by Ann Crawford
“Silly guy.”
“That’d be me.”
“Do you believe in angels?”
“Of course I do. I have to. I’m looking at one right here, right now.”
She smiles and looks over at him. “Funny, so am I.” She thinks for a moment. “Marion is an angel.”
“Takes one to know one.”
Just for the record, you’re wrapped in the arms of love when you’re born, you’re wrapped in the arms of love when you die, you’re wrapped in the arms of love now, you’re wrapped in the arms of love always. You don’t need to look for love. Love is what you look with. It’s all that you are. Love of another human is just the recognition of this love.
Just sayin’.
Chapter 9
As Jack and Emily sleep, snuggled together in a motel room still on the way back to L.A., Brooke and David surf the angelnet together.
“Oh, these wild humans,” David groans. “Every time they take one step forward, they take another step back. The Berlin Wall came down. Great. The Soviet Union disassembled. Great. But the stockpile of guns were sold to countries in Africa, where they were used in massive civil unrest. That’s just one example. There are hundreds more. Thousands.”
“It’s crazy. I wish I could go and make it different. I’d listen to my angels.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Sure you would,” say Blake and Angela.
As Jack drives through the mountains just outside of L.A. and their eight angels attend to their tasks, Emily studies the stars. “Do you believe everything is getting better?” she asks Jack.
“Of course. Look at what just happened to us.”
“I mean for the world in general.”
“Yes. But sometimes it’s hard to keep thinking that way.”
“Sure is.”
“Sometimes it’s enough to make someone want to go crazy.”
“Sometimes I look at it all from a higher perspective. Kind of like, ‘Oh, how interesting. How absolutely fascinating. What a strange thing they’re doing—killing each other in the name of God. Stopping the food from reaching the hungry. What a strange thing to be doing!’ I don’t mean it in a coldhearted way, more as a fascination in the machinations of the heart of these confused beings also known as humans. Kind of like parents looking at their children, knowing that they’ll know better someday.”
Jack nods.
Emily and David both speak at the same time: “It’s a young planet.”
Jack and Brooke both speak at the same time: “It is.”
Brooke and David look at each other, then at their teammates, then at each other again.
“Did they just say—”
“I think they did.”
A look of great appreciation passes over Brooke’s face and then David’s, too—they’re very impressed with these two human things. Meanwhile, the other angels are very impressed with these two angelic things.
“And then,” Emily continues, “I try to put myself in the place of the mother trying to feed her children. I also try to put myself in the place of the warlord trying to keep the food for himself. There must be a reason he’s doing it. Greed, which is from fear, of course, but there must be something else. Keeping things from others means that he’s keeping something from himself, too, in a way. And if everything’s moving to a higher good, this must be part of it. Somehow.”
“Perhaps it’s all an act,” Jack suggests. “Former presidents, dictators, despots—everything is a shadow play that the whole world chooses to participate in. We all have it by the right of our mind-sets. Some of the actors work to change the ending of the play, but not many.”
“More and more. Did you know that tiny, poor, war-torn countries sometimes send money for relief aid to the U.S. after it experiences a natural disaster? After 9/11, too.”
Jack takes her hand and kisses it. “It’s way beyond wonderful to be able to talk like this. And to love the one I’m talking to.
“It sure is,” Emily agrees. “Oh, it sure is.”
Back at the L.A. apartment, Emily starts to put the rocking chairs by the living room window. Jack taps her on the shoulder and motions for her to follow him to Ben’s room. Since the shades are drawn, at first she can’t see anything in the semi-gloom, but then—there it is. A loveseat. Of course! Emily laughs. She’d told him about the rocking chairs long before their trip, and they were fine for her mother and her, but oh how things change.
They carry the love seat from its hiding place into the living room and place it in front of the window. They fall into the deep cushions and just hold each other. After a few minutes of listening to the other’s breathing, the other’s heartbeat, Jack lifts her face to his. They gaze at each other with unabashed love, adoration, wonder, reverence, joy, and, well, the list could go on and on. They finally found each other. It does happen.
Brooke and David watch Jack and Emily’s faces closely, with wonder and, perhaps, some envy. Angelic envy.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a delivery man hands a bouquet of flowers to a very surprised Dick. He’s even more surprised and confused when he reads the card: “Thank you for all you’ve done.”
It’s signed, “A Grateful Acquaintance.”
The monitor shows Jack and Emily sleeping. David drums his fingers as Brooke paces. The other angels attend to their tasks, but furtively sneak glances at the two jumpy ones.
“Not very angelic of you,” David says to Brooke, referring to her pacing.
She stops pacing and points to his drumming fingers. “Nor you.”
He stops drumming.
“You know,” he says, “we love all the time. But we have nothing to compare it to.”
“Humans have no idea what they have.”
Blake points to Jack and Emily. “Some do.”
“It’s the only place in the universe where you can put your love into physical expression,” David extols. “I want to taste the tang of a strawberry. I want to touch someone. In other places, the beings either have no interest in that or they merge as one with the strawberry or the other being. Physicality is where it’s at.”
“Sure is.”
“So what are you waiting for?” Blake asks.
Brooke turns around and looks at him. “Huh?”
“What are you waiting for?” Angela asks.
“Huh?” That was David’s turn.
Brooke and David look around at the other angels, who have stopped their computing and whispering and are just looking at them.
Stephanie, Christopher, Sapphire, and Jasper speak in unison. “What are you waiting for?”
“You think you came here to teach them?” Angela whoops. “They’re actually here to teach you. And now you’re ready to go. So go.”
Brooke and David also speak in unison. “Say what?”
“Why do you think advanced humans get a fourth angel?” Blake queries them. “It’s not for the humans—they’ve already got it!”
Brooke and David still….don’t….quite….get...it.
Sapphire whispers to them. “The assignment is for you, not them.”
Jasper takes a different approach and holds his hands to his mouth, megaphone style. “Earth to angels! Earth to angels!” He puts his hands down. “You think you were here for them. But they were here for you.”
“They’ll get it,” Blake smiles. “They have eternity.”
Brooke and David gasp in surprise. They look at each other in sheer ecstasy…clasp hands together…and disappear.
David stands before Penelope’s desk.
Penelope crosses her arms and wrinkles her face. “What in the world would you want to go back there for—as a human? You, more than most, can see how hard it is.”
“Oh, no, you don’t! The jig is up. I know what’s been going on.”
Penelope smiles. “I still had to ask. Just to make sure.”
Brooke stands before Henry’s desk.
“But we get to live in rapture all the time,” He
nry protests. “They only get it on occasion.”
“Which makes it all the more special. And don’t you try to stop me. I know what’s going on.”
Henry smiles. “We don’t send just anybody there, you know.”
“I know that now!”
David still stands before Penelope’s desk.
“Of course you can go,” Penelope says. “What do you think you’ve been being trained for? It takes a very special being to handle life on Earth.”
David smiles. “I know. A verrrrrry special being.”
Brooke still stands before Henry’s desk.
“Of course you can go,” Henry says. “What do you think you’ve been being trained for? It takes a very special being to handle life on Earth.”
Brooke smiles. “I know. A verrrrrry special being.”
David still stands before Penelope’s desk listening to her lecture. “And when you start out, you’re going to be one of those people who—”
Brooke still stands before Henry’s desk listening to his lecture.
“—doesn’t have a clue.”
David still stands before Penelope’s desk as she says, “You’ll start out—”
Brooke still stands before Henry’s desk as he shakes his head, “—way, way worse than Jack.”
“—way, way worse than Emily,” Penelope says to David.
“But you have to get—” Henry says to Brooke.
Penelope shrugs, “—your feet wet.”
Henry shrugs, “—your wings in shape to fly.”
“You’ll forget everything we taught you,” Penelope sighs.
“And your job will be to remember,” Henry says, pointing at Brooke.
“—remember what’s so obvious, up here, and what you already know, way deep inside, down there,” Penelope laughs.
Henry crosses his arms. “To love—”
“—and then love some more,” Penelope says.
“And, at some point—”
“—remember,” says Penelope.
“And then love some more again,” says Henry.
“And wake up,” Penelope says.
“And you will—that’s the whole point. Someday, anyway.” Henry smiles at Brooke.
“But it’s going to take quite a few lifetimes to get ready for her,” Penelope warns.
“You have to put in your time before you can meet up with him,” Henry cautions. “It could take many, many lifetimes.”
“Whatever it takes!” David says. “Time to laugh and let laugh.”
“That’s live and let live,” Penelope corrects him, but then ponders for a moment. “Well, as always, the way you have it is probably more accurate.”
“I’ll wait,” Brooke says. “However long.”
Henry nods his head. Brooke throws her arms around this big, old, sloppy angelic bear in a big, old, sloppy angelic bear hug.
“Time to go learn and live.”
“Live and lear—nah, your way is better.”
“The whole point is that I can’t get it wrong.”
“And, of course, once you know that, David, you have the opportunity and responsibility to get it right. Really right.”
“I know you won’t be far. And there’s only love. So there’s nowhere else I can possibly go.”
“Right, Brooke. But it might take a long, long time to remember that.”
So, okay, let’s just skip all those lifetimes where they didn’t quite get it, shall we? You know what they’re like. You’ve lived a few thousand of them yourself, but if you’re reading this story, your life is no longer in that category. Your life is less clunky, more streamlined, more gracious. Yes, that’s you.
The year is 2458. A baby boy is born. You might think the hospital delivery room is very high tech, but it’s not—not at all. It looks like a room your great-, great-, great-, great- grandmother would have had your great-, great-, great-grandmother in: warm, dark, quiet, a few women gently guiding the mother through the delivery. Sometimes low tech is the highest tech there is. The only major difference between this room in the future and the room of the 1800s is that the father is present, as well, of course.
And now the year is 2461. A baby girl is born in a not-so-very-high-tech delivery room. You would recognize one of the midwives—Sapphire.
Fast-forward through all the learning to crawl, all the bumping into walls, all the Christmas presents under the tree (some traditions are worth staying the same in the future), getting hit in the back of the head with the ultrateeter teeter-totter. (We didn’t say life would be totally perfect, did we? Not even close. What’d be the point in that? That’s how David decided to be a pediatrician; his getting stitches was an abysmal experience. That’s often what abysmal experiences are for: to transform things.) In the street—well, about those streets.... Cars have been replaced with little hydrogen flying machines, and every home has a landing pad instead of a driveway. The school blackboards are now giant computer screens that can be written on with a finger and erased with the palm of a hand. A boy presents a report to his class. Fast-forward to an eighteen-year-old girl giving the valedictorian’s speech at her high-school commencement. Fast-forward to a twenty-two-year-old man graduating from college and being handed the keys to his own flying machine.
And slowing down for just a minute, a cozy church, filled to overflowing with flowers, is also filled to overflowing with guests. After making sure that the corsages are perfect on the groomsmen, then that the bouquet is perfect, Brooke, a wedding floral designer with far more renown and respect than her twenty-five years on Earth would warrant, takes her seat. The music starts, and the guests turn to watch the flower girl dropping red rose petals down the aisle. As the little girl passes her, Brooke notices a very handsome man across the aisle. He seems to be just a few years older, but it’s kind of hard to look at him because he’s smiling at her with eyes shining like the high beams on her hydrogen plane—a lot to look at.
A few hours later, after hors d’oeuvres, dinner, drinks, cake-cutting, and one, two, three, fourteen dances—for Brooke and David, that is, not the newlyweds—we see an ecstatic bride and groom waving good-bye to their guests. They leave the wedding reception in an overly decorated hydrogen plane—complete with cans and streamers and “Just Married” in the back window. The cans clunk in the breeze, if not along the roadway anymore.
Amidst the throng of well-wishers, David turns to Brooke. She smiles. He smiles back.
And a little later, we see her fumbling as she presses her hand to the scanner to open her door (no more keys) at her apartment. After the fumbling settles down and the door finally gets opened, she leads him into her living room. A love seat sits in a large bay window. David takes her in his arms and, after crashing to the love seat, kisses her. And kisses her. And kisses her. And....
Well, you get the idea. It’s happily ever. It does happen. Really.
The End
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We all have so many teachers and angels along this amazing journey—way too many to list anywhere except in the heart. I want to say thank you to all of my teachers, especially Rev. Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith, Rev. Karyl Huntley, the late Doris Jones, Lavandar, and Jim Self.
A very, very special thank you goes to my very, very special BFF/sistergirlfriendangels: Barbara Cox, Betsey Crawford, Rev. Lee McNeil Nash, Grace Sears, Dana Swift, and Jenni Ashanta Lipari. You are the angels of my life.
Thank you to my champions: Eileen Duhné, Deborah Erwin, David Goldberg, Barry Goldstein, Ariel Grey, Patrice Karst, Jaclyn Anjee Lang, Christopher and Jessica Loving-Campos, Angela Melia, Jennifer Peeso, Pete Shaffner, Barbara St. John, Mark Waldman, Kiara Windrider, and the rest of my angelic coworkers at Centers for Spiritual Living Home Office. Eugene Holden, thank you for your wonderful way of making “every day a holiday and every meal a banquet.”
Marion, this book is dedicated to you. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, love, and light so generously and for bringing Heaven to Earth.
&n
bsp; Most of all, thank you to my beloved husband Steve. It’s not just “our song”—you truly are the best thing that ever, ever, ever happened to me.
In loving memory of
David Krull
BOOKS BY
ANN CRAWFORD
Available in paperback, e-book,
and audiobook versions
Life in the Hollywood Lane
Spellweaver
Angels on Overtime
Mary’s Message—
The Alternative Story of Mary Magdalene and Jesus
Visioning—Creating the Life of Our Dreams
and a World that Works for Us All
To follow Ann’s blog,
please visit anncrawford.net.
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