An Archangel's View of NICU
by Cher

Michael stood in the NICU, his powerful hands touching the incubator, moving in lazy circles as if massaging the tiny resident inside, his spirit shining as bright as the sun, infusing this little life with hope and strength. Archangels were known to be very powerful, high up on the celestial ladder, inevitably getting all the choice assignments. Michael had a reputation as a go-to angel, used to the big jobs, watching over scores of important people, a host of successful assignments topping his resume. So he was quite confused when he drew this assignment, one tiny premature baby girl in upstate New York, where it snows - alot. Michael thought snow an inspired miracle, all those snowflakes no two alike, but secretly disliked it passionately and for every snow angel he saw someone make, he wanted to call out, "Hey! Angels never really do that". But, he thought, why hurt someone's feelings and mess with a classic. He wondered where the challenge was in watching over one teeny girl. Well, the Boss had his reasons so here he was, his Blackberry pager silent, babysitting little Kristina Davis while the outside world roiled with sadness and evil and people in need of supervision.

He was out of his element.

Now in addition to being a powerful archangel, Michael was also a smart one so knew there must be more to this assignment but trying to derive an answer from the Boss's mysterious ways was always a losing proposition. He decided this must be one special baby in the Boss's eyes and that made her important to the future. That insight assuaged his wounded pride and as he stood watch, he started to notice something. There were people surrounding this child who were hurting in spirit. He felt their pain across the room as they visited, it radiated through their hearts and souls and minds, a cacophony of shrill white noise that stung his senses. Inspiration found him and in a moment of crystal clarity, the looking glass reflected the real assignment here. This job was about watching over and guiding more than just one premature baby girl, it was also about watching over those that surround her

Like her Mother, relentless in the fierceness of her love, never wavering, always on guard but terribly afraid. He sensed the fear for her child but so much more churning and twisting within. He looked at her and saw her heart reflected back, its mirror casting shadows of a past etched in sorrow and pain yet scattered with moments of secret happiness. So sad, he sighed, to feel you do not deserve those moments and wish to hide them, even from oneself. He felt her present wash over him like biting rain, tinged with worry and regret and blame, moments of lightness few, and those shaded and indirect. Angels, even archangels, were not allowed to discern the future - each person had free will and created their own - but he felt such empathy he could not resist just a peek. He opened his senses and was struck by the variety of paths before her and wanted more than anything to infuse her with all his angelic energy, guiding her along the most direct path. He quietly closed his eyes, knowing it was not permitted but left her a glimmer of light to guide her way.

He fervently hoped the Boss would be too busy to notice.

So it was on that day, a routine day that was unending as he watched Mother and child and then it changed, another person entered this place and Michael knew in an instant that another life was his to guard.

Sonny watched her from the hallway as she stood guard over her daughter. He looked at her, each endless hour, each fear etched into her beautiful face like carvings on a totem pole, each one a story to tell, a burden to cradle and bear with aching sorrow and unerring fortitude. He never wanted to see her like this. In that moment, as in many moments over these endless months, he wanted to take back all of the words of anger and retribution and misunderstanding, take them back and crumple them into tiny balls and toss them into friendship's fire to be burned, to cleanse his heart and soul and mind, to remember what is important and right and true in his life and reach for it.

He looked at her eyes, so tired and filled with worry, and wanted to say something - a kind word, an uplifting turn of phrase, anything - to return the dancing light to its home in her eyes, to see it shimmer in her gentle smile.

He knew he shouldn't be here, his place by her side eroded and washed away by a river of grief and pain, its only path blocked by a protective wall cemented by the tears of her heart. But it was always his first instinct to seek refuge in her, to reach out to her in times of trouble and times of happiness and it was painful these last months knowing that refuge was only a memory. He felt adrift on a sea of change that he often could not comprehend, its crashing waves tossing him, pushing him further and further from solid ground. To Sonny it was an odd feeling, the relentless floating toward the unknown, toward oblivion, and it frightened him with the same intensity as nightmares of closets and leather belts and biting words had on so many a sleep-tossed night. She had always been there to anchor his ship, to unroll the map, plot their course and steer him to shore - to safety and to home. He needed her now and went to her regardless of what happened between them, hoping she instinctively would know the true needs of his heart.

The moment he looked upon her, he knew he was wrong. It was she that needed someone in that moment in time and what life cast between them forbid him from being that someone. He wanted to hold her close, envelope her in his arms the way he had as they built their special bridge toward each other, a span now destroyed by words and deeds that punched a hole in the foundation, their memories running through the cracks like sand cascading in an hourglass when time has run its course. Truth was he needed to feel her in his arms again to right his world from its sagging axis, to look into her eyes and see her belief in him, in who he could be, reflected back. Sadly, he knew that wouldn't happen.

Michael felt this man's pain, the hurt he kept buried inside, the life he led whirling around him, twisting his life into a pale and incidental shadow of what he could be if he only looked hard enough inside himself to grasp the obvious. He looked at Kristina's Mother and saw this man's kindred spirit, a soul that touched this man and still echoed with his song, its tenor now off-key but still reverberating with quiet strength and perhaps hope. Father and Mother to this tiny life he watched over so zealously, lives so misguided by their choices and by the interference of others. Free will, thought Michael, is often a two-edged sword in the hands of fallible humanity. Why, thought Michael, do people run away from the path that brings ultimate fulfillment? Though the road be long or the path be choked with weeds, journey's end is always attainable with the right companion by your side.

He watched as they spoke, tentative and wary, two souls each separate and alone yet bound by the beating of a baby's heart, her loving soul reaching out to them, tiny fingers as whispery as a butterfly's wing brushing their aching hearts, crying out from a place of warmth and love, urging them to rejoice at newness of life, its true beginnings yet to come, theirs a future to be created.

Father, Mother, Daughter - a family to be sculpted from the ashes of pain and memories of love not diminished but merely misplaced, fashioned from hearts torn by dreams unexplored and thoughts unspoken, hearts that will one day beat in synchrony once again, joined by a third in a song that grows more resonant across time, its beauty rousing even the angels to dance.

Michael quite enviously shook his head. The Boss was nothing if not a strategist, leaving nothing to mere chance.

He said, "I know now this is where I'm meant to be" as the shriek of monitors pierced the stillness.

Reaching through the incubator to touch the innocent soul in his charge, he caressed her cheek, placed her tiny hand on his and waited upon the will of the one who knows the truths that bind each soul together and the secrets we harbor in the recesses of our hearts.

Time alone will tell, thought Michael, but he had a good feeling about this family.