Meghan's Angel
by Meg Smathers

The room was dark. Meghan's bed was hard and her sheets were scratchy. She lay awake under her covers; her face planted firmly into her pillow, soaking wet from both tears and sweat. Her heart raced so hard she could hear it almost as loud as the horrible fight that was taking place outside her bedroom door.

She fought the demons inside her mind. ‘Get up and kill him!’, she heard voices screaming relentlessly inside her head. In her mind's eye she could see herself walking past them into the kitchen, opening the drawer, taking out one of the old steak knives, and killing "the monster" that lived in the house. But just like all the other nights, her little body would not move. Her arms had no feeling, her legs seemed to be missing, and her head was too heavy to lift from the pillow. So she laid in her bed like so many nights before, crying, beating herself with guilt for not being able to get up.

Her thoughts were broken by a sudden silence. She could hear "the monster", whispering something … and her mother starting to cry and beg. Meghan lifted her head out from the covers and strained to hear what was being said. As she strained to hear and see, she turned her head toward the door that was slightly ajar. The light gleaming through the door caused her tear-filled eyes to sting and she squinted.

As her eyes came into focus she made no sense of what she saw before her.

Who was standing in her room? How did he get in? Why was he so bright? Her young, five-year-old mind raced with questions as the shining creature entered her room and stood calmly looking at her drawings that were spread across her vanity; drawings of far-away lands; lands a million miles away from monsters; lands where little girls could simply be little girl.

The shining creature was tall, so tall that he had to stoop to fit inside the bedroom. And bright! He was so bright that there was only a vague outline of his body. But the brightness wasn’t like the sun; it didn’t hurt her eyes; it was simply beyond her understanding. Did she imagine it, or were there wings that reached far above his head? She studied his peaceful face and suddenly, realization dawned.

The very moment she recogized who was in her room, he looked deeply into her eyes. In that instant she heard no more fighting, no more crying. She completely forgot where she was. She forgot about all the other terrifying nights. It was like a dream that makes no sense but is somehow utterly enjoyable and peaceful. Mesmerized Meghan watched him turn and walk to the door that was still slightly ajar with only a sliver of light coming through from the hallway. Amazingly, his body passed directly through the small opening.

Meghan knew to follow. She slipped out of the bed, her long nightgown flowing around her ankles. She opened her door and found him waiting for her in the hallway. Without fear she followed him down the hallway toward the living room where her mother cowered, crumpled in fear and exhaustion against the living room wall that adjoined the hallway. "The Monster" was crouched in front of her hurling his verbal abuse in an unending onslaught.

But Meghan wasn’t afraid. She watched them momentarily but it was like a scene in a movie that is meant to be suspenseful yet the outcome is far too predictable. She saw it all clearly and objectively, and without emotion. She followed the shining stranger directly past the scene, into the kitchen, and through the back door. They did not see her.

When Meghan stepped outside her feet crunched through the thin layer of ice on the front cement porch, but she didn’t notice the bite on her bare feet, nor the chill of December air. The brilliant creature was standing behind the large rhododendron bushes that abutted the house, as if welcoming her to the most amazing secret. In anticipation she walked behind the bushes, squatted down, and looked up at the stars. It was quiet, peaceful. It didn’t make sense but she didn’t want it to. She knew if she tried to make sense of it she would remember whatever it was that scared her, and she didn’t want to.

She didn’t realize she wasn’t warm until the suns’ light hit her face. The stars were gone. Where were the stars?

Someone was tugging at her arms, pulling her out of the bushes, hard and quick. Suddenly she remembered the monster, the fear, the horror of the night before. But she had totally forgotten the shining stranger who had led her out of the house into the cold night air.

She was in her mother's arms, and her mother was crying,“I thought I lost you! Where were you?!" over and over as she picked her up and carried her to the rusty, yellow Pinto. Meghan laid her head on her mother’s shoulder as she wrapped a blanket around her cold body and gently placed her in the back of the car where she snuggled her favorite stuffed animal against her chin.

Meghan’s mother cried as she drove, and through the rear view mirror Meghan could see that "the monster" had given her a black eye, a cut on her forehead, and had done something awful to her hair.

Seeing her scrutiny, her mother quickly wiped the tears away. “It’s okay. Everything is okay. Go to sleep, Baby.”

At her grandmother’s home Meghan was laid in her aunt’s bed. The bed was so warm and soft and they thought she was asleep. But she wasn't. She overheard the conversation in the kitchen as her mother poured out her fear and relief in a torrent of agonizing words.

“He said he was going to kill her. He said it was my punishment so he locked me in the bedroom and went to get her. I heard him go into her room and then he left. He cut the phone lines. I thought for sure he had taken her. I had to break the window to get our, and she was gone. I thought she was gone for good. I found her in the bushes. What was she doing there? I don’t understand!”

“She must have had her guardian angel with her.” Meghan overheard her grandmother's simple response.

Suddenly Meghan remembered everything -- the shining creature, the peace, the absence of fear -- everything. An Angel. She knew it all the time.

Meghan smiled as she drifted off to sleep. She never saw "the monster" again, and never told anyone about the angel who wrapped her in his blanket of protection. She would think of him often as she grew up and would always be thankful to God for sending him to her. She had an inner knowing that it was that special visit that gave her the strength to overcome her fear of "monsters", and instilled into her young heart an undeniable knowledge of God’s existence.

Update on Meghan: Although this incident happened when Meghan was quite young, she still remembers bits and pieces. The person she refers to as "the monster" was her mother's boyfriend, who, says Meghan, started out as a nice person but became quite violent. They learned later that he had, at one time, been a patient in a mental hospital. Meghan said she is not sure what happened to him as they never went back to the house other than to get their personal possessions when he wasn't at home.

Meghan does think about the monster from time to time and wrote a letter to him at an address she found in the phone book for a person with the same name, expressing her forgiveness of how he treated her when she was just a child. Although he did not reply, she says she has forgiven him in her heart for all the mean things he did to her as a child.

Says Meghan, "I never knew if it was a dream, hallucination, or a real angel....but I always knew that it was from God."