has been given a “soft” assignment, an assignment that will bring him much joy and strength. Daniel even has enough awareness to know that this joy and strength is given to him to assist him in his later, more difficult assignments. He is content.
It is close to the time the humans have chosen to celebrate the coming of the Son as a human baby. Daniel knows of the spark of light that is given each year to the woman who will be called grandmother to his assigned human. Each year he has watched her fret and worry that the spark won’t come. This year has been no different in that respect. However, this year, with her heart heavy with the compounded grief of an Earth year full of transitions, she has been sent two bits of light, each one bringing a healing touch to a tender place of pain.
The first was sent for the freshest human loss, the beloved friend of her husband and her family, an unexpected blow and a negative response to her plea to the All-Mighty. The second, awakening her from near sleep, was sent to provide some relief for the more encompassing pain of the great unknown that always seems to accompany a transition. Humans have such limited understanding of the All Mighty and the Heavens, even humans of faith.
The woman’s vivid imagination that allows her an occasional glimpse of heavenly things also gives her too clear a view of the darkness. She is very sensitive to the darkness, even when it is a great distance from her personal experience. But recently, there has been much darkness in her tiny human sphere. In addition to the transitions in her immediate family, there had been the one-in-a-million cancer that preceded the transition of her sister’s friend, the tragic young girl who made the transition by her own hand, reminding her as always of her own young friend, and the beloved son whose family sat long Earth months by his side, celebrating his life as they awaited his transition. Finally, there was the mother of her student, found by the adoring son after the transition had been made, a darkness that could never be erased on Earth.
Daniel and her guardian angel smile indulgently as the woman seeks to bring closure to this difficult year with her annual Christmas story. These transitions, deaths in the human language, crowd her mind as she writes, wondering how to do any justice to the impact on their lives. Daniel knows that there is no ending to her story because the story doesn’t end. Daniel knows of the joy in her future. Daniel can see the abundance of light awaiting this woman, her husband and all of her children. He can even see the healing that is to come for those around her, the ones whose pain so troubles her as she writes. Daniel watches as her guardian angel draws closer, engulfing the grieving woman as she struggles to find the right words. She is loved. That is both the beginning and ending of her story.

Christmas message - Steve

Ever since I’ve known my husband, he’s had two best friends, David Goudelock and Steve Ellis. David was the family sanctioned best friend from the first grade, safe as your grandmother, steeped in Old South family tradition, and calm as a mountain lake. Steve was the college-found friend, eons away from tradition, passionately opinionated, and as original as a Galapagos Islands lizard.
David and Steve were the only non-relatives in our hastily put together wedding. David was there by Kerry’s side, probably discussing Clemson athletics. Steve arrived late and was wondering if anyone had picked up his tuxedo. I don’t know that I had met either friend before, but it’s possible that I had…. at least at the rehearsal dinner. But the whole wedding thing is a bit of a whirlwind in my memory and I don’t remember much of anything about the night before. What I do remember is that Steve made me smile from that very first day. He still makes me smile just thinking about the look on his face when he walked in the church and it suddenly struck him that he might need something different to wear.
We lost Steve this year. Barely more than six months after our long goodbye to PaPa and four months after our longer goodbye to my mother, we said an all-too-sudden goodbye to Steve. Lost is a good word for how it feels. When we first heard the news, we kept walking into different rooms, trying to find the one where his death was a mistake, a place where this significant person in our lives and our history was still with us. It was not to be. Steve was suddenly gone without even the chance to bid him farewell.
We’ve had a warm autumn. The first frost almost always comes around my mother’s birthday, October 22. This year, her birthday came and went with the warm sunny days of an Indian summer. Our azalea bushes in the front yard became very confused. In late October, they begin to bloom with incongruous white flowers. Every year, except for the first, I’ve taken our experiences of the year and woven them into a story of fiction, full of metaphor and symbolism of what the year has held. This year, as in my first year, circumstances have intervened. The story I might have written may emerge in the future, capturing a different set of circumstances. I don’t know. I just know that right now, my skill at metaphor falls too short. This year my pen will bleed openly. This year I give tribute to one who has left us for the next reality, the one we see through faith, but in the end, the one that is the great unknown.
My next strong memory of Steve comes from our trip out West together. We had just learned that I was pregnant and I was no longer blinded by Kerry’s credit card and real job, neither of which I brought to our marriage. My thrifty genes inherited from Mom Fowler kicked in and I didn’t think we could afford it. Of course, we went anyway. We are never going to have expensive furniture, designer clothes or any of the rest of the things that are so important to American suburbia. But Kerry and I are going to have adventures, and taking a trip with Steve would ALWAYS be an adventure.
I don’t have to repeat the oft-told stories of 500+ mile days or Steve and I wrestling over the steering wheel. These are legend in our family. But I think I do owe Steve a great debt for the incredible education this trip was. I felt like I was traveling with a full time guide. Was there anything Steve didn’t know about or had read about? I began to see the attraction of these two men. Both of them had found in the other another brilliant, inquisitive mind. I’ve always liked being around really smart people. It took me a long time to figure out that I was smart, too, because I wasn’t brilliant. But it’s like Churck Kriese says – you should always play people in tennis that can beat your butt 95% of the time. And it’s true. All those brains can’t help but rub off on you, at least a little.
So I learned first-hand of Steve’s intelligence on that trip, an intelligence that went way beyond his passion for sports, which I must admit, interested me much less. I was a sports enthusiast when I could play, but I’ve never been excited about reading about sports, and I’m a terrible spectator. I yell at the refs and the players and tried to kick the ball in my imagination at my children’s soccer games. (And I never even PLAYED soccer.) Steve probably couldn’t tell because of our conflict over the driving, but I came really to like him on that trip out West.
I started loving Steve after Shosha was born.
Steve loved children. I always thought that Steve would have a child of his own. One of my hardest challenges in accepting Steve’s death is that I thought this would be the life changer. I could see some 10 year old foster kid coming into Steve and Karen’s life and benefiting from their love. I thought that was the reason for the heart attack, to slow Steve down and turn his passion towards another child who needed him. I still have trouble understanding that it was the end, that Steve’s passion was stilled. There must be a special room in heaven where Steve is playing with other children. I just thought it would be here on Earth.
I can’t imagine anyone better suited to being a daddy than Steve Ellis. Steve collected children wherever he went. Steve had the same kind of aura my mother had. Strange children would come up to Steve and feel perfectly safe. At Steve’s memorial, the best stories were the ones about his love and involvement with children. I think Steve loved every child he ever met. He practiced all he could on Brandon, and I have no doubt that Steve couldn’t love Brandon any more than if he did hold that beloved title of father. But Steve was to Brandon what he was to all of us. He was Steve.
Shosha was not the easy conquest. She was wary of men and didn’t stray too far from her mommy and daddy in those early days. So Steve plied my daughter with marshmallows. He wanted to be her friend and when Steve decided to do something, he did it. I can still picture him sitting in a chair at that spacious kitchen we had in Six Mile with the wooden floors and the windows looking out over the backyard. Shosha studied him with suspicious eyes and a sweet tooth. She liked those soft puffs of sugar and figured she could scream her way out of anything this man did that she didn’t like. She crept slowly forward, her eyes never leaving his face while encompassing the marshmallow. Steve held it away from his body with the utmost patience. Like the cautious young creature she was, Shosha snatched it from his hand and retreated to watch him as she ate it. In the same way many a wild animal has been lured to a forbidden picnic table in a national park, Shosha crept closer and distanced herself less after each sugary treat. Soon, they were on the floor playing. By the time Maura and Nicholas arrived, my children had figured out, as Maura so aptly put it, that when Steve came around, he brought the party with him.
Steve didn’t get to know Nicholas as much as I could have wanted, both for Steve and for Nicholas. I do remember him asking if Nicholas had a name because we always called him “the boy.” I think that bothered Steve, and maybe it bothered Nicholas. We were just so overwhelmed by this new experience of having another male in the family that it just seemed natural to refer to him as “the boy.” But we got busy and there was less time with Steve in those later years than there should have been. It will remain a great regret for me.
Nicholas would have loved a time like our time together at St. George’s. Let’s face it. Steve was fun. We met Steve and Patty and Brandon at this great house on the beach. Shosha and Brandon were almost the same age, and Maura was almost as tall as Brandon and was sure she could do anything to be with Shosha on equal terms. Steve introduced the children to hunting ghost crabs with a flashlight, built elaborate sand castles with them on the beach, and on a boat trip to a small island, taught us all about the various shells found in that area. It was like having Rudy Manke walk the beach with us.
I don’t remember doing anything wildly spectacular or taking any long distance trips on that vacation. It was just nice. It was friends being together and enjoying each other and the children. It was what I wish Steve had more of. Not that he didn’t have a million friends and didn’t travel the world, enjoying all that each place had to offer. But there was a simplicity we shared there. That is what I would have given Steve more of. Steve didn’t slow down much, and I don’t remember us rushing to do anything during our time together at St. George’s.
When we first heard of Steve’s heart attack, I knew we needed to go see him. Kerry had already been worried about him, didn’t like the way he looked at the Florida State game. We immediately began to plot and plan how we could find a couple of days to get to Florida. We didn’t make it. Steve died before we could get there.
I hate the abruptness of Steve’s death. I have learned the importance of last words. But I also know that last words are a gift, not a given. That’s why it is so important to say to the people we love what we want to say while we can. We are only given today.
I will never forget my experience in Joyce Kilmer when I was stung by all those bees and thought I was going to die. My head felt the size of a huge pumpkin and my body felt so strange. I wanted to say last words. I wanted to let Kerry know how much he had given me, how completely blessed I was to have had the time together that we had had. I wanted to tell him how much I loved our children and how I was so grateful for every day I had spent with them.
I didn’t die that day. But I’ve never forgotten the experience. I knew already from Courtney’s death and Jeanne’s suicide that life is unpredictable and that all the life we have is the one we have in the present. The bees that day were another reminder, as was our sudden loss of Steve.
My Christmas story every year is a thinly disguised, annual sermon given to my children to make them cry, they think. But it is a sermon I really give to myself. So this is the point. This is my Christmas message to me and to all of those I love. Christmas is about paying attention to the man who showed us how to live with good intention and proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven has come. It is here. It is now. Let us celebrate.