People often mistake dreams for visions,
But no one ever mistook a vision for a dream.

CS Lewis

San Francisco, 1962.

I was 16 the year I met him. My angel.

I had been to the church on Geary Street for three nights in a row,
praying to God to let me die. I *wanted* to die. My father was being
transfered from the Presidio where I had lived for the past ten years, and
I was being torn from all that I had come to love. My wonderful little
convent school, the city I never wanted to leave, the safety of all that I
cherished. I was being plunged into moving and giving up my security.
I reacted like any normal teenager would. I wanted to die.
The church was quiet, as it always was at this time of night. The
nuns had all retreated to the safety of the convent adjoining the church,
and I was alone with my God and with my thoughts.
I knelt at the side altar before the marble image. "Go in peace, a
child of such tears cannot be lost" it said at the base of the statue.
I prayed for the peace of death. I prayed harder than I had ever prayed
before.

I felt his presence before I saw him. And when I saw him, I held my
breath. An angel, in black wool and white silk. Lovely auburn curls
around his pale face, huge brown eyes that saw through to my soul, and the
most accepting smile I’d ever seen. He was beautiful.
"Come to me," he seemed to sing, "Do you love me?"
I stood up and tried to walk toward him. He caught me with his hand
under my elbow to help steady me as I looked up into his enormous eyes.
Fear made me tremble, never had I been this close to anyone so beautiful
in my life. I thought, "He can’t be much older than I am."
*Seventeen*
He smelled of incense and candle wax and holy things. His eyes never
left mine as he opened his arms to me, and his lips gently touched my
throat.

The world shifted. Time shifted. I mean, I knew time was passing, but
it seemed like eternity was *now*, and he could somehow make time stand
still. I *knew* his every thought, I could feel him breathing, and I could
hear his heart beating. Did angels have hearts? This one did.
How long does it take to tell someone the story of your life and have
them tell you theirs in return? I know I was only with him a few moments,
but I knew everything about him, even his most secret thoughts, he was so
yielding, so open; and he knew everything about me. He could make me see
things; I knew it wasn’t real. "We aren’t really here, you know we aren’t".
I didn’t care. It was the most incredible experience of my life. I clung
to him. I will never be as close to a mortal man as I was to him, there is
no way to describe the closeness. I knew his body, and I knew his soul. We
were one being, sharing everything, even our heartbeats became synchronized.
Waves of love poured from him. I felt accepted, needed, wanted, and most
of all I felt loved. He made me feel......alive.
He held me close, as I grasped the silk of his shirt in my hand around
his waist. Whispered promises and the joining of our souls. His thoughts
were one with mine, his soul open, pouring forth images ecstatically.
Beautiful things he showed me: paintings, flowers, other angels he loved.
I wished I had lived longer so I would have more to give him, my short
sixteen years were nothing. He had lived forever.

His life gushed into my brain in electric bursts that made me gasp.

He let me go.
"You don’t really want to die," he said. He smiled at me, releasing me and
quietly backing away. He half turned and said, "Someday, when you are ready,
I will return to you." And he disappeared.

Dazed, I left the church and began the walk home. I had met the
Angel of Death, and he had let me go!

I told very few people about my experience in the years that followed.
You know, they have the best cover possible, these preternatural beings.
Tell someone you met an angel. Tell someone you met anything not human, and
they’ll send you someplace where you will have peace and quiet and lots of
time to rethink. You’ll remember you never saw anything. Must have been
stress, the electrochemical joining of both halves of your brain, or an
endorphin-induced illusion. Tell the whole world, no one will believe you.

It was years before I returned to San Francisco--1985 to be exact,
around Halloween. I returned to the little church on Geary Street. I
summoned my angel. This time he was not alone, at his side was another.
Joy filled my heart at knowing he was no longer alone, that he had found
his eternal companion, his lover. Now there was no fear in me as I joined
with his soul, nothing but the knowledge that I had not much to offer him
in return for all he gave me. He took my hand and held me close, with tears
in my eyes I clung to him again, waiting for the ecstasy.

I have not seen him since that night so long ago, my dark angel. But he
is always with me, that part of himself he left with me, deep within my
very being. And when it is my time to embrace Death, I will do so
willingly, happily, summoning him as I did long ago, using the words he
left burned within my brain: "Come to me, do you love me?"

Written by

Laura Dauphinais Forgey
1996

Go in Peace

A child of such tears

Cannot be lost