My mother believed in angels. When I was a boy, she told me, “You have a guardian angel who watches over you and keeps you safe.”
I was a skeptical kid. “You mean some invisible guy following me around all the time?”
“Not following, Eddie, watching.” “What’s the difference? Does he tell on me? To you—or the teacher?”
“He might.”
“I’m not sure I like that.” He sounded more like a spy than anything else.
“It’s not your choice. God assigns him to you.”
“Does he ever sleep?”
“If he does,” she said, “he probably has backup.”
Eventually the concept of a heavenly bodyguard faded into a childhood memory. And all these years later, as the disease of Alzheimer’s stole
