Reading books and listening to church sermons, I always thought a guardian angel was a person who you were dear to, that had died, and now was in heaven looking over you. But after my recent experience; I was having second thoughts.
I felt like a big fish in a little pond. Yes, my dad worked there, but that made no difference. It was still a new world to me and I didn’t belong. I was an alien to this middle school I had started going to last week. I was late to every class that day including band. I walked into the room with the worst attitude. I didn’t want to be in Honors band. It was eating at me every day. I had told my director about it, but was denied saying that I was overestimating my abilities. So I stood there sulking while the band was playing a tune. After the piece, a boy whom I assumed was an eighth grader came to me and said, “Your Eileen, right?” “Um yeah. Why?” he said his name was Chris while putting out his hand for me to shake it. I gratefully shook it. He then continued to say, “I’m in your dad’s math class and he wanted me to tell encourage you to stay in Honors band.” And boy did I get that encouragement. There was something in his voice that made my tensions loosen up and relax. He brought comfort with every word he spoke. Each and every day he would ask how I was doing, and if everything was o.k. And even though sometimes it wasn’t, I would always say that everything was fine.
I was waiting with my dad after school when Chris came up to me and asked if I had gotten my region music yet. I told him no but said I would get it right then and there. He was gone by the time I was back, so I decided to look at the music and try to decipher it. Glancing at it I started to get knots in my stomach pondering how hard it was. I was wishing that Chris was there with me to soothe me saying everything would be o.k. But he wasn’t. I went home and tried practicing it thinking that it was all in my head and that it was truly easy. But I knew it wasn’t. I asked everyone I knew for help but failed miserably. When going back to school on Monday, I saw Chris and he asked me if I had gotten the music. I said yes with a worried expression on my face, and as expected, he asked what was wrong. I told him about all of my worries and how hard it was, while pouring my thoughts and feelings out. It shocked me when he said in the most self assured voice, practice each measure 3 times until it’s absolutely perfect and continue with the whole piece like that. He said that with such assertion that I wanted to believe but couldn’t. Although it did give me self assurance, I later found a high school boy who was center snare that could relieve me from my worries. It seemed as if every time I was uncertain about something he would always respond, “If you hope about something it won’t happen, if you do something about it, it will happen.” That stuck in my head for the rest of the week, making sure I was doing things instead of wishing them.
It occurred to me that Chris was my guardian angel but then thinking how foolish I was because I had just met him a couple of weeks ago, he’s not in heaven, and he’s not dead, so how could he be my guardian angel? But then I told myself that he didn’t even know me but he helped me, he knew exactly what to say, when to say it, and he gave me a positive outlook on life that I could pass on. There was one thing for sure and that was, Chris was my guardian angel brought down from heaven just for me.