Angel

    “Wow,” the girl exclaimed as she gazed up at the clear night sky. It was one of those November nights, when the air is freshly cold. It made the girl conscious of her surroundings. All was quiet. She stood, alone, sure-footed, and stock-still on the shore of a white-sanded barrier island. In the sky, she saw a configuration of clouds – just in one spot – directly over her head – that appeared to be the most amazing angel ever. The beautiful figure moved slowly across the sky, and behind her was a trail of stars, emanating from her robes. The girl wondered if the stars were the angel’s dust as she made her way toward the moon, or, if they – the stars themselves – were so awestruck with the creature, that they could not help but follow her.
         The girl had a sad look about her. It was not that she was sorrowful, it was rather like she was missing something. This girl was loved, and she loved others, but she searched for something – something that she was unaware of – and the quest, so far, had not been fruitful.
         While looking at the angel, her face showed expressions of wonder and amazement, of joy and recognition. The smile she now wore was authentic. It incorporated her eyes.
         The girl did not want to stop looking up, and she tried to prevent her eyes from blinking even once. Finally, the urge overtook her, and she blinked. When her eyes reopened, the angel stood before her – on the beach – right in front of her! She was surprised and had to take a step back, even if just so she could feel her feet in the sand, and know that she was still real. That she was still awake.
         The angel was blueish-silver and gold sparkling light and her trail of stars now seemed to rest on the sand. The girl noticed that they seemed to breathe. She was overwhelmed by the angel’s beauty, and she hoped that one day she, too, could be looked upon with such admiration and love. The girl opened her mouth to speak, but no sound would come out. The angel smiled.
         “No need for words now,” the angel spoke. Her voice was like the ocean, like a cello, like the sound of the wind in the trees on a March day, like the cacophony of birds all singing the same song at once.
         The girl then took notice of the angel’s wings. They looked as fragile as spun sugar, glistened like a spider web, and moved with the majesty of a great butterfly.
         “You…are so…beautiful,” the girl managed to stammer out. She reached out her hand, so overcome with the desire to make contact with this ethereal being, but she retracted it suddenly. The angel lifted one hand to the girl’s cheek. The touch felt warm and smooth and alive. The girl could feel all the things she heard when the angel spoke. It was as if uncreated light had touched her cheek.
         “As are you,” the angel replied, after what seemed to the girl to be decades that passed.
         “You are searching for something that only a very few will ever find,” the angel said to the girl, who was not for a second taking her gaze from the angel. She wanted to soak her in, to bathe in her life force, in her essence, as a sunbather does the sun. She wanted the angel to leave a mark on her – to change her in some way – so that she knew the angel was real. She touched her own cheek, hoping to find a silvery-gold remnant of the angel’s touch. All she found was the softness of her own skin.
         The girl collected her thoughts and said, “I have everything that I want or need. I am right where I want to be.”
         “But do you know who you are? Do you know how beautiful you are? Can you see your own life force?” asked the angel.
         The girl responded, “I just want to enjoy the beauty before me. I can ask for nothing more.”          
         The angel placed her magnificently sweet hands on the girl’s cheeks. “I could show you meteor showers so plentiful that you could not count the streaks of light in them; dandelions so large that the seeds of one would cover the moon. I can show you supernovas and colors that you cannot even imagine exist. I can teach you to fly above the mountain tops. You could swim in the deepest parts of the ocean and still breathe, gazing upon such wonders that your mind would seemingly bend. You could converse with the dolphins. I can take you to the far reaches of the universe. But that is not what I am here for. That is not what you are looking for.”
         The girl averted her eyes for a moment, and she was compelled to search her own heart for what the angel meant. She sighed softly.
         “The sadness in your eyes…it is the pain of not loving yourself…thinking that you are ordinary…that your spirit does not show outwardly,” the angel said knowingly.
         The girl looked deep into the angel’s soft earthy eyes. Again, an eternity seemed to pass before the angel said, “I want you to see something that is beyond breathtaking and tangibly real. You can feel my light, my life, and you can see my beauty, can you not?” The girl nodded, her eyes transfixed on the angel.
         The angel knelt in the sand and produced a jagged shard of a mirror.  She held it up. The girl shook her head, not wanting to see herself. The angel smoothed the girl’s hair, and brushed her cheek once again. She held up the mirror. The girl hesitated. The angel nodded, reassuring the girl that it would be all right.
         When the girl’s eyes finally saw her own reflection, she gasped and covered her mouth for a moment. Tears dropped down her cheeks like tiny crystals. She saw all the beauty and light and color that was the angel. She was mesmerized and simultaneously perplexed.
         “How is it…that…I see…you?” she quietly asked.
         “It is not me that the mirror reflects. It is you. It is love. It is beauty. It is life. It is all the things that you are,” the angel said in her sing-song voice. “I am here to show you how you appear to the world. Your radiance precedes and follows you. The air around you is captivating. Stars want to go wherever you go. You show people how to live in light, in peace, in joy. You are free to roam the night sky.”
         The girl smiled brilliantly and stars fell out of her hair.
         “You make me believe that I can love myself for who I am…if this,” and she pointed at the reflection in the mirror, “is who I am.”
         The angel nodded, “It is. Believe.”
         The girl erupted in glorious laughter, the crystal tears still dropping. She closed her eyes as she tilted her head back to laugh deeper. When she opened her eyes, the angel was gone. She looked up and down the beach, in the sky, but she was completely alone, and the mirror was laying in the sand.
         She shouted, “Thank you!” and then laughed again. “You brought me love and understanding when I didn’t even know I was lacking it. I feel free. I am beautiful. I am exactly who I am supposed to be.”
         Walking toward the parking lot, the girl appeared as she did before the angel’s visit – outwardly unchanged, yet she was internally transformed. A trail of stars followed her.