Episode2
Soon, another figure approached saying, "You got it?"
"Yep. You got the money?"
"Yeah I got the money. Six hundred bucks is a rip off."
"Hey, I got a guy who'll give me more if you don't want it. You can't get these things anyplace else right now. This is probably the only one left in the city but if you don't want it…"
"Yea I want it. Here." The second man handed an envelope to the first man. "It's all there, you can count it."
The first man fingered through the stack of bills and, satisfied, went into the car's trunk to retrieve a box.
"I must be nuts to do this but if my kid doesn't get this game player, Christmas will be hell in my house." He took the box from the other man. "Are you sure it's all here?"
"I'm sure, but just so you know, all sales are final."
"Merry Christmas to you too." snarled the man as he walked back to the street and disappeared around the corner.
The little angel hid behind the safety of Gabriel's wings and buried her face. She didn't like this place, it felt angry and cold.
"You can come out now child; we are someplace safe."
They stood by a bed in a dark room where a woman lay awake, her eyes red from crying. She stared straight ahead, her thoughts far away. The little angel went over to her and touched her face, immediately feeling the sadness.
"She grieves for you child."
"Why is she sad? I thought she loved me?" the little angel asked as she touched the woman's blonde curls.
"It's because she loves you that she is sad. A mother's Love is deep and strong. Her heart hurts for loss of the soul she carried and nurtured for so many weeks. She can't understand why you had to leave."
"She doesn't feel me with her anymore does she?"
"She can't right now, child; she is numb to such feelings. Mortals go through this when they lose someone they love."
"I feel her love, I have always felt it. She would sing to me and talk to me. I know the sound of her heartbeat, her breathing, her laugh and her touch."
"The bond of love between a mother and child is so powerful that it is felt in Heaven. It is so pure and brings such joy. It is without conditions. It is selfless. A mother will quickly give up her own soul for that of her child if she feels the need."
"My mother would have done that. I felt it. I tried to stay, I tried so very hard."
"You couldn't. You asked to know what Love was and that was a gift to you." Gabriel placed his hand on her shoulder. "Do you know how much your mother loved you? She loved you so much that she knew she had to let you go."
"Even though it would hurt her and make her sad?"
"Yes because that is part of what Love is, child. It's letting go of something or someone who hurts not because the love is weak, but because it is so very strong." He smiled at the woman on the bed. "You picked a very good mother to be born to little one, she is gentle and beautiful. She has an incredible soul and a heart that holds much Love."
"It hurts me that she is sad," the little angel said as she kissed her mother's hand.
"She won't be sad forever. She will think of you and wonder about you, how you would have grown up, what you would learn in your life, the woman you would become. Though she will always feel your loss, she will also remember the joy of having you with her. How you felt growing inside of her. Seeing you for the first time and holding you next to her when you left."
The tiny angel moved the woman's blonde locks away from her ear and pressing her lips close, whispered, "Thank you, Mummy."
"You will see her again many times over, she may not know you and you may not know her but you will feel that bond every time you meet."
"Does that mean I get to come back to Earth?"
"Yes you may and you will . . . you are part of a cycle. You will be with your mother again and again. As your spirit grows, you will know each other."
They were no longer in the room but in a field outside where the village stood. The snow was falling in big fluffy flakes around them.
"She is gone."
"No child, she is always with you because you are connected by your souls. Now tell me, do you understand Love a little more?"
"I understand the love I share with my mother."
"Ahh, but it's much more than that; it's bigger than you can imagine, you have only touched upon it."
"What do you mean?"
"Remember the house and the family? Remember the men in the alley?"
"Yes but what does that have to do with Love?"
"Mortals express Love in many ways, they love each other but they also love 'things' as well. A family is founded on Love. Parents show their children Love and teach them to love.