Sunday, December 21, 2008

The Angel over My Bed




When I was a child there was a picture of a guardian angel that hung over my bed. I don't know that I've even known the name of the artist but that picture has always been special to me. It's the one with the two children huddled together crossing a rickety old wooden bridge in a storm.

You'd think with my history I'd hate that picture. There was such a dichotomy there. My mother hung that picture right over my head in my room. Above the very bed the people she sold my services to would steal me from and take me off to rape and torture.

I know that was probably cult programming.......a not so subtle message to say that God loves other little children but He doesn't love you. There is no protection for a child like you...........but I never got that message.

Somehow I always hung onto the belief I, too, had a guardian angel and she went with me through whatever ugliness the world threw my way. I'd picture those children in that storm. Their frightened faces, holding each other, as they made their way across that bridge with it's missing planks etched in my mind along with that angel looming over them guiding their way and it kept me going.........believing they really did reach the other side.......and so would I.

I don't know how or why I managed to hang onto that belief so strongly despite the cult's best efforts to destroy it. Maybe it was my guardian angel after all. All I know is that even to this day I must have an angel hanging over my bed.

I don't have a copy of that picture. I guess I've never actually seen one for sale......but I do have an angel that spoke to my inner children. I bought her on the pretext of giving her to my youngest daughter but never could quite part with her. Finally one day it dawned on me where she belonged.....and she's been hanging there ever since......on the corner bedpost on "my" side of the bed.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think i know which picture you mean!!!

this one? (mistyish)
http://www.smileyme.com/lprod.asp?lookup=504

or this one? (brighter and less... moody?) http://seetheangels.wordpress.com/2007/09/17/lizzies-guardian-angel/

this is a nice big one: https://www.allposters.com/-sp/Guardian-Angel-Posters_i14225_.htm

this one's colorful! http://decorusverum.blogspot.com/2007/10/angel-of-god-my-guardian-dear.html

.... sorry, when someone says they remember something or don't have something i get curious and look things up!!!!! :P i'm such a dork.... hope that's ok i posted this!!!!!! :D

Rising Rainbow said...

Vague, you are right. That is the picture I mean. Only the way I remember is is with the dark coloring like on the third link you left. That darkness is probably why I remembered it as being stormy.

Enola said...

My husband has that picture over his childhood bed. it's painted on a piece of dark wood and then shellacted (sp?) over it. I've always found it vaguely creepy.

Kahless said...

I like the idea of guardian angels too.