A Little Story About Angel

As she looked up at the bright blue sky dotted with wispy white clouds and that burning orange-yellow sun floating that warmed her face and body, she breathed in deeply.

'Freedom,' she thought to herself. It had been quite a long time since she had experienced this feeling, the excitement of knowing that there was nothing she could not do and no one to tell her right from wrong. She could go where she pleased and do whatever she wanted.

"It's been so long..." she said out loud to nobody but herself. She jumped into the air, and half hoped that it would hold her up and she would just walk on the air, because that's how she felt. She, of course, landed on the ground instead. But she smiled.

She looked back behind her to see the horrible place where she had been kept. Dingy, dark, dilapidated old building...it made her shudder to think of all that she had had to endure during her stay there. The awful people that whipped her every time she did something they didn't like, such as shouting at people who walked across the lawn, asking for food, or laying on the couch. Once when she was playing with the baby, she gave the baby a kiss and was promptly sent reeling from the mother's attack that followed. She didn't understand why they didn't like her--after all, hadn't they adopted her? Why would someone adopt her if they didn't like her?

Well, after being abused, beaten, kicked, pushed around and just all around treated badly, she'd had enough. She could make it on her own in the world, she decided. She'd seen many others do it, and although they told her it was not easy, she saw that they managed to survive, and she decided it was time for her to do the same. Or at least maybe try to find a family that would love her, faults and all. So she had escaped from that terrible place, formerly known as "home", and now she was on her own.

So, here she was.

"Well, where do I go from here?"

She stepped out in the road, not looking to see if there were any vehicles coming. Unfortunately, there was a car speeding toward her at a frightening pace. She was terrified and found herself unable to move as the car drew nearer. Scared, she let out a scream and pain shot through her body. The last thing she remembered was an old man looking down at her with a look of horror on his face for what he had just done.

She woke up the next day, very stiff and sore. She looked around and didn't recognize any of her surroundings, and couldn't remember how she'd gotten to this strange new place. She tried to get up, but found the task impossible to perform. She whimpered and looked out through metal bars at the room she had been placed in.

"Where am I?" she called, and waited for an answer.

A kind, gray-haired older woman named Sueann came and knelt before her.

"Hey Mark! She's awake! Come see!!" she shouted into the other room.

A tall man walked in, with dark hair and a white coat over his clothes.

"Well, I'll be. I didn't think she had any hope left...those injuries are what I would consider to be fatal to most like her...I'll call Henry." And he left the room.

"Um, excuse me," she said. "Please, can you tell me where I am?"

Sueann reached in and patted her on the head. "You're such a good girl," she said. "So pretty, and it's a shame that you don't have any identification. We're going to call the man that hit you and maybe he'll take you home and adopt you." Sueann gave her a reassuring pat on the head again and left the room.

"You didn't answer my question..." she said out loud, to no one in particular.

She looked down to find her legs wrapped tightly in white tape, and a patch on her shoulder had been shaved and had a big sticky bandage on it as well. She sensed that her face had been scraped up pretty badly too, on the right side, because her ear and cheek felt raw and exposed. But there was no way to tell really, there was nothing to show her reflection. That was one thing she liked at her former "family", they had a lot of reflective glass and she liked looking in them. She knew that when she looked in those pieces of glass she saw herself, and she thought she was very pretty. Not in a egotistical way, she just had pretty-colored hair and cute features, and she kept herself well-groomed and clean as much as possible. So to know that she had probably lost all of that in the accident saddened her slightly, but she perked up at the thought that maybe someone would adopt her and give her a good home regardless of what she looked like. She was always happy and optimistic; it was one of her character traits.

She found herself suddenly tired and laid down, closing her eyes. From off in the distance she heard a male voice.

"Oh thank Heaven!" a man cried in the other room. "I would have felt so bad if it had killed her...I used to have a dog just like her, golden retriever, and he was the best dog I ever had. Does she belong to anyone?"

"Well as far as we can tell, she is a stray. You're welcome to take her home if you would like," Mark said.

"May I see her?" the man asked.

"Of course, Mr. Hewett."

Mark showed Mr. Hewett into the recovery room and led him to her cage. As he glanced in to see her, tears sprang to his bright blue eyes. His wrinkled old face took on a look of sadness at the sight before him.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered to her.

She opened her eyes and lifted her head some. "It's okay," she said, "I know it was an accident. I didn't look out."

She wagged her tail a little, but it took all of her energy to do it. She rested her head back down on the blanket and just looked at him.

"How long does she have to stay here?" Mr. Hewett asked.

"I want to keep her for a week, to see that everything is okay. Her back legs are shattered, her shoulder is dislocated, and her ear needs attention every few hours until it's not raw and we can take the bandanges off. And we need to make sure that her cuts don't get infected. We will call you when she's ready to go home," Mark said.

"Please do. I'll come in every day and check on her."

"By the way," Mark said, "what is her name?"

"I don't rightly know," said Mr. Hewett. "I guess I'll have to come up with one."

"Well, think of something and get back to us. We just want to call her something so that it calms her when we have to move her and tend to her," Mark replied.

"Okay, I'll think of something by tomorrow." Mr. Hewett reached through the bars and patted her head and rubbed her good shoulder a little. "Goodnight, girl," he said. "I'll be back and with a name for you, too."

Mr. Hewett spent the night pacing in his little house, trying desperately to think of the perfect name for this brave dog. "She's a fighter," he said to himself, "she's got a lot of life in her. And she is smart; she knew who I was when she saw me. What name? It's got to be perfect." He stopped at a picture on the mantle of a woman, an old picture, and sighed. Oh, his wife Marnie would have loved this dog. He picked up the photo, black and white, of the beautiful woman that he had loved for so long. He missed her so much. "What should I name her?" he asked the picture. The woman looked back at him with her smile frozen in time, forever. He thought of his Marnie, up in Heaven with all of the angels around her, watching him agonize over the name of a dog and giggling with her friends.

"Angel," he said aloud.

Mr. Hewett went back to the veterinary hospital the next day and said, "Her name is Angel." And so it was.

Angel picked her head up and wagged her tail, 'whump whump whump' against the cage floor. That name suited her fine.

"Angel it is then," said Mark. "Angel will be ready to go home in a few days. You might want to get everything ready. She's going to need a soft place to lay and food and water close by, so that she doesn't have to go anywhere to eat or drink. She'll have to be carried around until her legs mend--good thing she's not full-grown yet!"

So Mr. Hewett went home and got everything arranged, and visited Angel every day until she was able to come home. Angel loved Mr. Hewett, and Mr. Hewett loved Angel. He knew that he could never fill the sadness that remained after losing Marnie, but he knew that he had something that would make the long lonely days much easier to bear now. And he was so glad.