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October 23, 2001 seven Now that he's dead, I can talk about him. At age five, I had assigned to me a Guardian Angel named 7131956.  "Seven" for short.  Like all such angels, Seven was charged with protecting his human assignment from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  My Guardian Angel died yesterday and, as I sit here like a pin-cushion shot through with both slings and arrows, I recall fondly his well-intentioned failures. I made it through childhood unscathed save for odd bumps and bruises, some stitches here and there, and a fender-bender to my psyche.  Okay, there was moderate damage to my psyche, but it was nothing a bit of mental Bondo and some humor couldn't hide.  Seven was a young, vigorous angel then and, on the whole, he earned his wings. But by the time I was 30, my Guardian Angel had hit the skids.  I think it was the bottle that proved his undoing.  He got sloppy and inattentive.  He became quick-tempered.  He slurred his psalms.  And while he was fighting his demons, I was losing to mine.  I contracted depression from a toilet seat and, frankly, I don't think a younger, sober Seven would have let it happen.  In my youth, it would have been sanitized for my protection.  By the time I was well into my own addictions, Seven was a shadow of his former self.  A shell of an angel, really. Seven lived long enough to see me through three and a half years of sobriety.  Of course he also saw my separation, an event he termed "my bad."  As he lay upon his death-cloud, I comforted Seven as best I could.  I told him I didn't blame him for anything and that I knew he had done the best he could with what he had.  He just smiled and let go of my hand. Then he died.

©  2001 by the beastmaster