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"MY ANGEL OF GOD"


Prologue
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By Aaron Milavec

MY ANGEL OF GOD: Chronicles of her fierce compassion and grace-filled healing love -- This is an unusual and dangerous love story that I have tried to relate with honesty and insight. I have relied upon my journal entries and upon our love letters that I carefully preserved for thirty years.  Now that I am facing my own death, I want to share with family, friends, and writers those personal experiences that have shaped my life most profoundly.  Hence, I ask you, as my reader, to prepare yourself for a mind-bending and heart-rending experience. This is also a story of my faith and hope in the face of small "miracles" and enormous tragedies; hence, those who share my faith and hope are in for a special treat. Please advise me (a) by identifying [using "copy and paste"] those lines in my story that most moved you and (b) by offering your ideas on how I might improve my telling of the "chronicles of her fierce compassion and grace-filled healing love." 

Affectionately,
Aaron




When I was a young boy, my dear mother explained to me that God loved me.  "How so?" I would ask her.  "God has given you, my dear son, an angel whose mission is to guide and protect you."  I must admit that it was comforting to know that God took a personal interest in my welfare.  Before going to sleep at night, my mother would turn the lights out and take me in her arms and together we would recite the standard prayer to our guardian angels: "Angel of God, my guardian near. . . ." 

When I turned eight, my mother became very ill.  She could no longer hold me and pray to our guardian angels before I went to sleep each night. So I decided to recite the Guardian Angel Prayer twice; once for my mother's angel and once for my angel.  When my mother died just after Christmas, I stopped praying entirely.  I was secretly angry with the God who "loved my mother so much that he took her to be with him in heaven" (the words of my favorite aunt to me at the funeral).  In my childish way of seeing things, God already had Mary, the Mother of God, with him in heaven.  "By what right could he rob me of the only mother that I had?"
 
Some thirty-five years later, a certain woman took a keen interest in my dying mother and in the little boy whose father had taught him that he should not cry after the funeral because "God put an end to her suffering, and she is now very happy to be with God in heaven."  This woman enabled me to cry long-delayed tears and to vent my festering anger against God.  "I trusted her with my tears. . ." (p. 4) and, by slow measured steps, I gradually entrusted her with healing my afflicted heart. 

As you read about the progressive steps whereby our intimate exchanges gave rise to a dangerous fire, you, the reader, will also discover how my mother prepared me for the visitation of "my Angel of God."   Even if you were not raised by a Roman Catholic mother as I was, you might want to recite the Guardian Angel Prayer (below) at bedtime during the period when you are reading about our dangerous love story.  Who knows?  In so doing, you might discover for yourself the guardian angel that has touched your life with the transforming power of sacred healing.  What a joy that would be!      [Please go on to read Chapter 1.]


Chapter 1
Innocent Beginnings

By Aaron Milavec

MY ANGEL OF GOD: Chronicles of her fierce compassion and grace-filled healing love -- This is an unusual and dangerous love story that I have tried to relate with honesty and insight. I have relied upon my journal entries and upon our love letters that I carefully preserved for thirty years.  Now that I am facing my own death, I want to share with family, friends, and writers those personal experiences that have shaped my life most profoundly.  Hence, I ask you, as my reader, to prepare yourself for a mind-bending and heart-rending experience. This is also a story of my faith and hope in the face of small "miracles" and enormous tragedies; hence, those who share my faith and hope are in for a special treat. Please advise me (a) by identifying [using "copy and paste"] those lines in my story that most moved you and (b) by offering your ideas on how I might improve my telling of the "chronicles of her fierce compassion and grace-filled healing love." 

Affectionately,
Aaron




I am numb. Bitter tears have begun to dry on my face. I have been dancing to the songs of Tracy Chapman that my Angel shared with me. This music wondrously evokes her presence. Yet, now that the Angel of my life can no longer come to me nor can I go to her, the music brings with it, not the joys of anticipation, but waves of hollow sadness. Yet, as Valentine's Day approaches, I know that my Love and I will be united!

I have a rare love story to tell. Some would call it forbidden love. I would call it a holy and a healing love.  But I refuse to engage in a battle of empty words.  Rather I invite you, my reader, to decide this for yourself after you have the opportunity to learn the entire truth of how two lives were entirely transformed by the sacred healing power of love.

Our Beginnings

My Angel of God was getting ready to drive me off campus for lunch. True, I did not yet know that she was an Angel sent to me by God. But I would discover this soon enough.

My Angel had set 1:15 as our meeting time, but she was late. Oh, yes, angels can be late. I didn't know it then, but I was soon to learn this and many other wonderful things as well. This was the first Wednesday in April. The black asphalt in the parking lot was hot under my feet. A quiet expectation filled the midday air. I was waiting for the woman who would irrevocably change the whole course of my life.

This lunch invitation did not come immediately. I felt her presence three weeks earlier. We had both signed up for the same evening class. I didn't notice her during the class because she sat behind me. After our first class meeting, however, my angel-to-be spontaneously joined a circle of classmates who, in a rapid give and take, feverishly pushed to the limit some ideas that overheated our imaginations as a result of our class discussion. She just listened. She said nothing, but her eyes were brimming with lively intelligence. I remember thinking that this "mademoiselle" was somehow different. But I didn't know then just how different. . . .

After our second class, the same thing happened. But this time she stayed after all the others had left. It was dark out, so I suggested that we walk to her car together. We flipped through various topics. Each shift proved to be more personal. As we arrived at her car, she shared with me the importance she placed upon making and keeping friends. These were code words. She was actively checking me out. This shook me up a little. I was usually the one probing into the personal lives of women who interested me. In this case, however, she was the artful interrogator.

Her emotional intelligence impressed me, but, more so, I was haunted by how she addressed me. She spoke with a disarmingly transparency that did not turn aside (in modesty or in fear) even when she touched upon private thoughts and experiences. It was as though she was saying these things for the first time to another human being and was eager to taste, chew, and slowly digest absolutely everything I might say in reply. I felt she had something important she wanted to say to me but couldn't yet muster the courage to do so. She needed more trust to be built up between us first.

Thus, when we arrived at her car, she unlocked the door and then turned to face me with her intelligent eyes and suggested having lunch together on the day before our next class. I easily accepted. She was setting me up for her mysterious revelation, I could just bet a fistful of money on it. . . .

Off to Lunch 

Just then, a sporty red Mazda pulled up in front of me. "Hi!" my luncheon companion shouted, "Climb on in!"

Her eyes were alive with the satisfaction of finding me exactly where she had expected me to be. Maybe she was even surprised that I actually showed up. I could not tell for sure. Just a hunch. Hence, she helped me maneuver the unfamiliar seat belt, and we sped away. On route, she explained that she was late because she decided to pass by the house to change out of her uniform. She wore a fresh, white blouse tucked into tan-colored Levis. I had no reason to suspect that she ever wore "a uniform," so I began by asking, "What was it that you were doing this morning?"

The give and take surrounding her profession as a physical therapist continued to occupy us right up to the restaurant and well into the start of the meal. We mutually selected a Chinese restaurant. I ordered Wonton Soup and an egg roll. She ordered the same.

For the next hour, I began to appreciate the healing aspects of her profession as a physical therapist. That very morning, a little girl of six had taken a few steps by herself and both the girl and her therapist were elated. She recounted in great detail the mixture of promise and disappointment that parents of injured children experienced as they returned week after week hoping against hope that their child might learn to walk again (or to walk for the first time). She was clearly a passionate healer and loved the deep sense of purpose that her profession gave her.

She recounted for me the secret of "unwinding the fascia," and I related this to what I knew from my practice of massage therapy. As she spoke, her hands touched me briefly from across the table. This happened three or four times during our conversation. These were natural gestures for her. It was almost as though her hands (like her words) were reaching out to me. I was reading her signs loud and clear.

I admired her therapeutic hands and imagined them artfully and gracefully holding, handling, healing. She wore no fingernail polish. I also detected telltale signs of fingernail biting. Was her history plagued by worry or nervousness? I couldn't know for sure, but I made a mental note to find out.

Touching

When we came to the healing power of touch, I had to acknowledge that I had formerly been healed by Carlie's touch. This interested her. She wanted to know more. So, she coyly asked, "If it wouldn't be too personal, tell me about Carlie." 

"Sure. I would very much like to tell you about Carlie."

As I was telling her how I first met Carlie aboard a ship bound for France, tears began to collect in my eyes. These tears signaled the enormous gratitude reserved for someone who has saved my life! But that happened ten years ago. Was there something more to account for those tears? Maybe I was also feeling the loss of Carlie. My last two letters had been returned stamped with a black message, "Moved. Forwarding address unknown." Maybe I was secretly hoping that this new healer whom I had just met would become my lifelong friend. I don't know. None the less, I trusted her with my tears. . . .
My Angel later confided to me in a letter: "I saw the face of God as you shared the story of your healing through Carlie."

What an extraordinary thing to say. I was profoundly touched by her words. It was then that I realized that she was "my Angel" who constantly sees the face of God and delights in it. . . .
 

Author Notes As she spoke, her hands touched me briefly from across the table. This happened three or four times during our conversation. These were natural gestures for her. It was almost as though her hands (like her words) were reaching out to me. I was reading her signs loud and clear.


Chapter 2
A Father Embraces his Daughter

By Aaron Milavec

MY ANGEL OF GOD: Chronicles of her fierce compassion and grace-filled healing love -- This is an unusual and dangerous love story that I have tried to relate with honesty and insight. I have relied upon my journal entries and upon our love letters that I carefully preserved for thirty years.  Now that I am facing my own death, I want to share with family, friends, and writers those personal experiences that have shaped my life most profoundly.  Hence, I ask you, as my reader, to prepare yourself for a mind-bending and heart-rending experience. This is also a story of my faith and hope in the face of small "miracles" and enormous tragedies; hence, those who share my faith and hope are in for a special treat. Please advise me (a) by identifying [using "copy and paste"] those lines in my story that most moved you and (b) by offering your ideas on how I might improve my telling of the "chronicles of her fierce compassion and grace-filled healing love." 

Affectionately,
Aaron


Our first luncheon took place in a Chinese restaurant.  An unusual touching took place:

She recounted for me the secret of "unwinding the fascia," and I related this to what I knew from my practice of massage therapy. As she spoke, her hands touched me briefly from across the table. This happened three or four times during our conversation. These were natural gestures for her. It was almost as though her hands (like her words) were reaching out to me. I was reading her signs loud and clear.

I admired her therapeutic hands and imagined them artfully and gracefully holding, handling, healing. She wore no fingernail polish. I also detected telltale signs of fingernail biting. Was her history plagued by worry or nervousness? I couldn't know for sure, but I made a mental note to find out.




Our second luncheon took place in her home in Walnut Hills. She prepared a "light lunch" for us, but it turned out to be a veritable feast—a tasty chicken casserole—served on the elevated wooden deck overlooking the shallow woods behind her home. She spoke of there being a rough, hidden path snaking through this band of woods that followed a small creek. The thought of a "hidden path" captured my imagination, and I unconsciously put it away in the back roads of my mind for some future use.


I was mysteriously hyper-alert. I remembered everything for years—even such seemingly inconsequential things like her telling me about the path snaking through the woods.

Slowly the story of her father emerged. He had been dead for exactly one year and a few days. She recounted his days of glory as a policeman making the rounds of the warehouses lining the Ohio River waterfront where the bewildering assortment of meats and fruits were daily being unloaded from refrigerated trucks for redistribution to the hundreds of grocery stores in the Cincinnati area. On Saturdays, she felt proud when he would take her along with him to meet the managers and truckers whom he had come to regard as his friends on the beat. You remembered how highly they spoke of her dad and how generous they were with this or that "gift for the family" that could be given now that her dad was off-duty.

On normal days, she found her father warm, cheerful, affectionate. She especially liked those times when they would get into roughhousing together. "He would catch me and wrestle me to the living room floor. Then, he would softly kiss me and say sweet things in my ears," she told me. "I can just bet that these were the same things that he told my mom when they were making love."

A red flag went up when she said this. I mentally put this aside for future reference. I had learned early that it's best not to interrupt someone's story when they are on a roll.

But her dad could hurt her as well. She recalled the day that Richard, a high school boyfriend, was visiting her at the house. She had been listening to records together in the basement den. Gradually this led to kissing and hugging, holding each other close while lying on the thick throw rug at the center of the room. The next moment her dad was yanking Richard to his feet, shouting at him, "Damn you! Get off of my daughter and get out of my house!" What really stung is not so much that her dad slapped her in the face but his cruel words that he snarled as he did so, "You cheap slut!"

Then my Angel recalled for me the days and weeks when her dad was being eaten up by cancer and his strength was slowly wasting away at home under the care of her mom. All this happened when my Angel had already been married for a year and, as a consequence, was no longer living at home. Yet, her dad would telephone nearly once a day. He would intentionally disguise the fact that he was sick and seemed annoyed whenever she brought it up. When asked about his health, more often than not he'd reply, "I feel great! This is one of my best days in weeks."

During his final months, my Angel visited her father regularly and relieved her mother of the care of that once-burly cop who was reduced to an emaciated invalid. In my Angel's own words:


He never complained. The cancer eating away at him and the suffering he quietly endured had the effect of purifying him. He had always believed in God, but like most of the men of his generation, he never spoke about spiritual things. Now, however, he began to speak of his death in the well honored Irish terms of "meeting my maker."

Half-way through his sickness, he also gave up his binge drinking. Liquor had been used extensively as solace following his sick leave from the police force. But now he was actually apologizing to me for the bad effects his drinking had on his family.


In the end, my Angel summarized by saying, "Suffering purified him of his desire for drink, and his soul became gentle for the first time."
 

Tears of a Grieving Daughter

During this telling, tears quietly flowed down My Angel's cheeks. She had been trying to hold back these tears. And now that they were evident, she tried to make them invisible by smearing them with the back of her hand. These sad, salty waters were a source of embarrassment for her, and she ended up apologizing for them saying, "I'm sorry."

"Please don't," I said while gently taking her hands away from her face, "I love your tears." "I have loved everything that I have discovered about you so far," I continued, "so please don't try to cover up your tears for my sake."

It's the truth. Her tears made her even more beautiful in my eyes. I wasn't ready to say this to her just then, but I was on the verge of doing so. Within her sad tears, I was coming to recognize something of the great love and the great loss that had marked her life. My Angel belonged to her dad. My Angel understood his soul. From him, she had learned what it means to cherish someone even when that someone is partially broken and defective. You found that you could even love the occasional sullen meanness and sarcastic blows of a man whose hands and heart were bigger than life for you. His heart was in the right place. And you loved that heart and the bigness of that man whom you called "Dad."

Then, using skills that I had received through my training in psychodrama, I helped to recreate that terrible scene when she was at the bedside of her dying father and "he was trying to say something to me before I left to go home." My Angel cried convulsively for nearly ten minutes. I held her in my arms, and the tears came even more readily.

The force of her tears frightened me. I had never experienced anyone cry so violently like this before. But I believed this long-delayed and inadvertently suppressed grief was the necessary passage back to her father, back to that unfinished business between my Angel and her Beloved Dad.
As her tears began to subside, I asked, "What did your father say to you?"

"I'm just on the verge of remembering," she confessed.

"Close your eyes again," I whispered, "and get back into the scene where your father is leaving you forever and wants to say something to you."

Meanwhile, more convulsive tears burst forth. Her chest was heaving in pain.  "Say it. Say it. Say it," I urged her.

Suddenly my Angel cried aloud a single word. Then, she repeated with greater force, again and again, the same word. I couldn't understand the word because her horrendous grief mangled it. What I could recognize, however, was that she understood it and, for the moment, that was quite enough.

After a few minutes, a great calm replaced the great storm. Her eyes were still closed. My Angel was curled up with her head lying on my chest as I continued to hold her. Then, slowly, her eyes opened, and she told me a most marvelous account of how her father had come to her and what he had said. . . .
 

Father and Daughter in an Eternal Embrace

A Buddhist monk once confided to me, "Most of the important things cannot be said in words." This surely holds true for the vision that exploded in the heart of my Angel that afternoon. Her miraculous vision haunted me as well for she spoke of finding her father in an open grave and of her being invited to come down and to give him her final embrace.

In the days that followed, I tried to capture something of her vision in a poem that I passed on to her:


Hot breath, urgent breath, sweet breath,
Penetrating even the blackish emptiness
Of the open grave that lies before her.

Jaw locked tight, the lion's knees tremble
As she edges toward that fearsome hole
That sucks out her life, leaving her numb.
 
Hot hands, urgent hands, sweet hands
Awaken her cold body, bearing her forward
Into the blackness stretching out before her.
 
Then he appears, Daddy, truly her father,
Softly crying in the darkness of the grave
And reaching out toward his beloved Daughter.

With this sign, she recklessly leaps forward;
His long-familiar arms fold around her
And press out a final convulsion of tears.

Death, moved by this piteous sight of a
Father and Daughter locked in a final embrace,
Slackens the chains that bind her to Death.

 

A few days later, my Angel penned the first lines that she ever wrote to me. The opening lines confirmed everything I had done and assured me that it was indeed her father who had met her in the dark passageways of her imagination. Here are her words:


For the last two days, I have wanted to tell you how much our [second] meeting meant to me. I also have been struggling to understand its depth of meaning for it was the most powerful and the most satisfying moment of my life thus far.

During the following days, the power of what happened deepened as daydreams spontaneously erupted during her idle daylight moments and night dreams hastened to her bedside as she slept at night. Her next letter testified to this:


It is difficult to put on paper the diversity of feelings I've felt this day. As I sat to write to you, my heart was overflowing with all the wonders of life.

 
The numbness that I noted at the beginning of this chapter has passed. The telling of her story of grief reawakens the trust and confidence that she places in me.  It's Wednesday, and I'm expecting that my Angel will rush through my front door and wrap her arms around me at just any moment. The door is unlocked. My whole body is alert and is palpably anticipating her approach. . . .  [Please read the next chapter as well.]


 

Author Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note the resonance between these two citations:

I have wanted to tell you how much our [second] meeting meant to me. I also have been struggling to understand its depth of meaning for it was the most powerful and the most satisfying moment of my life thus far. ~My Angel

Over time I have gained an entirely new understanding of the masculine and how much healing there is when it comes together with the feminine with the intention of healing and wholeness. As our [therapeutic] session came to a close we both laughed and cried together. I continue to be in awe of the power of presence, intention and healing touch that we can gift to one another. ~Dr. Kim Keller
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Chapter 3
Dark Hole Left by my Lost Mother

By Aaron Milavec

MY ANGEL OF GOD: Chronicles of her fierce compassion and grace-filled healing love -- This is an unusual and dangerous love story that I have tried to relate with honesty and insight. I have relied upon my journal entries and upon our love letters that I carefully preserved for thirty years.  Now that I am facing my own death, I want to share with family, friends, and writers those personal experiences that have shaped my life most profoundly.  Hence, I ask you, as my reader, to prepare yourself for a mind-bending and heart-rending experience. This is also a story of my faith and hope in the face of small "miracles" and enormous tragedies; hence, those who share my faith and hope are in for a special treat. Please advise me (a) by identifying [using "copy and paste"] those lines in my story that most moved you and (b) by offering your ideas on how I might improve my telling of the "chronicles of her fierce compassion and grace-filled healing love." 

Affectionately,
Aaron



Our second meeting was devoted to my Angel narrating and reliving what life was like before her father died.  Unexpectedly, her father appeared and embraced her and gave her his parting word.  A few days later, my Angel penned the first lines that she ever wrote to me. The opening lines confirmed everything I had done and assured me that it was indeed her father who had met her in the dark passageways of her imagination. Here are her words:


For the last two days, I have wanted to tell you how much our [second] meeting meant to me. I also have been struggling to understand its depth of meaning for it was the most powerful and the most satisfying moment of my life thus far.





We agreed to meet at my home on Wednesday. This would be our third meeting. My anticipation was running high. Accordingly, I penned a poem to my Angel and gave it to her after class on Tuesday evening in a sealed envelope marked on the outside: "for reading when alone." Here is my poem:

Waiting for my Friend

It's only Monday
And the gray mourning dove softly coos.
He knows. She is coming!
Tuesday has arrived
And the pink-buds of my dogwood begin to open.
They know. She is coming!
On Wednesday I'm distracted
And the red blood in my veins dances wildly.
It knows. She is coming!


Some twenty years ago, I saw a haunting film entitled David and Lisa. This film dramatizes the story of how two teenagers confined to a mental hospital progressively healed each other in a way that the certified psychotherapists could not effect. It's not that I am against a studied analysis of deep human problems. Quite the contrary, I myself am trained in technical analysis. Yet, there is such a wide existential gap between a competent analysis of a human problem and the graced solution that brings permanent healing to a broken life.
 

One Loss Evokes Another

Already, at our last meeting, my Angel noticed my tears when I spoke briefly of my mother's death.  I told my Angel that I was a vulnerable boy of eight when this tragic loss took place. I had convinced myself that my grieving process was finished a long time ago. But here I was sitting on the couch facing my Angel and talking about my mother while quiet tears traced down my cheeks.

Often the heart reveals what the mind so easily denies. Seeing my silent tears, my Angel said, "How would your mother have held you at eight? Hold me that way now!"  This bold suggestion came as a complete surprise.  Had my Angel been trained in psychodrama as I had, she might have made such a suggestion on the basis of her clinical practice.  In her case, however, she had a graced intuition and felt the liberty to follow up on it.

In response to her request, I asked my Angel to stand up. I knelt before her so as to approximate the height of an eight-year-old boy. From that position, I wrapped my arms around her waist and buried my head in her chest. And the magic of that movement was that the eight-year-old boy long-forgotten deep inside me came to live and blurted out, "I miss you, mom." And, with that, a flood of convulsive tears followed. . . .

For a few days after this "therapeutic session," my chest was physically sore. It was as though my Angel had gone inside me and pulled out an aching blackness that she saw buried in my chest.  As she did this, my chest muscles and internal organs had been disturbed from their usual place.  Thus, I could feel the post-operative upheaval of her healing intervention. Painful as it was, however, I wanted and needed more.  Hence, I wrote this to my Angel:

  A Plea to my Dearest Friend
Melt me down;
Tear me apart;
Smash into my secret canyon walls with your love.
To hear you say,
"Now I want to get inside you. . . ,"
I soften like wax
At these words. 
Oh, do love me recklessly     
 spontaneously   
  savagely 
   sensuously       
    seductively. . . . 
For even now I long to have you share  
This aching blackness within my chest,
But I need you to help me to find 
The lost door to let you in.

 

The Angel Sent to Open my Tomb

It was the Easter season. The church invited me again to celebrate what our heavenly Father had done in sending down one (Matt 28:1-8) or two (Luke 24:1-10) angels to force open the sealed tomb and to mend the battered corpse of his Son. How could anyone celebrate Easter and doubt that these angels had healing powers? God is invested in healing the living (e.g., John 5:3-5, Tobit 12:1-6) and resurrecting the dead. The case of Jesus in the tomb, therefore, offers the paradigm of how God works though his angels. Abraham (Gen 18:1-33) and Tobit (12:7-21) meanwhile, make it clear that God's angels visit us appearing as ordinary "wingless" humans—only by observing them very carefully can one discover that they are angels sent from God.  And so it was only after Easter that I first recognized that my Angel had been sent by God to open my tomb and to mend my battered heart.
 

The Boy with a Battered Heart

My dear Angel had shared with me her tragic story of loss. Now it was my turn to reveal to her that I, too, had suffered a great loss. Right after Easter, therefore, I told my Angel the story of the eight-year-old boy and his mother, who was named Emma.  I deliberately crafted this story to take on the form of a "fairy tale" that I learned from my mother.  My story, consequently, has some fanciful and magical elements that serve to highlight how I, as a young boy, experienced the events surrounding the death of my mother. The story I shared with my Angel was this:


Once upon a time, there lived a simple tailor [my father] who was a midget. He had the good fortune to marry a noble and gifted lady named Emma. In due time, Emma bore the tailor his first-born son. But this was no ordinary mother, and this was destined to be no ordinary son.

As an infant, feeding upon the milk from his mother's breasts, this male child grew exceedingly strong and large. At two months, he weighed what most infants weigh at four. At six months, he could already pull himself to his feet hanging on to his mother's dress and could babble a few indistinct words—feats normally associated with children at twelve months. And so this marvelous progress continued for years. Everyone marveled at the strength and vitality of Emma's son.

Left by himself, this child would have been quite ordinary. Emma made the difference. She had the gift of taking what was small and insecure and kneading into it her own goodness and power. As a wife, she had considerably enlarged the size and stature of her husband, the tailor. In fact, while she lived, anyone who had not known him earlier would never have imagined that he had once been a midget. Thus, the marvelous effect Emma was having upon her first-born son could be seen as a continuation of the marvelous transformation that had earlier graced the boy's father.

But the gremlins grew jealous. They plotted in secret how to bring this extraordinary family to naught. After much planning, they brewed a strong poison called "cancer" into which they dipped a fine-looking apple. This poisoned apple was slyly placed in the fruit bowl of Emma's cheerful kitchen.

The next day Emma ate this apple, but she was too much in possession of life to die. Others would have died after just one bite, but not her. She became ill, all right, but just as quickly recovered. The infuriated gremlins set their efforts to concentrating the poisonous "cancer" and contaminating more of her food. Thus, she took ill with increasing regularity, but she always appeared to recover. Yet, over a period of three years, the poisons had gradually weakened her system so massively as to bring about a prolonged sickness that ate away at every part of her soul and her body.

The tailor gradually showed signs of deterioration as well. With no one to hold him, to rub his hairy chest at night, and to blow life-giving breath between his lips, the poor man gradually lost both his strength and his stature. Within a few months after his wife's death, he had become a midget again, just a little larger than he had been before he first met Emma.

In parallel fashion, after Emma's death, there was no one to kiss her first-born son each morning and tuck him in bed and read to him fairy tales at night.  Now he came home from school each day and entered a house where no one greeted him with hugs and no one made him hot chocolate and cookies.  No one asked him what he had learned at school, what games he played at recess, and what was the condition of his heart. 

So, with his mother absent and no one prepared to take her place, it is no mystery that the eight-year-old boy ceased to grow as he had done before.  If one could peer inside this little boy, one would notice that portions of his heart had slowed down and other parts had stopped functioning entirely. Decay set in. Like dead leaves, some portions of his heart actually rotted and left behind a gaping black hole.

 

Grief Releases Grief

As soon as my Angel understood the brokenness of my heart, she quickly invented a plan of action. She prompted me to see my affliction as concealing a hidden blessing.  My Angel then encouraged me to become very small and to enter the dark hole and to explore its interior.  Inside, to my surprise, was not just the stench of death and loss, but a prisoner. This prisoner I came to recognize as Wild Man.  He who emaciated and chained in my broken heart by his bully of a brother, Dutiful Man. This "voice within the darkness" was a surprise that only my Angel could bring me to face and to hear. Thus my story continued:
When my mother died, I had no choice but to model myself more and more after my dad. Duty, obligation, and will-power were the character traits that mattered most in his life.  Under the rubric of "being strong," he never allowed himself to shed a single tear in the presence of his children. He told us in a calm voice, "There was nothing that could be done to save your mother.  We have no choice but to go forward as though nothing had happened." In so doing, my dad attempted to hide from us and maybe from himself as well the post-traumatic effects of my mother's death. According to my dad, the grief, anger, and fear occasioned by our mother's death were of no account.  We must "go forward as though nothing had happened."
 

My mother was only twenty-eight when she died.  I had just turned eight.  I remember vividly kissing her cold, pale-pink cheek as she lay motionless and dead in the casket placed in the living room of our home.  One of my beloved aunts noticed my kiss. She rushed to my side and took me in her arms and confided to me, "God must have loved your mother very much to have taken her to himself so early."

I had every reason to accept her well-meaning advice.  After all, I firmly believed that God loved my mother very much. Yet, in the years that followed, when I began to suffer daily the full measure of my mother's absence, I began to ask myself how God could be so good to my mother at the same time that he was so immeasurably cruel to me and my family.  As I saw it God already had his own mother, Mary, with him in heaven.  He didn't need another mother.  I, on the other hand, was desperately in need of my mother. God may have loved my mother very much as my aunt suggested, but he was surely "a stinking monster" when it came to leaving me and my siblings to suffer the rest of our lives without her.

 

[Note: It was at this point that my sympathy for Dracula's anger against God was born (although I did not know it yet).  This will be taken up later.]

In contrast to my dad and my aunt, my Angel never made the mistake of sugar-coating any of my suffering.  In fact, she was able to validate all my anger, all my disappointments, and all my suffering.  She could even marvelously reach deep into the black hole in my heart and nurture with her boundless love that emaciated Wild Man that had been chained in the darkness and neglected for so many years.

Was it my Angel's inventive imagination or her improvisational dancing or her powerful love that enabled the Wild Man to regain his strength and vitality? All three, in just the right measure, no doubt. In any case, my Angel artfully brought a sorely battered and neglected part of me back to health. What the angels did for Jesus, my Angel did for me.   [The next chapter is filled with love letters that continued the healing that was begun here.  Please go there now.]

 

Author Notes Here are my words that set the pace for what is to come:

Oh, do love me recklessly
spontaneously
savagely
sensuously
seductively. . . .


Chapter 4
Magic Spells to & from Neuchatel

By Aaron Milavec

Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.
Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of sexual content.

Note to my dear reader: This chapter explores how the mutual interplay between me and my Angel grows through our letter writing. If you have not met me and my Beloved in Ch2 or Ch3, it will be difficult to understand how our mutual grief forged a tenuous bond that united us in a common purpose.  The letters exchanged here consolidate this common purpose and slowly set ablase a burning love that makes us confident that we will heal each other in yet more dramatic ways in the future.  You, the reader, get to watch this unfold by reading the private correspondance of two would-be romantic lovers. I would estimate that 15-20 minutes would be required to read and absorb this autobiographical narrative.

Just as I was beginning to shake off the coldness of death, the semester ended and I was scheduled to go off to Switzerland to do some collaborative research for five weeks in Neuchâtel.
 

As time draws near to when you must depart,
All I desire is to give you my heart,
To wrap my arms around and to pull you near
And whisper how much I love you into your ear.

 
These are the delightful words of the poem that my Angel gave me to open at ten thousand feet. I read them over and over on the flight as the roar of the 747 propelled me away from my Angel across the cold Atlantic. It was incredible to me that the eight times that we had met had born such great trust and such complete surrender. The weeks to come, filled with long days of being apart, will surely alter who we are for each other. As the saying has it, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Yet, being in uncharted waters, I had no idea just how far this fondness was to take root in my heart and bear unexpected fruit.   
 
To have my Angel's first letter arrive in Neuchâtel was pure joy:
 

Walnut Hills, May 29th
Dearest Traveler,
 
The peace of the Lord be with you, my friend. I feel your distance from me already; however, I am able to turn inward to the breath of your spirit that you gave me and feel nourished. I have thought of you often since leaving you last night. Mostly I am in awe at how beautiful our relationship has been for me. . . .
 
You are the breath of heaven in my life. Your spirit unleashes all the heaviness of my being. You set my heart free. I really experienced this as we danced last week, but almost everything we do together is liberating and invigorating for me, for my soul.
 
I had a fantasy that I danced for you in a more seductive way, in a way that would allow me to express more of my feelings. What a wonderful, delightful way to let my secret feelings be exposed. The interpretative dance that you earlier shared with me enabled me to let go of all my inhibitions. But as I reflect upon it, I wouldn't do this with anyone else so fully. I am totally free when I am with you. For some reason, I can really be what God created me to be, most fully and most easily, when I am with you.
 
Oh, let it be my friend! Let it be, oh Windy One. Blow your gentle breath into the deep canyons of my heart. Revitalize me to the core. I want it all. Stir up all that has trampled down and been forgotten. Lift up all that has been bent over from pain and sorrow!
 
I say, "Yes," to you, dear Wind, just as I say, "Yes," to God. "I want to live the real-life" [John Cougar Mellencamp]. I also want to be with you, to know the deep valleys of your life. I want to be the swift comet that illumines your atmosphere with my red glow. I want to shower your canyon walls with sparks of my love. I want to set fire to your life. . . .
 
Oh, how good it is to be your friend. My joyful spirit praises God. I celebrate how precious you are to me. My prayers are with you . . . as well as my heart that wants to burst open in your gentle hands.
 
Your Angel

 
Yipes! What extraordinary grace is brewing here? I can hardly believe this. Indeed I am happy to be away if, being away allows such truths to spill out from the sweet lips of my Angel. She calls me the "breath of heaven" that sets her heart free. Meanwhile, she names herself as the "swift comet . . . that sets fire to my life."
 

Interpretative Dancing Together  

As for the interpretative dancing that we did together, I told her to close her eyes and to let the Indian chant that I had recorded sink into her soul. I asked her to begin moving her body only when her spirit was ready to express something of the mystery within the oriental music.  I did the same, but, at every moment, I took notice of my Angel, how she moved, and I endeavored to harmonize my movements with hers.
 
The second time we did this, we used the same music. This time, however, our movements were altogether wild, and we grasped and turned together in rhythm with the chant. Then, all of a sudden, my Angel stripped off her white blouse and bra—giving her dance a provocative and sexually heightened quality. I reveled in this turn of events. I reveled in her boldness.  I reveled in the recognition that my Angel did not ask permission but, with unbounded freedom, went ahead and did whatever seemed right and good. In effect, my Angel was able to take anything I proposed and bringing it to new heights of expressing joy and peace and love.
 
We never discussed our dancing. We just let it be what it would be. Now, in her first letter, I hear her identifying the impact of these spontaneous movements for the first time: "The interpretative dance that you have shared with me has allowed me to let go of all my inhibitions. But as I reflect upon it, I wouldn't do this with anyone else so fully. I am totally free when I am with you." Wow!  I memorize her words in an attempt to grasp their inner strength and meaning.
 
Josh Groban sings a love song, "You're Still You."  I'm listening to it now.  The words he uses for his beloved suddenly take on new meaning for me.  His operatic, baritone voice expresses the sentiments that I am feeling for my Angel.  This is especially true when he sings "I believe in you" and "You do no wrong!"   I reread your first letter and find that this is exactly the right song that I now sing out loud to my absent Angel.
 

I look up to
Everything you are.
In my eyes, you do no wrong
And I believe in you
Although you never asked me to.
I will remember you
And what life put you through
And in this cruel and lonely world
I've found one [true] love.

 
When I get to the point where my Angel writes, "I had a fantasy that I danced for you in a more seductive way," this set my imagination on fire. I welcome that day! I know with certainty that it is coming soon. Yowzer!  So, in anticipation of that special day, I begin to dance spontaneously with you and call out again and again, "You do no wrong!" "You do no wrong!"
 
 

Dancing to the Vision of Chapman

Her second letter arrives the next day.  It was even more magnificent:
 

Walnut Hills, May 30th
Dearest Friend,
 
When I close my eyes, I think of you, you, you. I see the deep dark brown of your eyes, the outline of your lips, your red cheeks, and luscious hair! What a beautiful man you are!
 
I can see you dance slowly, as the Spirit of Wind within you gently blows and praises God. I can also see the pain within your chest, within your heart, that is the result of a little boy who had to do it all by himself, deprived of a mother's tender love. I see a man who has seen the face of God, who seeks justice, a man who heals, touches pain boldly, and blows the Spirit of Life within him out to others. My friend, precious in God's eyes and in mine, you are the Wind of God.
 
I will be going to hear Tracy Chapman this Tuesday night. I had the fantasy of going with you. We were seated on an aisle. This gave us access to the space to dance out the spirit of many of her songs. We smiled at each other a lot. We both enjoyed singing with Tracy about liberating the imprisoned and about our desire for a just world. After the concert, we walked by the moonlit river filled with the hope and the vision that we had just breathed and danced together. We held hands and treasured greatly the time together. Our smiles and eyes and bodies celebrated our friendship. We wanted the night to last a long time, like forever. Then, after driving home, we went to bed in our own homes knowing how good God is and feeling how powerful love is in this world.
 
Your spirit continues to blow into my life and to refresh me. I praise God for this, and with all of creation, join in giving God glory for my Wind.
 
Love,
Your Angel

 
After a long day of research, I take this letter to bed with me and whisper her life-giving words in the quiet of the night.  Only then do I notice that, for the second time, she closes her letter with "Love [coming from] Your Angel."  "You do no wrong!"
 

My Love Comes to You Ferociously

Given the five-day trans-Atlantic mail gap, it was just about this point that my first letter arrived at my Angel's door in Walnut Hills. Without half-knowing it, we were expressing the same sentiments even though we were continents apart. For the sake of simplicity, I have altered the dates on my letters to indicate when my Angel received them rather than when they were sent. My first letter from Switzerland and my Angel's immediate response are as follows:
 
 

Neuchâtel, May 31st
Dear Messenger of my Lord,
 
The train ride from Geneva to Neuchâtel [Switzerland] was electrifying. I delight in the familiar red tile roofs, stucco walls, vineyards, and the rocky beaches of Lake Geneva. I breathe this in and silently say to myself, "I belong here. This is home for me." Memories of my student days in Switzerland flood over me, and my body sighs in knowing recognition.
 
Oh, if only you were here!  Then you could see all this with my eyes. . . . Exhausted by the eight-hour flight and train ride, I would hold you close to me all night.  I'm laughing now for I suspect that I would find you wide-awake at 4 a.m. (since our internal clocks would be registering 10 a.m.). Then I would listen to all your fresh impressions and add to them some of my own. . . .
 
Now we sleep,
Wind
 
P.S.: Tell me that you will read my letters only when alone and save them for me in a place "for your eyes only."
 

Walnut Hills
June 2nd
 
Hello my Darling!  Hello my good Friend! 
 
Today I spent a lot of time at your home.  I went with my husband to hear Rachel [your wife] preach at the 10:00 Mass.  Afterwards, I took your free-spirited little daughter Natasha to Eden Park while Rachel preached at the 12:00 Mass. 
 
We flew a kite.  As the kite danced and soared through the wind, my thoughts turned to you.  I became the kite, and you were the Wind lifting me up and turning me about.  You blew so powerfully.  Ah, how refreshing and how energizing it was to feel you moving me in the air—at times, slow and smooth, and at other times, gusty blasts!  It is as though we were again dancing together, following each other's lead, fashioning a beautiful, creative rhythm.  Let's do this again sometime soon. 
 
After the kite flying and a brief period on the swings, I took Natasha home and met Margo, your longâ??time friend.  Margo and I spent a long time getting to know each other.  She's a beautiful woman with such a simple spirit.  I deeply enjoyed getting to know her history. 
 
I wanted to know what Margo knew about me since she mentioned that you had told her something about me.  I wanted to know everything that she thought about you, but for some reason, I felt uncomfortably to ask her.  Most likely, next time I will, or maybe you'll tell me in a letter. 
 
Today, I felt like I was very near to you because [in your home] I saw your tea cup, your computer, your desk, etc.  At the same time, there was a real emptiness in being at your house since, in the past, we had always been together there.  I'm sure Rachel, Natasha, and Margo all felt the same way as they reminisced about the things you have done together. 
 
Natasha [age=4] misses her daddy.  She tells everyone, "My Dad left on a plane.  He'll be back tomorrow!"
 
I want to know you through and through, my Friend.  I want to hear your thoughts, feelings, desires, dreams.  I feel like I didn't know enough about you today, and I desire to know you more, to come inside you, to be with you a while, and to touch your canyon walls (and have you sink in and absorb me as I do).  Most of all, I want to wrap my arms around the void that rests within your chest and squeeze it much smaller by loving you.
 
I feel fortunate to be one of the women who loves you, and, although I'm sure the love given by each of us is different, I want to express mine to you this day!
 
Love,
Your Angel

 
Oh, I relish the details that my Angel gives me in her letter.  I can so easily see the world through her eyes.  The last paragraph is especially significant. And, notice how, now for the third time, she closes her letter with "Love [coming from] Your Angel."  I love it!
 

Neuchâtel, June 5th
My dearest Angel,
 
Two beautiful letters arrived dated May 29th and June 1st. They lift up my spirit and bring it so, so, so close to you. How to respond? A reverend silence and this solemn accord:
 
Oh, come swift comet!
Race past all my defenses;
Plunge deep into the hidden
Canyons lost to all but you.
Hit down hard; rock my soul!
Shower the wall with your sparks;
Melt me down with your fire;
Burn away the banality of my life.
Shape and pound me as you will!
I trust you as I trust my God,
Alas, maybe even more. . . .
 
Tonight (in my deepest and truest imagination) I touch your cheek and kiss your eyes. You are with me, here, one-quarter of the way around the world. When I retire, you are at my side breathing in my ear and rubbing my chest. I sleep holding my Angel in perfect peace.
 
When I awake, you are running your hand through my hair and moving your delicious body so as to capture the warm sleep still radiating from mine. When I work long hours here, you are curled up with a book of your own by the window at my side. You stretch your toes under my thigh from time to time so as to capture my thoughts—warm and silent and waiting for the period when we will take a break and speak to each other face to face. . . .
 
You say that I have set your heart free and you thrill at being my friend. My chest tightens. Tears come to my eyes. No man should be so happy!
 
Mybreathentersyouforever,
Wind

 

Walnut Hills, June 8th
Dear Wind,
 
It's been a difficult few days (which I'll describe later perhaps) and my spirit has been formulating a poem for the last two days. This is a very special poem, probably my favorite:
 
 Wind Dela
 
Breath expelled
and taken up spirit
shaken, awakened
love rumbles, stretches
and reaches long
all-embracing
red-bubbling
holy exchange . . .
dela!
 
The word "dela" comes from some African language. I'm not sure that I have spelled it right. During the Chapman concert (which we imaginatively attended together), "dela" was being used (as you remember) over and over to indicate "deep and total satisfaction." So my spirit yearns to share this "Wind Dela" with you.
 
I do so enjoy writing you. I received a letter from you today, and I enjoyed it immensely. I'd like to hear more about our sleeping together.
 
Wind, I long to hear all the stories, imaginings, thoughts, and emotions evoked by your surroundings. Please jot down what you feel and think so I can share this joy with you.
 
I spent some time alone with Natasha last night. What a beauty. I took her to my Grandmother's birthday party. On the way home, her right leg sang a song to her left leg. Then it was my turn to sing. Delightful!
 
I also spent a long evening with Rachel, which was also most enjoyable. She thought I was a 2, but I think I'm a 4 (tragic-romantic) on the Enneagram scale. We talked about you a lot, which was fun for me, as I was able to learn even more about who you are.
 
Sending a big hug to you Wind,
Your Angel

 

Angel, Spread Your Wings

Neuchâtel, June 9th
My dearest. . .
Angel, spread your wings!
I want to fly away with you.
Take me in your arms;
I know that you are dying to.
 
It's Sunday. There is a stillness in the house and on the streets. All the stores close here Saturday at noon and do not open again until Monday morning. Such beautiful sanity reigns in this part of the world where the Sabbath rest is alive and well.
 
Walk with me to the lake! Yes? Yes! Orange lichens grace centuries-old stone walls lining our path . . . grapevines sprout fresh tendrils reaching out to touch you . . . so, so, so good to hold your hand as we go . . . little stone houses with little gardens everywhere . . . hundreds of roses blooming . . . I pick one for you . . . the path descends . . . wood smoke from a cottage chimney scents the air . . . sweater weather . . . you sing, "You make my heart free," in the tunnel crossing under the highway . . . the words and the echo thrill me . . . holding you close to me, I spin you around 'til I am dizzy . . . through a muddy construction site . . . then we arrive next to the lake walking on the orange sandstones at the water's edge. . . .
 
I hold you from behind as we watch the swallows diving near the surface of the water to catch their supper . . . three times I blow warm air into your blocked and aching ears . . . the Jural Mountains of France rise up on the far bank, three kilometers away . . . surfboard sailboats dart back and forth like large, gray moths dancing over the silvery lake. . . .
 
I hold you tighter to warm you against the chilly late afternoon wind . . . peace comes over me . . . the sun breaks through and warms your hair for a brief five minutes . . . holding you like this, I enjoy the smell of your hair . . . we say nothing, but I watch everything with your eyes. . . .
 
Oh, to see this beautiful world with your eyes . . . angels stop to watch us and kiss each other when they see how happy we are . . . a light rain begins to fall . . . so silently, so silently . . . little droplets cling to your hair like heavy dew . . . I kiss your hair dry . . . then, suddenly we are alone before the blazing hearth in the little cottage we passed when descending . . . night falls . . . amen!
 
Your Wind

 

Walnut Hills, June 12th
Dearest Wind,
 
Today I was thinking of you on the way home from work as I listened to John Cougar Mellencamp (the CD you gave me) in my car. How fun it was to do an interpretative dance with you to this music on the Tuesday before you left!
 
Oh, how deeply I am envisioning sharing more of our spirits together through dance! I think of you so often. It gives me life at every moment to remember my friend whom I love so much.
 
I miss you, my Wind, even though I have been very busy.

I carry you with me in my heart wherever I go and whatever I'm doing. I long to be close to you again and anticipate our joyful reunion even now!
 
I'm beginning to see less distinction between body and soul. Your words came back to me, "When two people joyously and courageously share their spirits, their bodies quickly become jealous and want to take part in that fine thing happening as their spirits intertwine."
 
My love is ferocious and I want to attack!

I see that I love all of you, body and soul. So, let's dance, sing, touch, laugh, cry, and celebrate our blessed love! My love goes with you
 
As your love stays with me,
Your loving Angel

 

  
Now, in her sixth letter, I again hear her savoring the impact of our impromptu dancing. Earlier, she wrote, "I am totally free when I am with you."  Now my ferocious Angel extends this into a larger future: "Oh, how deeply I am envisioning sharing more of our spirits together through dance! I think of you so often. It gives me life at every moment to remember my friend whom I love so much." My Angel's words wash over me, and I reread her letters before I fall asleep each night.  I continually give thanks to God for having sent me such a marvelous Angel.
 

Neuchâtel, June 13th
My dearest Angel,
 
Its' raining.  I arrive home from the research center wet and exhausted. Listening to the soundtrack of The Mission that you gave me, I warm myself on your letter. Oh, dela!
 
Mon chèr Ange, I want to love all of you, even those parts of you that may be displeasing to yourself. When I smell your fear, the brokenness of your life, I will love YOU more! How can I melt all of you in the furnace of my passion, if you show me only your safe and sure and saintly side?
 
If I am your Wind,
I shall snap the kite string from your hands
And take you to dangerous places—
To heights that make you scream in fear.
 
If I am your Wind,
I shall blow the coals of my love red hot
And melt down every piece of your protective armor
Every shred of calcifying civility burnt away.

So, prepare your soul to soar and your body to burn!

And, alas, you'd like to hear more about our sleeping together.  Get ready!  Even this may be part of God's future for us.
 
Hewhowaitsforyou,
Wind

 
 

My Body Trembles

Walnut Hills, June 15th
Dearest Breath of Life,
 
My body trembles as I read your powerful letters. I quiver with passion and with life within. I feel so intensely, I hardly know where to begin. I yearn to be with you, to have your arms around me to comfort my aroused spirit and body. I feel like crying, for my soul aches to have you touch me, to hold my heart in your hands, to burst open again and again and again.
 
I want to be with you, to be one with you, and you with me . . . to sit with each other totally exposed and open, and to be loving toward each other . . . to love you and kiss you and to feel your body touching mine.
 
I want to see your beautiful eyes and comb through the soft hair around your ears. I want to touch every part of you, especially the black emptiness within your chest. I want to gently move it to the side and flood that place with love. I want to dive into that void and pour God's love (through me to you) therein until the blackness is transformed into a brilliant shining light that burns with fire.
 
Come close to me, yes, even closer, my Breath. I too want to come into you. I know you possess the secrets of God, for your breath gives me life and heals my yearning soul.
 
Breath of life, Wind of joy,
Lift me high, I long to soar
I want to fly away with you.
Fill me,
free me,
touch me,
heal me,
I am yours, and I am. . .
Wanting You So,
 
Your hungry Angel

 
Yowzer! Every fiber of my being wants to hold the quivering body of my ferocious Angel and to comfort her spirit! I revel in this!
 
I wrote to my Angel, "I shall blow the coals of my love red hot and meltdown every piece of your protective armor . . . so, prepare your soul to soar and your body to burn." And she picks up on this and speaks of how her spirit yearns and her body burns in anticipation of being more intimate with me. She even goes so far as to say, "Lift me high, I long to soar. I want to fly away with you. Fill me, free me, touch me, heal me, [for] I am yours, and I am . . . Wanting You So."
 

Wanting You So

My imagination is ablaze. Should I invite my ferocious Angel to fly to Switzerland and to spend a week alone with me? Could my Angel take a week off of work? Not likely. Nonetheless, my Wild Man is ablaze with fierce and reckless desire to be very close to her.
 
But how would she explain this to her husband? I already know that Tim is unsettled by the intensity of his wife's attraction to me. If I put myself in his shoes, it would be foolhardy for him to send his wife into my arms (unless, of course, he wanted to use this as an opportunity to bow out of his marriage).  Ah, so much is unknown!
 
Yet, all things considered, we must not be careless when it comes to our spouses. When it comes to each other, however, our options are practically infinite—sharing stories, interpretative dancing, body massage, holding hands, wrestling, and maybe even a certain amount of sensuous kissing. . . .  Are we capable of burning with love to enjoy and to heal each other while, at the same time, assuring our partners that they retain our complete sexual fidelity? 
 
Then it occurs to me that my beloved Angel and I may have already crossed over the line and exceeded the bonds that our marriage vows allow. True, our kissing and touching have been minimal. But, given the last two letters, we would hardly be contented with this minimalism. My ferocious Angel has asked me to say more about "sleeping together." My Angel fantasizes about "flying away" to be alone with me.  Meanwhile, my Wild Man relishes all of this and wants to push the boundaries even more.   
 
So clearly we are playing with fire and risk getting burnt. Yet, when I am true to myself and true to my Angel and true to my God, there is nothing substantial in me that hesitates to deny the powerful healing that our love provides for each other. Thus, even if our relationship is dangerous (like passing through fire), our joint mission must be to teach each other how to handle fire safely and responsibly, both for ourselves and for our partners and for our God.
 

Neuchâtel, June 20th
Mon chèr et doux Ange!
 
Burning with desire, how can it be that you are so far away? So I bring you close to me where I need you. . . .
 
Sunday . . . our day of rest . . . we walk together to the local Catholic church with Christoph, an extraordinary sensitive young man whom I admire and whom I have asked to join us . . . the colored light passes through the cut glass and bathes the stone altar with a glow of divine presence . . . so peaceful to find you here by my side . . . the rite has a simple dignity throughout . . . hymns animated by a woman with a clear voice like Judy Collins. . . .
 
We sing "prepare a way for the Lord". . . that's when you press your hand over mine . . . oh, in some mysterious way, I sense you are clearing the rubble out of my life so that this Lord can bless us and renew us . . . my heart jumps (as did the child in Elizabeth's womb) in anticipation. . . .
 
After Mass, we sit on the grass chatting with Christoph on the power of symbols, of sex, and of medical care. Lunch is always chicken on Sundays . . . so, so, so good to feel your love as you discretely touch my thigh as we eat!
 
After a long after-dinner tea in my room, you sing to me as you cradle my head in your lap . . . I even doze off briefly and awake to find you peacefully looking into my soul . . . your hair frames your face so beautifully . . . and your sensuous and full lips wordless invite me to rise up and kiss you. . . .
 
Your fresh Wind

 
 

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Am I a reckless madman or a faithful lover?  At this moment, I cannot allow that there is a firm dividing line between one and the other.  I am courageous enough to be both! In this choice, the words of Oriah Mountain Dreamer offer me both a challenge and a confirmation:
 

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
 
It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool 
for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive.
 
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon . . .
I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
 
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness [Oh, YES!]
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic,
to remember the limitations of being human. ~~
 

 
While rereading this, I sit with pain, mine and my Angel's, and, in due course, the pain dissolves within the ferocious love between us.  I end up totally open and unafraid of the love I have for my Angel!
 
 

Free Enough to Dream Again

Walnut Hills, June 24th
Dear Wind of dreams,
 
Your last letter was a healing experience in itself. As I entered into your fantasy and into mine, my body and my emotions were overwhelmed. For a moment, upon first reading your letter, I was confused about how to assimilate our love into my life. I immediately began to write, praying for direction as I went ahead. Gradually, I became totally open and unafraid of the love I have for you.
 
Once again my body quivers as it thinks of you returning. I wish so much that somehow I could get to you in Switzerland. I feel like a little girl who makes a wish upon a star and whose fairy godmother comes to her aid.
 
This might sound silly, but I've never allowed myself to wish like this. I've always been very practical. Maybe I've never wanted anything so much? It feels so good to be free enough to dream again and to have a wish held deep in my heart.
 
I would love to surprise you by walking up behind you and kissing your neck, even before you realized who it was. I would fall into your lap and hug and kiss you all over. Then we would embrace deeply, and long minutes would pass, and tears of joy and of love would stream down our cheeks. Then we would look at each other and laugh and delight in the sheer presence of touching again. Then our souls, they would laugh a little and become quiet as they suddenly realize that they have no need to enter into fresh embraces since they have never ceased embracing from the moment you left!
 
How good it is to be loved by you!
 
Take a few minutes today while you are outdoors to feel my presence, my ferocious love, my warm hands. . . . I'm closer to you than you can imagine.
 
Is Rachel picking you up at the airport? I would love to, but I'm sure Rachel will be, right? I'm really aware of the need, after talking with them over the past few weeks, to be gentle with Tim and Rachel. Rachel and I talked at length. She is still unsettled about us, but is very open. Tim, too, struggles, but is trying. Ahhh, so much to consider. Couldn't we just vanish for a few weeks?
 
Your Angel sauvage,
very close to you.

 
I am amazed at this letter!  My Angel has been having the same perplexing thoughts as my own. She is wildly thinking of joining me in Switzerland. Then, considering how absurd this seems, she wants to "vanish [with me] for a few weeks" when I return. This is a new thought. This would allow us to sort out our lives. . . . Why not?
 
My Angel has passed the point of no return. She writes, "I became totally open and unafraid of the love I have for you. . . . Once again my body quivers as it thinks of you returning." Oh, yes!  Come to me, my faithful Angel, my burning comet, my gift of God! 
 
Note to the reader: At this point, you may skip forward a few pages and go directly to the final chapter, "Distressing News." If, however, you are a fan of Bram Stoker's Dracula (novel and 1992 film), then you will want to discover how this film helped me to further consolidate my love for my ferocious Angel.  In that case, read on.   

My imagination flashes upon the condition of Mina in Bram Stoker's Dracula (novel and 1992 film). In the bedroom scene, Count Dracula is so in love with Mina that he tries to persuade her that he could never entertain the thought of having Mina join him among the "undead." He explains that she would be hunted and hated down through the ages until the end of time. Mina, however, is not put off by these arguments. In tears, she proclaims her fierce love to the Count saying, "I want to be what you are, see what you see, love what you love." In effect, she says what my Angel says to me: "I am totally open and unafraid of the love I have for you. . . ."
 
Then I am spellbound by Count Dracula's relenting to the pleading of his beloved. He draws his sharp fingernail across his breast and invites his beloved Mina to drink his blood and, in so doing, to enter into his "eternal life."
 
I find that I am quite like Count Dracula saying to my Mina, "I have crossed oceans of time to find you." And, again like Count Dracula, I unwittingly seduce my Mina by telling her my sad stories. She weeps for me, and I turn her tears into diamonds just as the Count did.
 
Do I love my Angel enough to refuse her in the same way that the Count endeavored to refuse Mina? Assuredly!  Should I hesitate to go forward, however, my Mina would plead with me saying, "Feel my presence, my ferocious love, my warm hands. . . . I'm [already] closer to you than you can imagine."
 
How could I possibly refuse her insistence to be with me?
 
So at the receipt of the most recent letter wherein my Angel swears her eternal love for me, I am not tempted to draw back from her. Nor am I willing to credit the analysis screamed out by Professor van Helsing, "She is a willing recruit. She is a devoted disciple. She is the devil's concubine." Helsing is a conceited fool.  Mina is much more than what he imagines because, in the end, her ferocious love redeems Dracula.  Helsing never understood this!
 
Mina is the only one that shows any mercy toward Dracula. On the way toward becoming a vampire herself, she understands that he has a human soul trapped inside a monster. She puts the men to shame by making them realize that they must not hate Dracula but must act bravely in order to secure his final redemption:
 

I know that you must fight [against Dracula]—that you must destroy [him] even as you destroyed the false Lucy [who murdered children] so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul [Dracula] who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he too is destroyed in his worser [sic] part [as was Lucy] that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction. ~~ Mina Harker (Stoker: 327-328)

 
Note to the reader: This is a simplified version of my argument. Nina, during the final death scene, says this:
 
There, in the presence of God, I understood at last how love could release us all from the power of darkness. Our love is stronger than death. [How so?]
 
The full meaning of these words only became clear to me some years later.  Hence, I put them into Appendix 1 so that you can come back to it after reading the exciting climax of our central love story in Ch5.
 
 
 

Author Notes Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it (Canticles 8:7).

Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is from God;
everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God,
for God is love (1 John 4:7-8).


Chapter 5
Distressing News

By Aaron Milavec

MY ANGEL OF GOD: Chronicles of her fierce compassion and grace-filled healing love -- This is an unusual and dangerous love story that I have tried to relate with honesty and insight. I have relied upon my journal entries and upon our love letters that I carefully preserved for thirty years.  Now that I am facing my own death, I want to share with family, friends, and writers those personal experiences that have shaped my life most profoundly.  Hence, I ask you, as my reader, to prepare yourself for a mind-bending and heart-rending experience. This is also a story of my faith and hope in the face of small "miracles" and enormous tragedies; hence, those who share my faith and hope are in for a special treat. Please advise me (a) by identifying [using "copy and paste"] those lines in my story that most moved you and (b) by offering your ideas on how I might improve my telling of the "chronicles of her fierce compassion and grace-filled healing love." 

Affectionately,
Aaron

         
 

Walnut Hills, July 2nd
Wind of life,
 
I have some distressing news. Tim opened one of your letters before I got home. It sounds pretty bad.
 
We talked for about two hours yesterday. I told him that we experienced the love of God (totally complete and good) through each other's love. I was very calm. Yet I think he only understood half of what I was telling him. He was very threatened by what you wrote, but he was open to listening about our relationship.
 
Long ago you advised me to yield rather than fight any demands that Tim might make relative to our friendship. And so I yielded to his suggestion that I would not see you anymore. Later, he agreed to think about it for a week and then decide how he felt about the possibility of us continuing. I was glad to hear that he was open to reflection on this matter.
 
At times, Tim yearns for a "normal" wife, but I also know that he loves me because I'm not. Tim mainly objected to the intimate overtones of your letter. He's looking in from outside.
 
Ahhh, this was my worst fear, although, on the other hand, I'm glad he is now more aware of those things that I've tried to communicate to him all along. In effect, he wasn't willing to talk about our relationship because he was too threatened by what he might find out.
 
Today I feel depressed because I can't even bear to think of not having you as part of my life. I really won't allow myself to think of it right now because I can't emotionally handle the pain, not today.
 
I want to hug you, most of all, and assure you that I too am a long-distance runner. My love continues, more deeply, more whole, more, more, more.
 
I am with you,
 
Your Angel
 
P.S.: Tim promised not to read any more letters of mine.

 

Neuchâtel, July 4th
Dear Angel,
 
Your letter hit me like a hammer. I cried. Never, never, never did I intend to present myself as a rival for your affection. Quite the contrary, I had hoped to bless your life and Tim's indirectly as well! Now I have caused both of you pain.
 
Have you misunderstood me? You are the rose whose roots are planted deep within the soul of your husband. He feeds your roots, and you enchant him with your fragrant blooms. I am the manure that stinks and rots on the surface. Yet, by some strange grace, it sends the roots deeper, and the blooms become larger and more fragrant. This and nothing more!
 
Yes, my letter was "intimate." Here is where my imagination comes into play. Take this out of our relationship and it becomes ordinary, even bordering on the banal. My letters represent the "imaginative voyages" of a man away from family and friends writing back home to someone who might relish my madness and allow my loneliness to be dispelled.
 
You and Tim need only know that during my fifteen years of marriage I have never been unfaithful (i.e., sexually intimate with another). You can call Rachel today and question her about this. You can invite Tim to do the same.
 
In sum, I am not like other men. And you are not like other women. I do so want to embrace you (all of you) as a friend and a kindred spirit. At the same time, I invite you to embrace all of me, including the wild imaginings that have caused you and Tim so much grief, so much pain.
 
Wind
 
P.S.: If you can believe parts of this letter, feel free to share those parts with Tim. What you cannot believe, please let's let it rest until I return.

 

 

The Rose and the Manure


My last letter was clearly sad and apologetic. I secretly hoped that Tim would open this letter (even though he promised that he would not). In any case, I offered my Angel some leads as to how she might explain the unusual passion in the letter that he had opened.
 
The metaphor of the rose and the manure was already used in another place. I first formulated it when Rachel pressed me to specify how my Angel stood relative to her. In that telling, she was the rose and you were the manure. My wife even chided me, "It doesn't seem right that you use such an unseemly metaphor for your Angel." Unseemly or not, it did represent my sentiments at the time.
 
I came back from Neuchâtel determined to be all that I am and reluctant to live my life according to the expectations set by others. Even after fifteen years of marriage, I had to admit that there were areas of my life (especially my long-delayed grief for my mother) that Rachel had not entirely accepted. When I returned, I no longer felt the need to hide or to compromise in these areas. I had decided not to live in a smaller cage for the sake of marital harmony; for, as my cage got smaller, the bird inside slowly lost his inclination to sing.
 

Looking for my Angel

When on campus, I deliberately circulated in those places where I might expect to find my Angel if she had decided to enroll in another course. In my classes, I always gave one good look around after entering the classroom just to see whether my Angel had silently taken her place and was already beaming her love toward me. In the minutes before the starting bell, I found myself involuntarily hoping that she would come rushing through the classroom door. But this never happened.
 
Once my classes began, I would sometimes actually imagine her loving gaze. I stood taller and spoke more openly because she was there in spirit rooting for me. After a class was finished, I chatted within circles of chums who stayed behind. I would sometimes imagine her patiently waiting for her turn to gain my attention. But, when it was all over and everyone had gone about their business, she was not there. Then, as I left the classroom, I would find tears silently flooded my eyes as a sign of how painful it was to embrace her absence. I vividly recalled how she would listen with her eyes, with her hands, with her very soul. Never, never, never have I had someone listen to me as she did. . . .
 

My Cry of Protest

I cry out against the present order of things. I feel like tearing this world apart and shaping a new world order: a new heaven and a new earth. The order of this world is a small cage indeed. I cry out to God to bring in that kingdom that he holds in readiness for those who protest small cages. In this, my hour of darkness, I listen for a word from my Angel. . . . But, there is only her absence . . . and waiting . . . and mortal fear that, given the constraints of this world, constraints that even God suffers, the kingdom will never come soon enough for my Angel and me.
 
The word "never" chokes in my throat. There cannot be justice and beauty and love in this world unless such moments as I have known with my Angel can be proclaimed upon the mountain tops and celebrated with the spontaneous freedom that greets the birth of a new child. There cannot be a God who champions justice, beauty, and love without there being such a world in the making.
 
Happily, my Angel (whom I cannot see or communicate with) also protests with me and hopes with me. So, while we are separated in the present order of things, we are bound together in the same faith, the same hope, and the same mutual love. She best expresses this in the last letter I received from her:
 

Walnut Hills, July 6th
Here I am holding you,
Your eternal Angel,
Love pouring out to you,
 
Will I ever be this happy again?  The pain pours out of me, I grasp for air. Will I ever be filled, be whole again? Your Angel weeps tears of loss for those journeys into my soul and yours that will not be made.
 
I am very sad because I know that no one can liberate my soul as you have been able to. I, too, yearn to liberate your soul, your pain, your inhibitions, so that you too can s
ee God face to face.

Our friendship has allowed a rebirth to occur. A part of me that was smothered comes to life when I am with you.
 
However, I anticipate a dark future. Tim doesn't want me to spend time with you anymore. He feels threatened by what you have come to mean for me. I anticipated this reaction as a possible response that might follow upon his coming to glimpse what we share—a deep love, a holy love.
 
I received two of your letters today, and I cry as I read them. Why? I cry because they are so beautiful, because you are so beautiful. Your letters that I have grown to cherish with my heart and soul give me the freedom to explore my life. Your letters and your love have unlocked the dreary inhibitions of my life. You "set my heart free."
 
ur Dearest Friend of love,
ur Angel of God

 

Postscript: Anticipating our Future

All is not lost. Each year, during the week following Valentine's Day, my Angel and I meet together in the restaurant where we had our first meal. We both come early and stay until closing. We share the joy and pains of the past year in our personal stories. We hold hands and share tender kisses. We mingle our tears and blend our laughter. For the last half hour, we are emotionally spent, and we hold each other in perfect silence.
 
Our partners know about our annual reunions. They don't like it, but we have not given them much choice; hence, they silently tolerate it. As the years pass, no great catastrophe results from our annual reunions; hence, they have come to accept our healing practice more and more gracefully.
 
We agreed together to repeat nothing of what passes between us to our spouses or to our friends. Thus, you, my dear reader, are also excluded from knowing the intimate details of what transpired during our annual reunions. Hence our shared experiences will go with us to our graves.
 
In the resurrection, however, we both secretly and fully expect that all our shared experiences will become known and celebrated by nearly everyone during the Final Judgment. Then God himself will sit on his throne and will wipe away our tears and our disappointments forever. Then we will fully and passionately be for each other all those things which the old world would not tolerate. . . .
 

A Parable of Faith, Hope, and Love

It came to our attention that a few saints in the world to come objected to the ferocious passion we exhibited for each other. In due course, they brought their objections to the attention of Jesus. As would be expected, Jesus knew our whole story. He also understood the jealousy that prompted their objections. Jesus listened to their complaints with profound patience.
 
When they were finished, he said to them in a very soft voice:
 
There are three things that I wish to have you remember regarding these two special people:
 
 
First: "What God has joined together, let no one separate" (Matt 19:6).
 
Second: "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age [to come] and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Luke 20:34-35)." It is for this reason that marriage vows are taken "until death do us part."

Third, these two who have been graced with a ferocious and eternal love for each other 'have chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken from them' (Luke 10:42).


Our Blessed Future

My response to the tears and the pain of my beloved Angel is the dramatic scene of the Last Days narrated in the Book of Revelation:
 

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.   And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more (Rev 21:2-4).

This is God's promise to us, my beloved Angel.  I will be there and you will be there.  And we will eventually find each other in the great crowd of the elect.  From that moment of meeting and hugging, the tears and pain of our separation will be no more.  Then the holy promises that we made to each other will be magnificently blessed by God and forever set into motion.  We won't even have to get into line with those waiting upon the Lord to wipe away their tears.  So much the better, for that line will surely be incredibly long. 

On that day and in that place, true lovers will be doing for each other what God will be doing for those who have never known such love.  God will not be jealous.  Rather he will be relieved to know that some of his children have gone ahead and began doing for each other what God has always wanted them to learn to do for each other.  Thus, the words of the beloved apostle will find their fulfillment: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God" (1 John 4:7).

 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~end of text~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 

You arrive at the thrilling conclusion.  You can now meet Aaron/Angel and other romantics here = http://www.churchonfire.net/forum/    Enjoy!

 


 
 
 
 

Author Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here are my three questions:

#1 Did I fail to protect my Angel's interests? Did I give up too much? Should I have asked my Angel to insist on a restaurant meeting once a month? Tim might not like this; yet, he has to allow that his wife is suffering greatly with his "no contact" call. Doesn't her welfare deserve some close attention as well?

Moreover, in the face of such a one-sided resolution, doesn't Tim take a fatal step that risks his future with his wife? Won't the day perhaps arrive when my Angel will see his demands as selfish and manipulative? Then what? He gained the lion's share, but the lioness sets out to hunt on her own. So by gaining everything, was he risking to lose everything? [#2 How would you advise Tim?]

#3 And what do you make of the final paragraphs where my Angel and I wipe away each other's tears and have no need, accordingly, to get in the long line where God (not Jesus) does the final healing?

For those who have read this far, I offer you a free copy of my entire book, including Appendix 1: Dracula and Minah. Enjoy it yourself and feel free to share it with a few friends who might enjoy it. My hope is to publish a paperback edition in the months to come.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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