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LOVE LOST

ANGEL.GIF
FLOWERVINE.GIF

The middle aged man had set his alarm very early to be at the lake's edge by first light. He dropped the line into the still black water and waited. Dark thoughts swirled in his mind much like the currents hidden below the surface. One after the other - thoughts raced through his mind and filled him with a sense of despair.. Finally, he propped the fishing line up against a stump and reached into the canvas bag for a notepad and pen. Did he dare write his thoughts on paper? Would writing about betrayal and disillusions make them more real? It didn't matter. David realized that without this release, he would explode into tiny fragments of a man-wounded and lost. The pen skimmed the paper and listed one grievous wrong after the other...page after page turned and still the man continued to write. It was not necessary for him to think about the pain. It was there, huge and quivering, waiting to grind his heart to pieces. He wrote and wrote and wrote. Some times he wept and once he turned his face upward and howled like an animal wounded in a steel trap. He had begun and he could not stop...the writing seemed like the only barrier between him and insanity. He continued all morning and the pages stacked up beside him in the warm earth. This work was consuming him but once he was distracted by some animal in the distance, keening. He stopped to listen more closely then, and realized that the sound came from him. He had reached a dark place and there seemed no where else to go. He was deep inside himself on a journey and had found the impenetrable wall. "What am I doing", he asked himself? "What good will these letters do?...my father has betrayed me over and over again. He will never change!" The pen stopped and David felt cold and empty. He had placed all of the memories outside of himself for the first time in his life. They were no longer in him. The man wondered if he would feel less anguished but so far he felt nothing. What to do now? He began to reread the pages, one after the other, 31 of them in all and he searched for a single thread - the source of this pain. Nothing. Wait. Something. A thought began to form inside his mind and he instantly fought to push it away. "I was not loved by my father", he sighed, "I was not loved", he cried. I am nearly fifty years old and in all this time I never was able to bridge the gap. I still can't let go!" This was the wall then...the dark place. The realization stunned the man. He held his head in both hands and stared at the water. "Don't think about it", he warned himself. He watched the water shimmer and shine now that the sun was high. He marvelLed at the myriad of color and constant movement on the surface of the water. He focused on a circle of wet blue and pushed back at the pain that threatened to rise up like bile. He focused on the circle and it became his life preserver. The quiet lake sparkled and danced in the sunshine and David imagined that he could actually see his own reflection there. It was so clear, this image, first flat on the surface and suddenly rising up and out of the water like a spirit. No. This was not his reflection at all. It was an angel whose powerful wings spread up and out behind him. He slowly shook each wing free of remaining water drops and regarded him for a moment. Hovering there, he watched the human who had bared his soul on paper. Then he floated to where David sat. He gathered up the pages and placed them inside the canvas bag, and sat down. David wasn't afraid. He was simply exhausted. He leaned back against a grassy knoll and waited to see what would happen next. The angelic apparition didn't move but David observed another spirit suddenly rise up and out of his own body. It was himself as a small boy and he was amazed at the vulnerable look of innocence on that face. "What an exquisite child", he thought. "No one could help but love him". The small boy climbed trustingly into the angel's lap and together they began to rock back and forth. The child closed his eyes. David felt quite sleepy too. He shut his eyes against the bright day. Then he also fell into a dreamless sleep. With both charges sleeping, the angel began to sing. He sang of the pain the hateful father had endured during his bitter lifetime. He sang of wrongs done to him and of his courage to live his life the best way he could in spite of his past. He sang a song about forgiveness for how could a man show what he had never experienced or known? He sang of love, the love each human has from his real Father, the Creator. He sang of acceptance for we cannot change what happens to us, we can only decide what we will do about it. The little boy was the first to wake up. He smiled a sleepy smile and kissed the soft cheek of the angel who held him in his arms so tenderly. Reluctantly he broke free of her embrace and moved quietly back into the body of the middle aged man. The angel smiled and blew him a kiss, and then floated upward and disappeared. Much later the man woke and was surprised at the sense of peace he felt. He remembered his pain and looked for the pages he had written. There they were, safely tucked away inside the bag. Carefully, he tore each letter into small pieces and watched them as they floated out into the lake. As the last page disappeared, the man reached out to pull in his line. A huge tug surprised him and he was at once alert and ready to resume the task at hand, but alas, the fish was already gone. The water rippled and gurgled and he remembered the songs. He stood up and smiled and began to walk back to his father's house.