Broken Angels
Like every kid, my two brothers and I loved Christmas. We loved the family traditions such as helping our mom make cookies, fighting over the turkey wishbone, and listening to holiday music while decorating the tree.
There was a set of porcelain angel ornaments my mom bought that I especially loved and looked forward to hanging on the tree. They looked like little children and each one held in their arms a Christmas object like a star, or candle. Of course they were dropped, chipped, and broken until finally there was only three left all but one with broken wings. One Christmas I asked my mom why she kept those three broken angels and she said because they represent her three angels: me and my two brothers.
My mother died when I was 15 and Christmas was a little sad for several years until my dad remarried a wonderful woman whom I love as dearly as I loved my birth mom. One day we came with all our children for Christmas dinner and she handed me a small box where lay three broken angels carefully wrapped in tissue paper. She said she thought they might be important to me so she didn’t throw them away.
A flood of memories and tears came to me as I held them in my hand. They have no meaning to anyone except me but every year I place them carefully in sight and I remember my brothers and my parents and what a blessed childhood I really had.
Three broken angels have become my tradition to give to my daughters. They probably won’t see them as important and lay them on a shelf out of sight, but it’s not the angels I have tried to communicate to them, it is what they represent: family. Now when they come over with their children I can see the love they have for each other and their children. I know that some how that tradition was communicated successfully.
D
There was a set of porcelain angel ornaments my mom bought that I especially loved and looked forward to hanging on the tree. They looked like little children and each one held in their arms a Christmas object like a star, or candle. Of course they were dropped, chipped, and broken until finally there was only three left all but one with broken wings. One Christmas I asked my mom why she kept those three broken angels and she said because they represent her three angels: me and my two brothers.
My mother died when I was 15 and Christmas was a little sad for several years until my dad remarried a wonderful woman whom I love as dearly as I loved my birth mom. One day we came with all our children for Christmas dinner and she handed me a small box where lay three broken angels carefully wrapped in tissue paper. She said she thought they might be important to me so she didn’t throw them away.
A flood of memories and tears came to me as I held them in my hand. They have no meaning to anyone except me but every year I place them carefully in sight and I remember my brothers and my parents and what a blessed childhood I really had.
Three broken angels have become my tradition to give to my daughters. They probably won’t see them as important and lay them on a shelf out of sight, but it’s not the angels I have tried to communicate to them, it is what they represent: family. Now when they come over with their children I can see the love they have for each other and their children. I know that some how that tradition was communicated successfully.
D
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