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.]