Excerpt #1: Angel Incarnate:One Birth
From Chapter 69- Mom Help Me
“Mom and Dad why aren’t you here? I need you. Did you know I was a freak? If you did, why didn’t you say anything?”
Maybe mom and dad wanted to wait to tell me about the convent I came from and the sister who found me, but they died before they could explain it all. Or maybe they didn’t know anything either. Why is everything a damn paradoxical question with no real answer?
She picked up a flower and began to tear it apart.
I just want my life back. I was fine. I had a decent job that I was really good at and now look at me.
Catherine tried to wrap her head around what Joshua had said, but she couldn’t connect with herself being an angel at all. Every part of her was rejecting the notion that she was special at all.
“Hell, even mom said I was a little devil most of the time.” This memory made her smile.
“God, I miss you guys.”
She got up to walk to a trellis now blooming with just a handful of white roses. As she got closer, their fragrance surrounded her. She closed her eyes. She remembered how the garden had once been, full of life and beauty as far as the eye could see. Now it lay in ruin and neglect with only a scant flower still growing here and there.
In her mind she could see her mother tending to the roses the way she always had, carefully and methodically snipping the expired blooms one by one. She could see herself at the age of six or seven playing nearby.
“They are beautiful, mommy.”
“Yes they are, Catherine. They are beautiful just like you are to me.” Her mother cupped her rosy cheeks in her hands. “You are the brightest little angel in the world. And don’t you ever forget, okay?”
Little Catherine grinned. “I won’t mommy.”
Catherine opened her eyes, half expecting to see her mother standing there looking down at her. But she wasn’t. And all she could do now was cry.
Mother knew…
Through her tears, Catherine stared up at the partially cloudy sky. “What am I supposed to do?”
She held her arms out and inspected them for flaws. “I don’t feel very angelic. In fact, I feel like I could punch someone’s lights out.”
The frustration in her face was apparent now. Suddenly she could feel David watching her from the kitchen window, but when she looked over he had just stepped away.
Why is this happening to me? What could I do to save the world? This is too crazy even for me. I am a pathetic mess these days. I haven’t been to work in so long.
That world seemed so far away now to her. She had seen the face of tragedy and lived to tell the tale.
Who am I to be an angel in such a world as this? I cannot imagine being something so wonderful, so beautiful. I am nothing but a bird with broken wings.
A breeze rose up around her and she heard a voice… “You can fly little bird, if you only try.”
“Mother?”
“There’s no reason to be afraid of this my dear. You were born to shine.”
“Mother?”
“Yes, it’s me honey.”
“Why did you leave me?”
“I’ve never really left your side despite how things might appear.”
“I want to see you.”
“You can see me anytime you want, if you believe.”
“Believe what?”
“If you believe in yourself, you can see a great many things. I promise.”
“I want to see things now.”
“Be patient Catherine, all you have inside you is now beginning to wake up. Like my beautiful roses, which open one by one, you will open and become what you were meant to be. You just have to give yourself a chance.”
Catherine began to feel a warm sensation in her palms, and rubbed them together nervously.
“Since I have you, what am I to think about Joshua, David and Erica in my life?”
“You are being surrounded by everything and everyone you need for the journey.”
“So I can trust them?”
“Trust your heart to guide you. You are capable of anything you can imagine.”
“Maybe my imagination is broken.”
“It’s not broken my stubborn little one.”
“Haven’t heard you call me that in a long time mom.”
“You are so, my sweet, and there’s a reason for that terribly stubborn point of view of yours.”
“Maybe so. You always said there was meaning in everything right?”
“Yes, definitely.”
“How can I be what Joshua says I am?”
“You are that and much more, my child.”
“All I want is to kill the pain in my heart. Just tell me how to kill the pain?”
“You must let it go my daughter. I know you are angry that we were taken from you so young. But your anger is like a string of stones around your waist.”
“How do I let it go? I still feel like it was yesterday. It killed me inside to lose you both. It wasn’t fair!”
“Ah my dear, there are many things in the human world that are not fair at all. But if you can begin to see a grander design within it, then you will understand. Then you will understand its perfect rhythm, its perfect beat.”
“What could be perfect about you and dad dying horribly in that car after church? I should have been with you, but I wasn’t. We had argued that morning and there was no way to console me. If I wasn’t so stubborn then we could have been together that day, and I’d be dead too, but NO, I was left behind, alone and devastated.”
“You were meant to live, don’t you see that now? There are many who need you.”
“If I am so important, why are these people after me?”
“Humans fear what they cannot understand. They are afraid.”
“Well I am afraid too, so we have something in common.”
“I want to show you something before I leave you for now.”
“Don’t leave mom, no don’t leave.”
“Don’t worry my dear. I am never far from you.”
“Yes, I guess you aren’t as far away as I thought.”
“Close your eyes.”
Catherine obediently closed her eyes.
“Now keep them closed. I want you to think of the garden as it once was.”
“Okay I am picturing it…”
“Think of the daisies, the roses climbing the trellis, the green vines all over…”
“It was a sight to see, everything was vibrant and alive. You and dad were amazing back here.”
Returning to the garden in her mind made Catherine feel so much lighter. The warmth from her palms spread up her arms and soon filled her entire body to the point that she felt a low vibration start in her chest and pulse through her whole body.
“Remember the days we’d spend here together? Remember the smells in the air?”
“I remember.”
“Now make a wish as hard as you can. Wish for this place to be magical again. Feel every living thing that used to be here.”
Catherine concentrated on reliving a past moment here in the sacred garden of her childhood.
“It was magical, so very magical…”
The wind picked up and whooshed around her head and she could feel her hair moving in the breeze. There were new fragrances all around her. Then the wind died down just as suddenly as it had arisen.
“Mother? What now, what do I do now? I see it all now just as it used to be.”
There was silence in her mind now. Her mother’s voice was gone. Catherine willed herself to open her eyes. When she did, she blinked several times as she sat there staring in disbelief.
“How? Oh my God!”
What she saw now made her run to the house and through the door where everyone was sitting.
“Come quick, you guys!”
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