Ashes to Alleluias

Have you ever been touched by an angel? I think that we all have been touched by angels in some way, even though we might not have recognized it at the time. I have always been fascinated with angels. When I was a little girl, my mother taught me the angel prayer: “Angel of God, my guardian dear, for whom God’s love commits me here . . .” My mother’s mother, my grandmother, was a self-taught artist with many wonderful talents. I was always entranced with her painting of a guardian angel watching over two small children. I followed in my grandmother’s footsteps, and I am also a self-taught artist. She always encouraged me to follow that dream. For as long as I can remember, drawing and painting, along with other art forms, have been an important part of my life. A number of years ago, I started collecting angels, so I guess it was appropriate that they would come to me in a dream that would change my life. It was in the late summer of 2002. I had been going through some diffi cult personal problems, and there was one incident in my life that left me in a very troubled state of mind. One evening, after I had been asleep for several hours, I experienced a powerful dream about angels who were watching over me. It was so real that it woke me out of a sound sleep, and I sat bolt upright. The effects from that dream stayed with me for several days. I decided to write down what I was feeling while it was still fresh in my mind. As I started to write, I realized that it was taking the form of a poem. It was as if a door to my soul had been opened. That poem is called “Life.”