Glow

                                                   

Slowly drifting out of consciousness, I awakened and fuzzily noticed that it was bright out.  It can’t be morning already, can it? I thought as I took a glance at my alarm clock.  1:30 AM.  Well, it’s definitely not light out yet.  There could only be one explanation for this… I jumped to my feet, completely forgetting my sleepiness, and forcefully pulled up the shades.  The world was a sweet, powdered pastry.  It looked as though a baker had sprinkled powdered sugar all over the earth’s surface.  It was the first snowfall of the year, and it had accumulated enough to cover the ground in a lovely dusting of white.  I had a sudden urge to jump out the window and frolic through this winter wonderland, but I figured jumping out of my window would end tragically, so I instead raced down the stairs and out the back door, not even bothering to grab a jacket or shoes.

Silvery flakes continued to lazily drift down, glittering in the bright light of the harvest moon.  As I gazed at this beautiful scene, I was filled with a sense of wonder.  There is just something so captivating, so magical, about the first snowfall.  The air abruptly becomes crisp, tickling my cheeks with its prickling ice, and I hug my arms around my chest to keep in my warmth.  At the very instant when the snow begins to fall, everything seems to slow down, and the world is saturated in silence, as if the whole planet has stopped to behold this uniquely pure and blessed moment. 

I sang as I pranced and twirled around my backyard.  I’m sure I was quite the odd sight, dancing about merely in red and green pajamas, my socks soaked through from the lightly-peppered snow already collecting on the grass, but fortunately no one was awake at this late hour to see me acting so oddly...but also unfortunately. 

One moment I was twirling and almost floating on air, the very next I was falling, plummeting, into darkness.  It was the strangest sensation…a lack of sensation and consciousness.  I had no feelings, no thoughts, no mobility, nothing at all.  The world was just a black void.  It could’ve been seconds, minutes, or hours; I had no sense of time, but after an amount of unspecified time, there came a blinding light.  I began to think and feel again.  The first feelings I had were fear and confusion, and the first thoughts I had were: Am I dead? and  Is the blinding light that I’m seeing Heaven?

Do not be afraid, whispered a voice inside my head that was not my own.   I am here to help you.   

Who are you? I responded.  And how did you get inside my head?

My name is David, the voice answered, and I am here to help you, it repeated.

As David spoke, the light became brighter and brighter until I became completely blind.  Ironically, as the world became brighter, I steadily descend into darkness yet again until no light was left.  I’d never been in a place so dark before.  It was frightening but also oddly comforting.  A deep sleep.

----

Sunlight. Even behind closed lids I could recognize it.  I was afraid to open my eyes though, afraid that I was dead and that I’d be facing an unknown world the moment I opened them.  As I hesitated, my ears started to pick up sound again.  It was muffled, as if I was underwater and hearing sounds from above the surface, but I recognized that they were voices of people I knew: my parents.  With the prospect of being reunited with my parents flooding my mind with a river of hope, I carefully peeled open my eyes. Fuzzily the world began to take shape.

I was lying in a hospital bed with my parents and a girl with long black hair and brown eyes circled around me.  When they noticed that I had awoken, smiles and tears of joy lit upon their faces.  They were like children on Christmas morning, gushing with pure joy. 

“Oh, Stella,” my mother cried as she tearfully took me up in her arms.  “I’m so glad you’re alright.”  Nestled in my mother’s arms, I pressed my face into her blonde hair and breathed in the comforting smell of her lilac-scented shampoo.  Looking over my mother’s shoulder, I saw my father looking at me with uncharacteristic tears streaming down his face.  Becoming aware that I noticed him, my father turned to wipe his tears away with his large, tough hands and roughly cleared his throat.  Standing next to him was the girl with long black hair.  I didn’t know who she was, but she gave me a smile and looked at me as if she had met me before.

I pulled away slightly, shocked and shaking.  “Wh-what happened?” I asked. 

“We don’t know for sure, but it seems to be that you had tripped on something in your yard and fell unconscious, and since it was very cold out, you caught hypothermia.”  I jumped in surprise and whipped my head in the direction of the unknown voice.  I hadn’t noticed the doctor standing by the door. “You very likely could have died if it hadn’t been for Anna here who found you lying in the snow and alerted us.”

Ah.  So that’s why she looked at me as if she knew me.  The girl with the long black hair flushed as we exchanged smiles from across the room.

“How long have I been here?” I asked.

“You’ve been here three days,” the doctor responded.  I didn’t know what to think about that.  It felt both as if an eternity and no time had passed, which didn’t make sense.  “You would have been out of here much faster, but we had to run some tests on an…irregular reaction you had to hypothermia.”

I furrowed my eyebrows, and my heart beat fast.  Tests? An odd reaction?  What’s going on?  “What kind of tests?” I asked, starting to feel light-headed.  “And what do you mean by an ‘odd reaction’?”

“Well, after your accident we discovered an odd…eminence transmitting from your heart.  It’s unlike anything we’d ever seen before, so we ran some tests, but we couldn’t seem to figure anything out about it,” the doctor said, a pained expression on his face.  I could tell that he clearly took pride in his job and didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t diagnose my condition, so I tried to remain calm about this news.

“An eminence?” I asked.  “So you’re telling me that my heart…glows?”

 “Yes, I’m afraid there’s no other technical name I can provide for it,” the doctor said.  “But don’t be afraid.  It doesn’t seem to be harming you or others in any way.  If anything it seems to have the opposite effect…” He trailed off, leaving me with more questions than I had before, but when I looked over at my parents and Anna, suddenly all I could feel was joy.  I felt so blessed.  I was alive, and I had the ones I loved right next to me; that’s all that really mattered.   That’s when it happened.  My eyes grew wide in both fear and fascination as through my chest, emanating from my heart, came a glow of warm light.  It filled the room, and as it came near my parents, Anna, and the doctor, smiles lit upon their faces.

Ah.  So this is what he was talking about.  I just sat motionless for awhile, a look of surprise and wonder on my face, as the world seemed to transform before my very eyes.  Things that didn’t seem significant or beautiful before now were seen in a whole new light.

Peering through a window to my left, I saw a snow-covered pine tree standing proud and tall, brilliantly illuminated in the winter sunlight.  The tree was such an ordinary sight, but for the first time in my life I was in complete and utter awe of it.  Despite the pelting snowfalls, the raging storms, and the blistering droughts, this pine tree had not only lived on but continued to stand tall, evergreen, and everlastingly beautiful.  A tear of wonder and happiness slipped down my cheek.  At the mere age of twelve I had gained the wisdom of someone far older than myself.  My world was never going to be the same.   

****

So, the days turned to months and months into two years, and meanwhile my heart continued to glow.  It’s probably not that hard to imagine that I became a bit of a celebrity around town, but it didn’t last too long.  Just like any fad or oddity, the novelty of it wears off once everyone has seen it enough, and then another replaces the former.  In my case, I was replaced by a very handsome, ethereal young man.

----

Before my accident, I was never much of a religious person.  My mom would have to drag me out of bed to go to church, but after the accident I became very serious about my religious and spiritual life.  It was odd.  I mean, I went to church fairly regularly, and I was reasonably spiritual before the accident, but the intensity of my connection to God after the accident was so much stronger and, most significantly, real.  Before the accident, going to church was more of a routine, just something I was supposed to do, but now it was something I wanted to, loved to, and needed to do.  I went to church every Sunday now, very willingly.  So, naturally when there was a new person going to church—the new ethereal “fad” of the town-- I was one of the first to know about it.  Walking out of church one day, suddenly there he was.  He seemed to have magically appeared right in front of me as soon as I stepped out of the church and onto the snow-covered pavement. 

My heart beat double time, and I was shocked to find that suddenly it began to glow as well.  I thankfully had enough time to clap a hand to my heart, pushing the light back in, before his eyes found mine.  Instead of glowing, I was now melting.  He was the most beautiful, unique human being I had ever set eyes on.  His beauty was almost blinding.  Despite the fact that he was dressed all in black, he shone brilliantly, both inside and out.  His hair was so blonde that it was almost white, but not in a bleach-blonde sort of way.  I’d never seen hair like his.  It almost seemed to shimmer in the sunlight, like snow.  His skin was music to my eyes, the shade of the ivory keys on a piano.  Finally my eyes gravitated toward his, and that’s when it happened.  I had an intense feeling of déjà vu.  I had seen this young man before.  The blinding light, the darkness of his clothing: he was David, the one who spoke to me when I was unconscious after my accident.   

Time seemed to have stopped, and in this departure from time I beheld the purest eyes I’d ever gazed into.  These glittering green eyes held love with an all-encompassing, eternal quality I didn’t think was even possible, except from God.  There was no hate, no greed, just love.  A moment of absolute clarity came to me, and I then knew exactly what he was: an angel.

----

We probably would have gone on staring into one other’s eyes forever if it weren’t for my dad touching my shoulder, jerking me back to reality.  I turned around to find my dad looking at me in concern.

            “Stella?  Are you alright?” Dad asked.

            “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, as I distractedly panned my eyes around, searching for David, but he was nowhere to be found.  As suddenly as he had appeared he had disappeared once more.

            “Are you sure?” Dad asked, one eyebrow arched skeptically.  “You’ve been staring off into space for a few minutes now.”

            I blushed.  “Were you here the whole time?”

            “Yeah, I was right behind you when we walked out of church, and then you just all of a sudden stopped and stared out into empty space.”

             “You mean, you didn’t see me looking at another person?  No one at all?”

            “No,” Dad said slowly, concern etched across his face.  “Are you sure you’re alright?”

            Before I could answer, Mom abruptly appeared beside us.  She put an arm around my Dad.  Gently ruffling his brown hair with her other hand, Mom peered into his gray eyes.  The concern on Dad’s face was contagious because now Mom’s face was carved with concern as well.  “Is something wrong?” she asked, her eyes iced with worry.

            “Nope, nothing,” I said quickly, wishing they’d both just drop the subject.  I needed to find David.  I needed to find out what was going on. “Let’s go.”

----

 The day had passed, and the evening was now upon us, and I was still here.  Even after the accident, this was the one place where I felt like I truly belonged: in nature, in the snow. No matter how hopeless and uncertain I may be feeling, when I was here my troubles melted away.  The joy in my heart kept me warm despite the chill in the air and the snow seeping through my clothes.  The snow looks even more stunning in the evening.  The moonlight sets the snow all aglitter, like the multitude of stars above, and an undeniable magic permeates the air.  I breathed in its breath-taking chill and shivered with delight.  Suddenly I felt the air inside me start to prickle pleasantly down my throat, and I had the unsettling yet thrilling sensation that I was being watched.

            Turning around I find him.  David.  As he stood in a meadow of snowy twilight, the moon set a spotlight on his face and a shiver down my spine.  The stars above sparkled in his eyes, glowing even brighter than the glistening snow.  Once again I marveled at his beauty and purity; he was absolutely enchanting.  I reached out to touch his delicate hand, but he disappeared right before my eyes once again, leaving behind merely an imprint in the snow: the imprint of a snow angel.

            I looked around in bewilderment.  How could he have disappeared?  I was looking right at him the whole time!  The problem was that I had blinked; in that infinitesimal space of time, he had disappeared with a sound like the rush of wings. 

Stella.

I jumped and my heart fluttered in nervous excitement.  He was in my mind again. “D-david?”

Yes, Stella, it is I.

He talked so peculiarly but so beautifully.  I decided to just put the question out there right away.  There was no point of beating around the bush.  “Are you an angel?” I asked.

Yes.

He let his answer sink in a bit before he continued.  Even though I had already had the inkling that David was an angel, having it confirmed was a little shocking, but I tried to remain calm.

Stella, you are an extremely special individual.  I’m sure you at least know that you are a little different from everyone else, but you’re more than just a little different.  You are a snow angel, as am I.  That night when you almost died?  You in fact did die.  I came to help and comfort you because you were dying.  You are no longer alive, in the human sense at least.

  My blood ran cold.  I wasn’t alive?  How could that be?  “Wait…what?” I asked, numbly.  “I can’t be dead.  I’m…I’m human.  I can’t be an angel,” I said, but as I spoke and the more my mind muddled over the idea, the more plausible that my being an angel became.  “Or can I?”  I started to think about my accident, my new perspective on the world, and my glowing…it all started to add up.

I know it’s a lot to take in, but I need you to be aware that you’re an angel so that you can start knowledgably using the unique power you possess.

“Power?” I asked.  “What power?  My glowing?”

Yes, your glowing.  Have you noticed that you’re able to affect the minds of others with your glow?  You can make others feel happy even when they’re sad.  The glow that you emanate is a glow of happiness and faith.  As an angel that will be your job: to bring happiness and faith to the lives of others, as well as being a guardian over those you love.  Every person who dies becomes an angel, and with the help and guidance of his or her guardian angel, he or she comes to discover the unique power that he or she has.  It is now time that you use your power and look after your loved ones, for they will become angels one day too and therefore must be shown the way as I am showing the way for you.

I thought about that for a moment.  I had known that I seemed to make people happy with my glow, but I didn’t realize that I had the power to make them happy no matter what their mood was.  This new-found power was startling, but even more startling was the other job I would need to perform: to be a guardian.  A guardian angel: they were real, and I was one of them.

“Where do I go from here?” I asked.  “I’m…I’m so confused.  How can I be an angel when I have no idea how to be one?”

Do not be afraid.  It’s okay to be confused.  Everything will make sense with time.  Just keep being yourself and showing the world the glowing spirit that is inside of you.

While his words were meant to be comforting and inspirational, I still felt scared and uninspired.  And alone.

You are not alone, my dear Stella.  There are millions upon millions of other angels in the world, many as confused as you are right now, but I have never in my 507 years seen an angel who was unable to learn how to be an angel.  It will come naturally to you, I promise.  I also promise this: I will always be there for you, and most importantly of all, God will always be there for you, too.

  For a moment I was lost for words.  All I could manage to choke out was a “thank you.”  When I finally had the capacity to speak, however, he was gone.  David has disappeared once again.  This time, however, I wasn’t afraid.  His words had filled my heart with bravery, hope, and most importantly, faith.  I looked down at my chest, which had now become a human “Lite-Brite.” Little pinpoints of light in all different colors were flowing out from my heart, infecting the air with the feelings that David’s words had filled me with: bravery, hope, happiness, and most importantly, faith.