Noah and the Angel

Noah was a quiet boy who rarely initiated conversation. His parents worried, but he was polite, always replying to questions, and the many doctors they had consulted over his five years of life, had given him a clean bill of health. His Grandma called him a “thinker, in touch with a different world.”

When his sister was born Noah surprised everyone. He approached the crib with tears in his eyes.
“She’s an angel,” he murmured.
Indeed, with her gorgeous chubby face, she did resemble the cherubs on the ceiling of the local church. They called her Angela; Noah called her Angel.

It was as if Noah had been saving his words for just this occasion. His parents were delighted, a new baby daughter and a now vocal son who spent hours gazing at her. Noah would ask Angela questions, pretending the baby could answer.

One day Noah’s mother heard him ask,”Where are your wings little Angel?”
“Angela won’t need wings on earth,” she smiled gently. “She’ll get them when she goes to heaven.”
“I don’t want her to go to heaven,” Noah sobbed, “Who will I talk to?”
“You have a lifetime to talk with your sister Noah, and you can always talk to me.”
“You don’t know the answers like Angel does,” he replied. “Angel says she is leaving, she wasn’t supposed to come.”
“You’re being silly, Angela isn’t going anywhere, she’s part of our family.”

Noah bought his sister a present, ready for her first birthday and carefully hid it in his room.

Two weeks before Angela was one year old, she cried out suddenly and stopped breathing. Noah stood dry eyed as he watched his parents and the paramedics attempt to revive her.

“She couldn’t grow her wings,” he whispered. “She should have waited; I said I would help.”

At the funeral, Noah placed Angela’s birthday present on the coffin, a beautiful pair of iridescent fairy wings.
“You should have stayed little Angel,” he admonished sadly. “I told you that you could have wings and still stay.”