Save me from angels! They’re too fiercesome. Why even in the ancient Hebrew book Tobit, young Tobias’s guardian angel Raphael carried a sword. That angel was no sentimental Europeanized childhood protector but rather the leader of the angelic host, the army that surrounded the throne of the great Lord, God of Israel. Raphael served the one that no one could look upon and live. And then someone said of me that I was an angel—this after I’d lost my lover Michael to an AIDS related cancer. Of course, somewhat like Raphael did with Tobias I walked with Michael on his way to test after test at Denver Health, accompanied him during his chemotherapy sessions, picked him up from the floor when he fell, helped him to the restroom, cleaned up after him, loved him mightily during his rapid decline in health. I also sat with him while he died. Many things actually. That seemed simple love proffered to a beloved, not something magical or mystical; simple love mixed with profound responsibility.
When Michael’s friend told someone I was an angel, I’m sure the man meant something very sentimental. But mythological? I don’t know. At the time I was in no mood to be either kind of angel. I was angry at my loss and all too aware that my late arrival in Michael’s life journey saved his closest friends many, many hours of care giving. I was not going to be consoled by anyone’s guilty feelings or sincere intentions. And besides, I knew my journey into this love and my imperfect execution of love’s demands. I knew myself all too well. Spare me the blather.
Now we're talking mythology here, but it always seems to get mixed up with sentimentality. I abhor that! Still I don’t know how to get beyond it to something more constructive. It’s always easier to criticize than to create something new.
A couple of years later I again got called an angel this time after the HIV-related death of my Rafael. His Mexican mom told his Puerto Rican social worker that I had been his angel in his last months. I’m sure he had dramatized for her just what we had going—probably with too many details for her comfort. He insisted that she understand our love. The case manager told me what she expressed. Somehow since the ascription occurred cross-culturally and from a devout Roman Catholic person, I could more easily accept it being assigned to me. For her to say so was a breakthrough of acceptance, one I knew her dying son demanded of her. She was strong in her love and although she didn’t say it directly to me, she did convey it through a third-party, a way of communicating much more Mexican than American. I realized I did serve somehow as a messenger of the divine love, acceptance, and care to a young man who had meant no harm, who had experienced too little love, and who had broken too many Mexican taboos in his too short life. My love for him, whom I found somehow beautiful enough to assign godly terms, made me happy to provide the divine service however it was perceived and interpreted by others.
Our affair was in so many ways perfectly divine—even in the ancient Judeo-Christian sense with the fearful God who sent fearful angelic troops to announce to freaked out shepherds that they were to receive a great joy, one for all humankind! Whatever my role, whether angel or shepherd, I was finally pleased—oh so pleased—to be in the middle of such a divine drama.
Some months after Rafael’s death I told the man who had irked me with his angelic name calling that I would not care to meet another man named for an archangel—no more Michaels or Raphaels for me. He smiled and with an arched eyebrow and sly grin asked, “Well, what if his name was, say, Lucifer? Could that get your attention?”
“Probably,” I admitted.
© 15 December 2014
About the Author
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot
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