I'm always shocked by the number of slovenly child angels.
Doesn't anyone check them on the way out the door in the morning?
This one has pulled on a robe about four sizes too big.
Not that he is concerned.
Like most small boys he's more interested in what he is doing than in how he looks.
And by the way, he is writing something.
But whatever he had to tell us is long gone, the granite slate brushed clean
by decades of wind, snow and ice.
I mentioned in my last Grave Faces post that faeries are far less common than angels
in graveyards.
They do, however, dress more modestly.
Faeries are mischievous sprites, not always on the side of good,
and they predate Christianity.
I often wonder about the beliefs of the families that leave a faery in
charge of a burial site.
How deeply would you have to scratch some Christians to find a pagan?
Anyway, this one is pretending to be asleep.
Like the child who is buried under her.
Toddler angels often set out on their daily mission naked.
At least this little fellow who is playing his fiddle so merrily, was able to grab a loin cloth.
Clothed or not, he seems to be saying that death is nothing to be sad about.
Easy enough for angels to say, I suppose.
Adult angels take their work, and their wardrobe much more seriously.
This fully clothed and lovely young angel's job isn't to tell us anything about heaven.
She is telling us about earth and mourning.
And we instictively recognize the path she is on.
This is the necessary time before 'the letting go'.
At first glance these two appear far too young to be employed in a cemetery.
But consider this, they are still with the child they were called to watch over
long after her grave has been abandoned by all who knew her in life.
Not so young after, all.
This isn't a very good photograph but I just had to include it because he looks so guilty.
He's obviously just returned from a dip in a nearby puddle.
And he wasn't expecting me.
But then I wasn't expecting him either.
A lovely end to my walk.
