An Angel

The wind gushed out of the clouds and whipped her auburn hair behind her, stinging her face as specks of snow flicked her face and made her cheeks red.  She felt as though the weather was mirroring her mood as she walked along, feeling barren and cold.  The doctors explained to her that it had to be done, she had no other choice.  Her iron count was much too low and her periods were only making it worse.  She begged for another way, anything.  She had even offered to take that vile iron medicine, metallic sludge pouring down her throat, every day.  The doctors simply shook their heads, sat her down and explained to her and her husband that she needed this operation or she would be much too weak.
So here she was, walking through the park as the wind made the precious few leaves that were left clinging precariously to the branches cackle and laugh at her since they were soon to become barren like the very tree that they clung so dearly too.  A bench, coated in a light layer of snow, sat at the side.  Mechanically, her body drifted over, wind still lashing out at her.  She brushed off the new snow with her leather glove, water grasping her fingers as she wiped.  The bench, wooden and sodden, slowly soaked her coat and brought a terrible chill throughout her body.  She could care less.
Her husband tried to be there for her.  They hadn't had children yet but he tried to assure her that it was alright that they adopt.  She could not seem to make him understand that she did not want to adopt.  She wanted a child of her own, to come from her own womb.  Now, it was destined to be taken away from her.  He held her tightly and tried to explain to her that it would be alright but she knew it wouldn't be.  She was close to the point where she just wanted to take a knife and drive it through the uterus that was causing all the problems.  But what would that leave?  A dead, bloody woman who had nothing to do with her life other than mope that she could not have children.
"Excuse me, miss?" a meek voice tintinbulated.  She looked up, not realizing that tears were now falling from her face.  A little boy stood there, looking at her.  Quickly, she wiped the tears away.
"Yes?  Can I help you?" she asked hurriedly.  He stood there, looking at her with his inquisitive cherubim eyes. 
"Why are you crying?" he asked.  A million thoughts raced through her head and she wondered what she could tell such a young child.  She shook her head.  Was she to spill her heart to a little boy who did not even know what it meant to have a child?  What foolishness was this?  Calmly, he scampered up on the bench next to her and started to look at her like an animal in the zoo.  Only, it was not a kind of beastial wonder.  Instead, it seemed like it was something like marveling at a strange yet beautiful feat that was unraveling before his tender eyes.
"I was crying over... grown-up stuff," she explained away, hoping the little boy would stop staring at her.  Instead, he took her leathered glove into his own tiny mittens. 
"My mommy cries over grown-up stuff too.  She tells me all the time to stay young and then she tells me how I'm growing up so fast.  That makes me sad when she says that but she says that things will get better as I grow older so I just think of that," the little boy explained.  He patted her hand like a dear old friend would do and proceeded to stare into her soul with his angelic blue eyes.  "Don't you have something to look forward to when you grow older?"
"Yea, dying..." she muttered under her breath.  "Where is your mother hun?  She must be worried about you," she replied, looking around.  The little boy shrugged.
"I lost her," he explained very matter-of-factly.  No tears glistened on his tiny face, only the snow flakes that were pelting him and making his face look like a cherry.  The woman shot up.
"You lost her?  And you're so calm!" she exclaimed, amazed how this child was not lying face-first in the snow, tantrum going at full force and shrieking how he wanted his mother.  The little boy shrugged again.
"Why should I cry?  It won't get anything done.  That's what my daddy taught me.  He said you can shed some tears sometimes but you should try and change things so you don't cry before you start crying.  He tells my mommy that she shouldn't cry, that things will get better and she just has to work for it.  So I've been working for it.  I've been looking all over the park for my mommy."  She looked at him, surprised that such a small child could be so sagacious.  Gently, she took his hand.
"Let's get you home," she said and brought him to her car to bring to the police station so they could find his mother.

"Where were you all day?" her husband asked as she tramped through the door, shaking snow out of her hair.
"I was off saving small children," she said.  Her husband laughed, taking it to be sarcastic.
"I was starting to get a little worried about you," he commented as she sat on the floor to pull off her boots.  "I thought that something might have happened, quite honestly.  But I told myself you would be fine and all..."  A tear slipped out of his eyes.  She noticed immediately and raced over, brushing the tear away.
"Love, don't cry.  It's OK, I'm here now."  She wrapped her arms around him and he held her close.  Softly, she whispered, "I'm going to get the operation."  He pulled away from her and stared into her eyes.  She was so animate before about not getting it.
"Why the change of heart?" he asked.  She sighed heavily inside and gathered her courage.
"I was told that you shouldn't cry if you can change something.  I don't want to do this but I need to change it.  I need to be healthy.  And then, if I want, I can make it better by adopting.  I will never know what it is like to have a child in my womb but I will know what it's like to be a mother and that's good enough."  Her husband kissed her gently.
"I'm so proud of you, hun.  It must have been a hard decision to make," he said, holding her tightly.  She shook her head.
"It just took an angel to tell me," she said and went off into the kitchen.