An Angel in Overalls

"I wondered if Donald was an angel now. I smiled as I imagined him with wings growing out of his little skinny shoulders like the pictures of cherubs. I could see him flapping around up there with his blond hair blowing in the wind and his blue eyes shining like they always did. I didn't know if you got new clothes in heaven, but that night, I saw Donald as An Angel in Overalls, and I just loved him to pieces." At six years old, the death of my four year old brother was devastating. It...
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"I wondered if Donald was an angel now. I smiled as I imagined him with wings growing out of his little skinny shoulders like the pictures of cherubs. I could see him flapping around up there with his blond hair blowing in the wind and his blue eyes shining like they always did. I didn't know if you got new clothes in heaven, but that night, I saw Donald as An Angel in Overalls, and I just loved him to pieces." At six years old, the death of my four year old brother was devastating. It shaped my persona as I worked my way through the mysteries of mortality, God, and, morality. An Angel in Overalls: My Spiritual Pilgrimage is a heartfelt memoir of my life without my little brother and the consequential struggle at developing a life philosophy. My family had no means even to place a headstone on brother's grave. And in the words of Robert Frost, "And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs." Most of the family buried the grief, but for me, it wouldn't go away, and over fifty years after his death, An Angel in Overalls, unintentionally, resurrected the buried grief, and we finally dealt with the loss. The story is uplifting and often humorously depicts memorable escapades that helped me cope with my early life: Santa Claus, reading, performing arts, puppy love, church camp, religious monsters, salvation, and more. In the end, I found the following to seem apropos: "I have searched for the moral major and minor keys. Jesus gave us the majors: love God and one's neighbor...We cannot help God directly: we help by helping man...Morality based on the major keys of Jesus is not hurting on the one hand and helping on the other." Dr. Lewis Rhodes, Pastor, Broadway Baptist Church