Guardian Angel Request:

I have made a deal with my Guardian Angel. There are some mysteries I would like cleared up. Now seems not the time. However, after my death, no longer bound by time and space, I want some answers.

I want to go back and look at my family, to see myself as a baby, as a small child and look at my interactions with family. I want to see my sister.....watch her formed the contorted way she is today. What happened to make us the way we are?

I mourn lost opportunities to talk to my elders....people who died when I was too young to know them as peers. I want to see my Aunt Jen and see her life. How did she keep house? What about her school teaching years? Years as a housekeeper for a farmer? What about her private self, her worries and her pleasures? I want to understand the times she lived in. It is too late for me to interview my great uncle Martin Mohr. Perhaps I can watch him paint decorative finishes on furniture and learn how He did it, smell the turpentine, see the house once again as it was long time ago, hear my Aunt Rose play the piano, get her recipe for ketchup.

I want to see my parents as children. I want to see my grandparents as parents, as adults coping with their lives. I want to see them coming and going in their houses, greeting other relatives, baking bread, starching clothes.

I want to experience again, those lovely times when things are new, when my ears worked perfectly, joints moved effortlessly, taste buds were fresh, nose clear. I want to see those summer thundershowers at the lake when worms crawled over the sidewalks to keep from drowning. Once more I want to gather hailstones and watch them melt in a glass.

If I could, I would go back to my world in World War 2. I would review life without television, only radio. There was no insult of noise on the streets, no roar of traffic, lawn mowers, leaf blowers. Wouldn't it be wonderful to hear the man getting off the streetcar, home from work, whistling as He walked home? How nice to see my parents, in complete silence, reading books for recreation. I want to visit the corner store once more for ice cream or a candy bar.

Once more, I, to go down in the basement to see my father grinding crystals for his radio set, watching movies on a sheet hung from the ceilings, listening once more to his explanation about magnetism and astronomy, radio waves, and that there are fossils in the coal bin. Yes there are. I found them.....leaf prints.

Oh, to see my children as babies again, to have those memories replayed. Melanie as a one year old, taking a walk on Matty Ave., saying to herself, "Take a walk. Take a walk."

Beth, in her blue sweater, playing at the front door, squatting down to see a bug. I want to hold them again....pouring love over them....holding them for a long time before I let them go. I want my parents to hold me as I was....to hold me and to hold me, until I have had enough touching. I was never held enough....still hungry for a hug.

Unbounded by distances, I want to visit nebula and star systems, peek in at other cultures on inhabited worlds. I would visit a planet unspoiled by human footprint or human exploitation. I would soar between the trees, leaving no mark, talking to the life forms ther, singing with their birds, swimming with their fishes, delighting in the air and sunshine in perfect harmony with nature. Even the apple blossoms filled with the joy of the manifestation of life, laugh and giggle.

The sorrow of getting older is saying goodbye to people I have loved. My world is emptying, too fast, too fast. My losses are not only people, but of events and circumstances. Which job did I gladly leave? None of them. Each one dissolved under me for reasons outside my control....a transfer out of state, grant money drying up, corporate decision to downsize. It took me 24 years to adjust to leaving Syracuse....to leave my little green house and Syracuse Friends Meeting....my anchors in a gray life.

Oh, if my life were longer, I would return to teaching young children, return to the Hartford Loss Control Department, have the same peers, have the same challenges and satisfactions. I would need another life to spend in quiet artistic pursuit...to paint, sketch, make music. Grant me yet another lifetime devoted to becoming a musician and composer for the purpose of gifting the world with musical harmony.

Perhaps this is small of me, but I want those who hurt me, to be in my place and experience what they did to me. Let them feel the terror, fear, stress, shame, hurt, abandonment they imposed upon me. Let them cry my tears of hopelessness. Perhaps in this way, they will learn to be more kind.

Dear Guardian Angel, what shall I do with my time left on this earth? Pray, it shall not be spent waiting to die. Pray this time shall not be spent coping with ill health and reduced circumstances, diminishing financial resources.....would it be spent in the company of nurturing, loving, supportive people, busy with joyful activity.

December 1, 2001