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Angels

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Angels Among Us

Melissa Sheeley

ENG 125

Andrea Moak

March 21, 2011

As the song from the band Alabama goes, “I believe there are angels among us, sent down to us from somewhere up above, they come to you and me in our darkest hours to show us how to live, to teach us how to give, to guide us with the light of love (Lyrics Mode, 2011).” I think the poem Grief Calls Us to the Things of this World (Clugston, 2010) written by Sherman Alexie has a lot in common with Alabama’s song I Believe There are Angels Among Us. The paper you are about to read is going to describe how they relate to each other and analyze the poem as to whether after someone passes if they are still around us.

The song sung by Alabama tells of a boy walking home and gets lost in the dark in the woods as he takes a short cut home. A man takes him by the hand and helps him home safely. The boy’s mom does not see the man standing next to her son as he stands on the front steps holding hands with her son. The boy figures an angel has come down from Heaven and helped him get home safely. The song goes on to say how even in our darkest hours there is someone there telling us it is going to be okay and will get us through.

The theme of the poem written by Sherman Alexie is that of a reminder of his dad not being around anymore physically but spiritually, he writes of a man going to a hotel room and finding a phone next to the toilet in the bathroom. The man is so amazed with this and wants to call someone and decides to call his dad. After he calls home to his parent’s house and his mom answers he asks to talk to his dad and then realizes what he just did. He had forgotten that his dad had died and felt really bad for what he just did to his mom. His mom said it was okay as that day she had forgotten too as she made him a cup of coffee that day and didn’t realize her mistake till later in the day. The poem goes on to tell of angels being a burden to us as they are always around us and then remind us of our loved one’s passing.

I don’t think that angels are a burden to us as the poem thinks they are. I do think that our loved ones are watching out for us and keep us safe while we are still on earth. The tone of the poem is upbeat in the beginning as the man just wants to call someone from the phone and then turns sad when he calls to talk to his father that has been dead for nearly a year. The man in the poem feels that angels being around us reminds us of the person not being here anymore. Some people think that angels being around are just a reminder of the loss while others think of it as a good feeling of having invisible protectors. I would like to think that angels around me and all of my family is their way of guiding us through our lives and keeping us safe.

I really connected to this poem as I too have called my grandma’s house and hoped to talk to her even after she had passed away. Usually after I would call and my uncle would answer is when I realized that grandma is gone and I won’t be able to hold a face to face conversation with her till I see her again in Heaven. I know that she is around me helping me get through my darkest hours and keeping my whole family safe. Occasionally I will have a conversation with her as if she were in front of me. I think that by talking to her as if she were here is a stress releaser and makes me feel better after having the conversation. This is very similar to Alexie’s story where the mother of the boy made a cup of coffee for his dad and put it on the table. The mother said that she did it by mistake, but has she done this every day since his passing just to show her husband that she still remembers him or that she simply forgot that one day and made him a cup? Either way, I think that it is good to show your loved ones that you have not forgotten them even though they are not here physically anymore.

The other reason that I found engaged in this poem was the use of foul language. I am trying to watch my mouth, but not all the time am I able to stop myself. By having this poem have a few cuss words in it made me relate better to the poem as it is similar to the way that I talk. I think that the foul language was necessary to this poem as he realized what he had done as soon as he had said it. The writer could have used different descriptive words like crap, shoot, or darn it, but he chose to use a cuss word to get his point across of how the man was feeling after he had asked to talk to someone who had passed away. Men have a harder time believing in angels being around us as they prefer to have concrete evidence of them existing. I found a story of a man who was on his death bed who did not believe in angels and found himself sitting in the hospital having conversations with one (“Of angels and men,” 1996).

I think that man or woman sometimes have a hard time believing in something that they cannot prove exists. While reading through some scholar journals I found that most people don’t think of angels as being physical, but rather a feeling of knowing they are around us. When I read Angel Threads, by Cecile Holmes about Robert Danzig, I could relate to the subject in the journal. The man in the story talks of angels not being here physically but just knowing that they are around when we need them. This is something that we individually have to determine if we want to believe or not. I choose to think that angels are around us physically all the time and at our darkest hour we may physically be able to see them.

In conclusion angels among us and the man in the poem calling home to talk to his dad have an angel in common. The man forgot about his dad’s death as he thought of how excited he would be to hear that there was a phone in the bathroom and the boy who gets help getting home safely by an invisible man. Some people look at angels as a nuisance of being reminders of their death while other look at it as a reminder of the good times they had together and that they are always going to be here with us. "Angels come close to us to let us know that they are there to protect us or to let us know that we are doing the right thing," said Sandra Adler, who is vice president of Inner Peace Movement, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., that offers workshops on angels (Adler, 1999).

References

Adler, S. (1999, February 27). Once a skeptic, lecturer now tells others to find their angels. Boston Globe, (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=39365898&SrchMode=1&sid=3&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1300748748&clientId=74379)
Clugston, R. W. (2010). Journey into literature. San Diego, California: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. (https://content.ashford.edu/books)
Lyrics Mode. (2011). I believe there are angels among us lyrics. Retrieved from http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/a/alabama/i_believe_there_are_angels_among_us.html
Of angels and men. (1996). American Hospital Publishing, 70(18), 26. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=2&did=10279677&SrchMode=1&sid=4&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1300749350

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