0315blog

The Guardian Angels

My 24-year-old daughter, Ivanka, has a guardian angel and his name is James, a boy who was in her class in high school who was a quadriplegic, had serious health issues, took nourishment through a feeding tube and was brought to class each day by his mother before he died. Ivanka was especially drawn to James who couldn’t talk but could smile particularly when Ivanka would brush his brown hair or stroke his motionless arm.

Ivanka is on the autism spectrum and is very bright and picked her angel after I told her my guardian angel is Babe Ruth. I told her that James is fine in heaven where he is completely healthy and very busy looking down on Ivanka as he knows everything, and I mean, everything about her, which takes a bit of the pressure off Ivanka, knowing that someone else knows what she goes through every day.

James is very, very busy as he is God’s right hand man, particularly when preparing meals for the 6 million people on his shift and that includes setting the table, cooking the food, serving the food, alerting the people that the meal is ready and then cleaning up for 6 million people, which adds up to a whole lot of dirty dishes for James to clean. But he doesn’t mind it at all and in fact feels very important and extremely healthy in his heavenly role.

James spends his free time sometimes riding a heavenly skate board or playing heavenly video games but he most enjoys meeting with his fellow angels, especially with Abe Lincoln who has a tremendous sense of humor and tells jokes to James for hours on end and then there’s people like Moses who amazes James with the knowledge he has accumulated over the eons.

And of course, there’s the big guy himself, God, who as I keep reminding Ivanka, has been around forever, is all-knowing and is very good to people. God took a special liking to James, maybe because he knew what a tough time the boy had during his short life on earth. He tends to favor those who have endured pain and other worldly difficulties, but that’s probably pretty obvious.

Ivanka is very happy to have James looking over her although I am very clear that he does not watch her in the shower or bathtub or while sitting on the toilet. James respects Ivanka’s privacy but he is there most of the rest of the time, whether it is watching her sleep and insuring she is OK or relaxing in her bedroom while she spins to the music that she plays loudly on the radio or while she is at her day program where he protects her from any unforeseen challenges that may be beyond Ivanka’s abilities, such as anything relating to U.S. presidents which is a topic that totally frightens her for reasons that I will never understand. But I’m sure that James understands.

I told her that I picked Babe Ruth as my guardian angel because I always loved baseball and that the Yankees are my all-time favorite team and also because everything I’ve read about the Babe shows he really was a nice guy who had a particular soft spot for kids who live in tough situations, like the orphanage where he lived as a boy in Baltimore. I get a real kick out of hearing Babe’s baseball stories, like who was the toughest pitcher he ever faced and did he really point to right field and hit one out there or was it just a feel good story that somebody made up. That’s what I tell Ivanka.

It’s funny that Ivanka knows Santa Claus is not real but I don’t know if she really believes that James is actually looking after her or if she just plays along because it’s fun but it doesn’t really matter because it gives her a sense of protection and that is a very real feeling. I see no reason to tell her that I made it all up because what good would that do? It would only remind my daughter that her life is already very difficult and that any hope for help from above or anywhere else is nothing less than wishing on the tooth fairy, which also is not really a bad idea. What’s so wrong with wishing, anyway?

There are people who really do believe in God and heaven and angels and all the rest and how I do wish I had a belief in something bigger than myself and bigger than the world and all of its troubles. Maybe nobody does really believe but rather gains strength and solace from never giving up hope that there is in fact a god and guardian angels like James and Babe Ruth.