My Guardian Angel

It was Dance Party-Casino Night that Friday night in February. Awkwardly I stood like a wall banner in my high school gymnasium thinking that I was Disco Danny in my heavy baby blue satin shirt and my polyester slacks and platform shoes. My feet were so sore wearing those silly shoes of that Era. It was a very, very small turnout for a High School dance. Was I the only person that got the flyer? Mid-evening after only dancing once with someone who I now refer to as my Little Flower, I was ready to head out and collect my losses from this non-eventful evening. One step forward and I was intercepted by a girl, a girl whom I never saw on campus before this evening. Her smile even with her braces and her long golden hair, and ocean blue eyes stopped me dead in my tracks. "Would you like to dance?" She asked.

It was the beginning of such a short but happy time in my young life. We danced together for the rest of and the remainder of the night. The following Monday I did what any boy with common sense would do, I asked her to go steady. She said yes. The following three months brought springtime and such a sweet, loving and special person to me. My life at home was really turbulent during this time and being with her hand in hand, seeing her energetic smile and hearing her laughter took me far away from troubles of my home life and made me smile so. Unfortunately, one afternoon as I walked her home from school her father pulled up next to us in his car. He stepped out of his car and in an alcohol intoxicated rage he demanded her to get into the car and approached me and threatened me to never get near his daughter again. After she failed to return to school after being gone over seven days I was not ever able to speak to her again. At the end of that school year her father sent her to live in Massachusetts with her mother. I never saw or heard from her again.

Then in my senior year about almost the same month we met three years prior, I received the shocking sad news. One of her closest childhood friends stopped me that day and asked me if I remember Tracy. My heart started to beat faster excited by the mention of her name. I thought that I was going to be informed that she was in town and I could see her and catch up. I was so wrong. Her friend told me to prepare myself and she told me what I had feared to hear. On New Year's Eve of the prior year Tracy and three of her friends were traveling home that night and were killed head-on by a drunk driver. My heart broke all over again three times as badly.

I remember the rest of that day and night I walked and walked. For me to receive that news made it feel like it just happened. I mourned for her for what felt and sometimes feels like forever. In the past 40 years I have had some hard times of despair, suicidal thoughts, car accidents, almost bled to death. In every instance and situation I experienced, I see her image appear and she is always there with me . She is always my hope, my beacon of inspiration to carry on and never give up. I deeply miss her to this day, but I know from all the times that she has come to me in my time of darkness and despair that she is my Guardian Angel.