The Circle of Life

Goddess is scratching the sliding glass doors to be let out so I drag myself out of bed, stumble across the living room and through the kitchen and sleepily slide the door open.

My dog shoots out but instead of darting down the stairs, she wags her tail at the figure sitting on the Beloved Back deck.

A halo of cigarette smoke floats above the long greasy black hair in the chair reserved for me.

Glancing back to make certain sleeping Sarah isn't bothered, I step out into the warm moonlit night.

Coughing, she hacks and spits over the railing, clears her throat and says, "Aren't you going to put some clothes on?"

"You're the one interrupting my night," I sigh, plopping down in the chair beside her.

Wiping her eyes, she sucks snot up her nose.

"What's wrong?" I ask suddenly fully awake.

I've never seen my Guardian Angel cry but here she sits, mindlessly smoking, drinking a tall boy Pabst Blue Ribbon, looking almost saintly in the moonlight. Her shear white robe is translucent. The dirty broken wing almost aligns with the other. Her pasty face is beautifully sad.

"Have you been keeping up with what's been going on?" she snaps.

"Well," I say continuing to stare while rubbing my fingers through my hair, "uh, it started out great with you helping Jimmy Cochran  get baptized in the ocean and discover a deeper level of holiness ..."

"I told Sam to wear a shirt," she laughs.

"Yeah well, Samuel Adams has his own direct hotline to your boss."

"I know," she says. "It still pisses me off."

Uncertain of what to say, I keep quiet.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she says rolling her right hand over and over while taking a slug of beer with the other.

Staring at her, I'm not quite sure where she's going.

"Ronnie died yesterday," and as soon as I say the words she sobs.

Instinctively I put my arm around her and smell the cigarette smoke in her hair.

The sky turns an ever so shade of grey as the sun begins its climb out of the sea. A lone bird sings a solo and is soon joined by a choir.

"It's the circle life right?" I finally say.

Nodding, she wipes her eyes, throws her empty can in our backyard and another magically appears in her hand and she immediately takes a slug.

"Yeah," I continue, "Jimmy finds he has a deeper calling from God that he's going to follow and Ronnie's moved on to what's next. Both of them have left us behind."

"I know," she says. "It just doesn't get any easier.

"I know," I agree ... carefully extracting my arm from around her wondering how I'm going to get rid of the smoke smell before crawling back in bed with Sarah.

"Wait," I suddenly say, "isn't Ronnie going an Angel or something?"

She nods.

"Well what in the Hell are you crying for?" I ask.

"These are tears of happiness stupid," she snaps.

"Oh yeah," I agree as the sun begins to rise.