The Guardian

She was tired, starving and totally exhausted with the battle of living a life that was day after day an uphill battle to keep her head above water. She had a stack of bills that she had continually robbed Peter to pay Paul. She could not figure a way out and she didn’t even have credit cards. She had no friends to help her, no parents to bail her out and no spouse or boyfriend for moral support. To top it all off she had told her druggie boyfriend of the past five months she had just missed her period. He took all of her cash and he ditched her by simply disappearing off the face of the planet. She now knew that she would in the months to come she would be in the same predicament with another person to take care of and be responsible for. Her last job had fizzled out when the business had gone under and finding a new job was impossible because of her lack of skills so she had been evicted from her rented room. She could not bring herself to prostitute out her body in fact, she thought she’d rather die.

She sat on the curb and began crying. People passed her on the sidewalk and not one of them seemed the slightest bit concerned why a nineteen year old girl would be sitting on the curb crying her eyes out while dirty water ran over her feet from the flooded streets into the sewer. She herself didn’t even care because as she sat there in the rain she was contemplating killing herself. She pulled a knife from her pocket and placed the point against her skin. How could she raise another human being when she wasn’t even capable of taking care of herself and she wasn’t even worthy of living herself? She drew the knife across her flesh pressing with the intent to slice open her vein. Nothing happened! The knife was so dull that it was completely useless! She couldn’t even kill herself. She took the final steps toward the bottom of her despair and made up her mind to step out into the street in front of a car or a bus. She attempted to stand wobbling unsteadily on her feet. As she considered her new found focus to step in front of the next vehicle she stared down the street for the right opportunity to present itself to her.

Suddenly she felt a hand grasp her hand gently and she dropped her gaze to the ground while the owner of the hand guided her away from the street. When she raised her eyes to see who had taken her hand and guided her away from the street all she saw at first was the purest pillar of light in the place of a human being. The light made her feel safe and loved. She blinked and there before her was a bent old woman with gray hair smiling at her. The old woman offered to buy her breakfast and walked with her to a nearby diner. As they ate the woman asked her to tell why she had been so close to taking her life. The girl explained her predicament to the old woman and the old woman listened carefully allowing the girl to feel her grief. When the girl finished the old woman smiled and told the girl that God had sent the girl to help her and she explained to the girl her predicament of being alone and diagnosed with cancer. She offered the girl to live with her if she would help her with things as she grew weaker. The young girl agreed and thought it would only be a temporary fix to her problem. She spent nearly a year with the woman and had her baby there at her new home. She cared for the old woman doing all she could to make her last days on Earth days of peace and joy. The baby brought joy to the old woman’s eyes every time she held her. She loved holding and rocking the baby.

One night the old woman passed away and the young woman cried with the grief of losing a loved one. She decided to stay at the house as long as she possibly could and through the funeral. At the funeral no one attended except the girl, her baby, a priest and a lawyer. After the funeral the lawyer came to her and told her she needed to hear what the woman’s will said. She went to the lawyer’s office and he read her the will. The old woman had left her the house and millions of dollars. It was enough money for her to live comfortably the rest of her life and start a shelter for young people who were in a predicament similar to the one she had once been in. The shelter offered rooms, jobs, food and schooling to give the people skills to become guardians to others. The girl walked the streets looking for great beings of light that knew not what they were. When she found them her own light shone its brightest.