My wife, Marie and I recently celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary. We raised three children all of whole have been real joys in our lives. They've gone on to have families of their own, so we now have six grandchildren here on earth and one already waiting for us in heaven. And I don't think any of the blessings I have known would have happened if my guardian angel hadn't saved my marriage one strange and awful night.
I grew up in the Midwest in an intensely Catholic family, one of six children. In our house we believed in angels; I mean, we really believed. In school the nuns taught us about them. At Mass, we let our guardian angels into the pew first. One of the first prayers I ever learned to say after the Our Father, was 'Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love entrusts me here, ever this day be at my side, to lead and guard, to light and guide, Amen.'
Otherwise, my childhood was ordinary until I was fourteen. That year, my favourite brother, Frank, who was eight, became ill. I didn't know it at the time, but Frank had leukaemia, an acute type that often strikes children. To cheer him up, I taught him how to ride my bike, but before long he couldn't even push the pedal.
One day my parents came home from the hospital crying. The priest from our parish was with them. We all gathered together,with much solemnity while the pastor told us that Frank's angel had taken him to heaven to be with Jesus. I was so sick at heart I just cried.
As soon as I had dried my ears for the moment, a slow and seething kind of anger began to grow in me, like a piece of metal turning gradually red, orange, yellow and finally white hot. I felt as if I would explode. Why didn't my parents tell me Frank was going to Die? I never got a chance to say good-bye to him! I screwed silently. How could the God I believed in have allowed it? Where was his angel? I hated Frank's angel. What a stupid thing to believe in.
My anger didn't go away. My father got me a punching bag, which I demolished in a week. I lasted out at everyone and even lost my best friend after beating him up.
When my grandmother died to tell me about angels, I turned away. When my birthday came later that fall, and I was supposed to set the table for my guardian angel, I threw the plate at the kitchen window, breaking both with a loud crash.
Frank's death triggered an uncontrollable rage in me against anything that failed to reach perfection. I became obsessed with achieving all that I could as fast as possible. I went out for football and wrestling, and I blew off so much aggression in both sports that I became the best athlete on both teams out of sheer energy.
I had always been a good student, with something like a photographic memory and an especially keen ear for languages. I read as compulsively as I practiced wrestling falls, and when I finally graduated high school, I was third in a class of nearly five hundred. I had twelve letters in sports and the school awards for excellence in Latin and German. I also had a scholarship to the state university.
I got a summer sales job and worked seven days a week from morning to night. I still had my anger, although I was no longer throwing dished through windows. It was towards the end of that summer I met Marie. She came to the door to hear my passionate spiel about the tools and gadgets I was selling, as soon as I looked up into her pretty round face with her big brown eyes and freckles, I was in love. I never did anything in a half-way fashion. I proposed to her on the spot. Marie laughed, but I knew she wasn't laughing at me, just at the situation. We were married two years later.
With my marriage and the distractions of school and a job, my pent-up energy found a positive outlet. After college my anger continued to burn. I worked for an import-export business and literally lived in my office for days on end. When I was at home, I was too tired to notice either my children or my wife. I had no friends, no social life, no outside interests. I lived and breathed the office, and at the time I truly believed I loved it. All that mattered to me were my own ambitions. I never even noticed that Marie and I were forced apart by my obsession over work.
Over the Easter weekend in 1969, Marie came into the den, where I was working on some totally forgettable proposal, and said, with preamble, 'Jack, I'm leaving you. I think I want a divorce.'
She explained that our marriage was a disaster, with a husband who shut her out of his life entirely. 'I've already taken the kids to Mother's, and I'm leaving to join them. It's up to you whether we come back.' And she left, just like that.
I was so shocked I couldn't speak. It was like my brother dying all over again, and once again I had no warning. I went to the kitchen and began smashing everything in sight. Glasses, plates, utensils all went flying, while I raged. How dare she leave me. How could she do this to me? I thought as I looked for more things to break.
I reached the last cabinet in the kitchen. It held some old dishes my mother had given us years before. They were the ones we had used when I was a child, and they brought back memories of my brother that made me want to cry. I brought out the stack of plates, set them on the kitchen table, and threw them forceful at the sink. But when I came to the last dish, I couldn't pick it up. I tried with both hands to pry it up but I couldn't.
And then, while I stood there like a buffalo at bay, panting, swearing, my hands and face cut from flying glass and crockery, I heard a voice, a kind and compassionate voice that echoed all around me. It said, 'Jack, make room for me at the table. Jack, make room for me at the table.' It was the most beautiful voice, like an operatic soprano singing softly.
'Who are you?' I gasped.
'You know me, Jack, make room for me at your table.'
And the voice faded.
Numb as I was, I knew the voice. Without even thinking, I got up and brushed off the table. This time I picked up the plate without any problem., and set it at the end, where I usually sat. I retrieved a knife, fork, and spoon, and placed them around the plate, adding a napkin and an aluminium drinking glass that had survived my anger. Then I brushed off a chair and set it in place. I think I was saying, 'Angel, please sit down; here, I'm making room for you.'
As I sat back looking at the place setting, I felt the most incredible peace I had ever known. Then I bowed my head and prayed the prayer I had learned as a child: 'Angel of God, my guardian dear...'
When I had finished, I just started talking aloud to my angel about all the things that had been going on in my life, and most of all about Marie's leaving and taking the kids with her. I talked for a good hour without stopping. And I had the most extraordinary feeling that my guardian angel was right there, sitting across the table from me, even though I couldn't see her. and I felt that she was telling me, not just that I needed to change - I knew that - but that I could change, that the anger was gone that had skewed so much of my life.
The sky was just beginning to turn gray when I heard the sound of a key in the lock. It was my Marie. She pushed the door open, and as it opened, the sound of broken glass grated across the kitchen floor. She looked at me and at the kitchen, horrified; then she came across the room and threw her arms round me, and we both cried.
'I couldn't sleep,' she said. 'Finally, it was like I herd a voice saying, 'Jack needs you, Marie'.' It just kept repeating softly, over and over again. So I came'.
I was so drained I felt like a little child again, needing to be led rather than to lead. Marie took me out of the kitchen and into the bathroom, where she washed my hands and bandaged the one that was badly cut. She put me to bed without saying another word, I slept like a baby until nearly noon.
After I woke, I felt disorientated, as thought I had had the worst nightmare of my life. Then I saw my hands, all cut up, and everything that had happened came back in a rush. I jumped up and went to look at the war zone that had been my kitchen. It was neat as a pin, except for all the scratches and dents and broken windows. Marie, looking tired but at peace, smile. 'I would never have believed this mess if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. It took me hours to clean it up. It filled bags and bags of trash.'
I started to apologise, but she shook her head. 'We'll talk later Jack. Just tell me one thing - why did you break everything in the kitchen and then go the trouble of setting the table?'
She pointed, and I saw the old plate and the aluminum glass were still where I had left them after my guardian angel had asked me to let her into my life again.
'Marie, I have to tell you what happened,' I said.
When I had finished telling her, she looked thoughtful.
'You do seem different somehow, Jack. The tension is gone; you seem relaxed in a way I've never seen.'
'Marie, I hope this doesn't seem silly, but I want to keep that place setting on the table forever. I don't ever want to take it off. If my angel hadn't come to me last night, I don't know what I would have done. I want to thank her and keep reminding myself of something I knew when I was a kid and then forgot.'
'I think we can arrange that,' she smiled.
That strange night was more than twenty years ago, but its effects have stayed with me ever since. Marie and I took our first vacation we had had together since our honeymoon and begun to rebuild our marriage. We talked and talked, and I found all my old priorities changing for the better. I left my job to start my own business and found pleasure, instead of compulsion, in work again.
And each night, I still set out the old plate and dented aluminum cup, the silverware and the napkin. They're my pledge to my guardian angel, and to God who sent her, that I will always welcome them at my table.
