Behold, I send an Angel before thee,
to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee
into the place which I have prepared.
—Exodus 23:20, KJV
My brother Oliver died in my mother’s arms, of pneumonia. After bathing him in bed with a sponge for thirty-two years, after feeding him with a spoon for thirty-two years, after pulling down the shade each morning so the rising sun did not burn his tender skin, our mother watched Oliver take his last breath. She whispered, “Goodbye, my angel.”
When I was a boy, it was my job to feed Oliver dinner: a raw egg, baby cereal, sugar, and a banana pureed inside a red ceramic bowl my father had received one Christmas filled with plum pudding. I never needed a watch because I always had an instinctual feeling that it was time to feed Oliver, and I never missed. If I was playing baseball on the front lawn in the summer, or sledding down the neighbor’s hill in the winter, I’d suddenly call out “Gotta go! Gotta feed Oliver!” and I’d abandon my position at third base or grab my sled and rush home.
Oliver was blind. Once I thought that maybe he was faking it, so I sneaked up on him and waved my hand right in his face. He never blinked.
Oliver couldn’t talk, read, or sing. The doctors, after many tests, convinced my parents that Oliver had no intellect, no possible way of learning anything due to severe brain damage before he was born.
My brother was on his back in his bed for thirty-two years. His bed was against the yellow wall, and my father built a low barrier made of plywood on the other side so Oliver would not roll out. Oliver never moved by himself. He was rolled back and forth and bathed each day. He never had a bedsore.
We never know how sorrows of the past will influence us in the future. When Oliver was born, my parents were devastated. With each passing day they learned more and more of Oliver’s afflictions: unable to lift his head, unable to chew or walk or grow up to be the president of the United States. So instead they just chose to call Oliver their son and they chose to love him.
Because of that single decision, I was given a guardian angel, and I didn’t realize it until many years later.
I liked watching how gently my father shaved Oliver and combed his hair. I liked helping my sister carry Oliver to the bathtub. I liked propping Oliver up with my hand behind his head as I gently touched the rim of the glass to his lips and watched as he slowly drank the cold milk.
Oliver learned to do two things: raise his crooked arms up and down and laugh. That is all. Sometimes in the middle of the night I could hear his belly laughter echoing down the hall. My grandmother often said that Oliver was laughing with the angels.
Often when I am tired after a long day, I rub my face and think of Oliver’s deep, brown eyes. When I pour a bowl of cereal in the morning before trudging off to work, I often think of Oliver’s red bowl that I carried up to his room all those years as a boy.
Remember that charming film As Good as It Gets, where Melvin, played by Jack Nicholson, says to Carol the waitress, played by Helen Hunt: “You make me want to be a better man”?
Oliver made me a better man. I have been a father, teacher, and writer. Through my brother’s helplessness he taught me how to help children in need. Through his silence he pointed out how to be a poet. Through Oliver’s hunger he showed me, like Merlin, how to mix life in a red bowl. Oliver was my guardian angel.
The Islamic tradition speaks about the raqib: the watcher, their angel who protects them throughout their lives. The Buddhist lamas teach that the devas are angel-like, ethereal beings who applaud our goodness, rejoice when we are well, and rain flowers over us when we struggle.
In Judaism the angel Lailah protects pregnant woman at night and serves as guardian angels to everyone and guides their souls to heaven.
Christians believe, as Pope Francis said in 2014, “No one journeys alone and no one should think that they are alone.” And he acknowledged that the voice of our guardian angel is always within us, whispering wisdom and comfort during our times of distress.
I wish the world could rub the sponge onto Oliver’s tender skin and feed him from the depth of the red bowl and give him milk. I wish we could all stand at his bedroom door together as a civilization at midnight during these times of distress and hear Oliver laugh.
On my brother’s tombstone my mother wrote, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” May your guardian angel help you see God, Allah, Buddha, Abraham, Christ. May we all sleep in peace and laugh at midnight.
George Eliot wrote, in her novel Silas Marner, “In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now.”
Perhaps Oliver could guide us all out of the cities of destruction. I wish I could carry Oliver to Bethlehem, to Mecca, to the Wailing Wall, to the Buddha, to the temple, mosque, and church and have the world touch Oliver’s hand.
I pray that those who are weak continue to teach those who are strong.