Mending Broken Wings

A box of broken angel figurines said more about my holidays than the bright packages still wrapped under the tree on Christmas Eve.

My beloved aunt Gladys had died in Wisconsin a month before and the box contained her collection of angels, sent to me by a relative who knew how much I loved them. Many of the angels hadn't survived the trip.

Every Christmas growing up, I'd helped Aunt Gladys arrange the angels around her house. "You're an artist," she said. "Don't ever lose your magic touch." Aunt Gladys and I always handled her angels with such care. Now they were shattered in pieces, like my world without her. The magic was gone.

I reached into the box and found a small, bright-eyed angel, one of my favorites from years past. Her hands were open, palms up, as if she were singing from a celestial songbook. Her body was cracked completely in two. Maybe I can salvage it, I thought. I got out a tube of glue and put the angel back together. She looked nearly perfect. I'd fix every one! After all, Aunt Gladys used to say I had a magic touch.

I went to work, busy as one of Santa's elves. A wing here, a halo there, lots of fitting and refitting. Finally almost all of the angels were the way my aunt and I had first known them. They were dry by Christmas Day.

I carefully arranged them throughout the living room, and I could almost hear my aunt's applause. "Look, Aunt Gladys," I said. "I haven't lost the magic." Not with her as my angelic inspiration.