Heaven Can Wait

Bryan was walking the Arkansas highway shoulder with only the moon to guide him. Backpack slung over his shoulder. Blisteringly cold.

He was 23 years young. This was not a friendly evening, weather-wise. Tonight it was colder than a brass toilet seat in Nova Scotia. 

His homelife was a wreck. He had decided, tonight on this walk, that he was going to end it all. He didn’t have the details worked out, but he’d made up his mind.

A pickup truck practically materialized out of nowhere. The headlights were blinding. The vehicle pulled over.

Inside was an older woman. The heater was blaring.

“Get in,” said the lady.

And she didn’t say it as a question.

Bryan piled into the bench seat. The heat felt good on his wet body. 

“Where you headin’?” she said.

Her hair was gray and messy, like it hadn’t been combed since the Crimean War. Her eyes were wild.

“Don’t know,” said Bryan. 

She just looked at him.

“Are you an angel?” she said.

He laughed. “What?”

“Tell me the truth.”

He wasn’t sure if this old woman was pulling his leg.

“I’m no angel,” he said.

She stared at him like she was boring a hole through limestone.

“I can take you as far as Little Rock,” she said. “That’s where I’m going, I’m meeting my granddaughter tonight.”

“Little Rock would be great.”

In a few moments, they were careening down the highway. The interior of her truck was plastered in religious paraphernalia. A Jesus air freshener. A dashboard compass that said, “Straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life.” Crucifix gear shifter.

The old woman broke the silence first.

“My granddaughter’s in labor. She’s having her baby tonight.”

“Really?”

“Yep. You’re looking at an honest-to-goodness great-grandmother.”

“Congratulations.”

She stared again. Longer this time. “Did God send you?”

“Nobody sent me.”

“Then what were you doing on the side of the highway in the middle of the night?”

He looked out the window. “It’s complicated.”

“Maybe you’re one of God’s messengers, and not a full blown angel?”

“No.”

During their long drive, the lady received a phone call. It was her granddaughter. There were complications with the birth. Change of plan. They headed straight for the hospital. Bryan tagged along. 

They found the family in the waiting room of the maternity wing, everyone was weeping uncontrollably.

“The doctors just told us,” someone said, “they don’t know if the baby is going to live. They say it might die.”

Bryan could think of nothing else to do. So he held the weeping old woman as she sobbed into his chest. And he stayed with her that evening. 

Four hours later, a doctor came into the waiting room. The doc gave the old woman good news. Her great-grandbaby would live.

The old woman grabbed the young vagrant by the arm and together they went into the hospital room to see the child.

No sooner had Granny entered the room than she presented the infant to the young man. At first he declined to hold the child, but the old lady was insistent.

He pressed the baby against his chest and felt the warmth of its little body. 

“We’re naming him after his guardian angel,” the old woman announced. “His name will be Bryan.”

“I don’t care who you are,” said Bryan in an email he sent to me. “I believe we are all someone’s angel. And that’s a good enough reason to keep living.”