Consider This

By LC Van Savage

Remember that movie "Sixth Sense" where that remarkable young actor what's his name finally confesses to the dead (who knew?) Bruce Willis that he "sees dead people?" Well, I don't see dead people-OK, maybe I actually do, but I just see their faces. All the time. Some are familiar faces and yes, those are the ones belonging to people I've known who've passed on. Sometimes they're unknown faces.

I see them everywhere. Lots of them, but none are menacing. Some of their expressions are clearly PO'd, but I hope not at me. If they are, well, I'll apologize later. If we meet, that is.

Some of us believe in guardian angels, positive they're hovering over us trying to guard us from perpetually screwing up, wearily accepting the fact that we're probably never going to stop doing that. But the GA scuttlebutt is that no matter what, they never give up trying to help us over our frequently self-made life bumps. (Thus I'm thinking if I have GAs, they are brutally overworked.)

Perhaps then, the faces I see are my guardian angels. Perhaps you have guardian angels. Are they people we've known before who've shared the planet with us? Maybe they're people we've never known but have been assigned to us by Celestial Central Casting. Or maybe they're folks who've once swung from our family trees and therefore have an interest in us. If they are, then perhaps they're just hovering about, curious to see how their gene flow is working out. Perhaps they want to nudge us along a better path than perhaps they followed when they trod this mortal coil. I've never seen any guardian angels, although heaven knows I've tried to. I keep summoning them, calling out, yelling, commanding they show themselves. No luck.

Now please do not fear me. Do not avoid me in stores or at lectures or concerts. (Threw those last two in so you'll think I'm refined.) You do not have to make the sign of the cross when I come near. I am boringly safe, but I do see faces.

Where you ask? Well, it should be obvious. I see them in tiles, in the naps of carpets, in the marbleizing of marble, grains in wood, linoleum, tree bark, leather, the weaves in placemats. I guess you're thinking I have way too much time on my hands, and you may be right. But I don't sit around trying to make faces show in clouds, puddles and ketchup stains. I just glance down or up and poof! There they are.

Dear old Aunt Helen looks down at me every time I pass beneath a certain set of traffic lights on my way to my radio/TV show in Portland. She's not in the lit lights. Her face glares down at me from the unlit lights. She always pretended to disapprove of me, but in fact she adored me. And I her. There she is, up there swaying in the wind. (Well, she did drink a bit, so it's apt.)

I always thought I saw not The Man, but The Mother in the Moon. My mother died when I was six hours old and so I am still convinced it is her face in the moon, grinning down at me.

Last week I saw a wonderfully happy face in a throw rug and before that, one looked up at me from a series of small cracks in my basement floor. A joyful mermaid stared at me from a bunch of wrinkled things in the laundry basket. A child looked up at me from the wing of a dragonfly. Some kids grinned at me from the tangled web of my computer wires. And speaking of my computer, the occasional face peers at me from my monitor when I've shut it down. I saw a kind old man looking at me from the spots on the back of an old mongrel street dog. A fairy princess flew past me in a clump of windborn ashes from an outside fire. Wonderful!

Are these my guardian angels? Sure they are. This is how they watch over me. Only I'm sharp. I catch them at it! Thanks guys!

LC's books are at local bookstores.
Email her at lc@vansavage.com