Angelic Pathways (18 page)

But then I kept saying to myself, “You could be in a shelter. You could be on the streets.” For years, I kept saying this situation was better than the streets. At least most days I was safe where I was.

I was treading water in a sea of hopelessness. Yet all the while, I was reaching out to others online, trying to give them hope, trying to help them to hang on even as I felt my own fingers slowly slipping from the rope that had kept me from drowning during the last seven years.

“Uriel,” I glowered at the ceiling one night after another day of unmitigated physical and emotional agony. “You’ve got until January 1 …”

“To do what, exactly?” The archangel appeared with his features pinched, his eyes piercing.

“I’ve suffered enough. I’ve lost everything and everyone. You angels got your damn books. I’m done. Either make some waves by January 1 or …”

Before I could finish my sentence, the angel flashed from the opposite corner of the room and appeared so close to me that I could feel the heat pouring off him.

With gritted teeth, he put his finger in my face and spoke slowly, “Don’t you ever … ever … give me, or any other angel, an ultimatum like that.”

Unmoved by his rage, I shrugged. What was he going to do, kill me? I’d been praying and begging for death anyway!

“I just gave it to you,” I said without blinking. Uriel took a breath to speak, but then Archangel Michael appeared in a burst of white light. The Master General and I weren’t on speaking terms and hadn’t been for a while after I told him earlier in the year that he could go to Hell … if it existed. I had grown weary of constantly hearing, “Hold on, Chantel. Just a little while longer, Chantel.” He was starting to sound like a broken record. All the angels were, and I was sick of it.

I had reached my breaking point.

When Michael appeared, I put up my hand before he could speak. “There is nothing you can say that will change my mind about this.” Neither angel responded even though it felt as if we all were holding a collective breath. Uriel, who was my mentoring angel at the time, looked as if he wanted to throw me through a wall.

Without a word, the two angels suddenly vanished, and it was that moment that fortified my resolve. I knew what to do. I knew what was to come. January 1 would come and I would finally be free of this pain, either by my hands or theirs. I didn’t care which.

As summer slipped into autumn and autumn into the many festive holidays, all of which I spent alone and in silence, a sense of peace eased over me. I knew freedom was just around the corner, and I counted down to the new year with more happiness and zeal than I had in all the previous years combined.

With the dawn of 2011, Heaven had remained silent. So be it.

I began writing letters to those few who still mattered in my life, as well as to some of my readers. It was only then that I began to feel lower than ever. I realized that I was a fraud, after all. I’d published two books commissioned by the archangels—the messengers of God—themselves, books that expounded upon their benevolence and compassion and the importance of hope, wisdom, and love. Yet here I was about to commit an act that went against everything I had penned. I was about to take my own life.

But what do you care if people talk? You’ll be dead and happy
, I selfishly tried to convince myself. I slowly looked up to the e-mails I had written, swallowed hard, steeled my nerves, and refused to change course. But just when I was about to click send on the first e-mail …

My computer crashed.

The three-year-old laptop didn’t freeze or even blue-screen. It simply flickered and shut down. I tried desperately to reboot the system, but I could only get it to function in safe mode.

“What the hell is this?” I fought with the piece of junk for hours. In all my years of being glued to a computer, I had never seen anything like it. It would boot up, flicker, and then shut down again.

In the midst of my trying everything to resolve the issue, Archangel Uriel appeared with his arms folded and his stony gaze pinned on me. “Problem?”

At that point, I knew I’d just gotten checked by the angel of Armageddon while playing a most dangerous game of real-life chess. I was livid, to say the least, but I ignored him as I tried to at least get online in safe mode. My modem had barely been working before the crash, and now getting to my e-mail was proving to be near impossible. Not to mention, I had written the letters in the e-mail application, an antiquated piece of software that didn’t save drafts. Hence, all the letters that I’d poured my heart, soul, and pain into had been obliterated with the simple flicker of a screen.

In a rage, I bellowed and cursed at Uriel. He knew me better than I did. I was too much of a perfectionist to simply bow out without a few eloquent lines to express the reasoning behind such a cowardly and weak-willed decision. Hot damn, I was pissed, and when I looked up at the angel as my system crashed for the fifth time in an hour, I wanted to throttle him. As if responding to the silent barbs I was spitting at him through my glare, he got into my face again with his finger pointed. Normally I would have been too pissed to balk, but something in his gaze this time sent a chill over me, and I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. It shook the very marrow of my bones, and I even inched back a bit upon the bed where I was sitting.

“Don’t you ever threaten me like that again, do you understand me?” he spoke in a low, steely tone. I tried to hold on to my bravado against the fiery angel as I challenged him to a blinking contest.

“Do. You. Understand. Me?” It was a harsh, rugged whisper. “Woman, you had better make that your first and last time you ever speak to me like that. If you do it again, you will lose more than a stupid computer.”

I couldn’t help the ice dripping from my tone when I responded, “I’ve been praying for death for years. I offered my life, and you refused to take it.”

The angel growled low in his throat, and that’s when Archangel Michael appeared again.

“Uriel, go,” the Master General said simply. But Uriel and I had our gazes locked, and I think the only thing that might have separated us would have been a bucket of ice cold water. Even then, I was doubtful. He wasn’t moving and neither was I, even though angry, frustrated tears were now cascading down my cheeks.

“Petulant …” Uriel breathed.

“That’s an order, soldier.” Michael’s tone was a lot sterner this time, and the red-headed angel disappeared. “Chantel,” the General sighed, “I’m going to tell you this one time and one time only. You cannot threaten us, coerce us, or try to twist our arms to do your bidding.” His tone was unlike anything I’d heard from him before. Normally Michael was all smiles, but not tonight. He stood in my room like one would expect of an army general—as if he meant business. “After all we’ve done for you. After all we’ve shown you …”

“Michael, I’m tired!”

“I know,” he said, nodding. “But you’ll have to wait a little longer.”

At that point, I couldn’t contain my emotions. “Oh, just fuck off!” I threw a bottle of medication in his direction, and with that, he was gone. I could have thrown a few more bottles at him. After all, I was on fourteen different medications at the time. Instead, I lay down, drew my hands wearily over my face, and wept myself to sleep.

The next day, I was on the phone with technical support only to find out that the company that sold me their name-brand computer had the worst customer service in the world. After spending hours on the phone with them, I was told it would take about two weeks before a technician could come out and repair my system.

No big problem
, I thought. I had my BlackBerry. It had been given to me as a gift when my computer had started encountering issues picking up wi-fi signals a year prior. I had been using the phone as a backup modem.

“I’ll show them [angels],” I whispered, still determined to go ahead as planned. All I needed was to program my e-mail account info into my phone and voilà, I’d be back on track.

Or not.

Just as I set about my task, I noticed that my phone wasn’t getting a signal. I then used my emergency backup cell to call the person responsible for the phone bill only to get a recording: “This line is currently experiencing trouble.” Well, that was obvious. Both of our phones were on the same account. I then called the person’s home phone.

“Babe, I’m sorry, but I lost my job. I didn’t want to tell you or worry you, but I ran into some issues and there is no way I can pay the bill right now. I’ll get it paid in about ten days.”

Checkmate.

After hanging up, all I could do was fall back onto the bed and laugh. “I really hate you,” I grumbled heavenward at the angels. I had thought I was bored and miserable before, but without the ability to get on the Net—my only connection to the outside world since I only left the house every six to eight weeks—I realized my wretched life could get a lot worse. My computer would only work for about ten minutes at a time before it would crash, so I made Facebook posts when I could, trying to be a cheerleader and beacon of hope for everyone else when in fact I myself was falling completely apart.

“Now that I have your undivided attention …” I heard a voice. I knew that voice all too well, and I wanted to run and hide just to get away from it. That, of course, would have been a move made in vain, because when Jesus wants you, he will find you.

I was in deep trouble and I knew it. Michael, the snitch, had run back and …

Who am I kidding? Jesus knew I had been giving Uriel and Michael hell all year anyhow. My spiritual father had been calling my name, asking me to visit him in meditation, but I pretended not to hear him. I pretended that I was too occupied with research and writing books to talk. Well, without the computer, I could do neither, so it was just me and him without any distractions of the Internet or text messages.

I could cop an attitude with my brothers, the archangels, and get away with it, but I dared not even make eye contact with my father. In fact, I sat with my head bowed, fearing that I was about to see a side of Jesus that I didn’t want to think even existed: his angry side.

But I was wrong. Jesus, in his infinite wisdom and compassion, hardly looked perturbed. His voice was calm and even as always as he reviewed with me the challenges I had faced during the seven years of hell in what I considered solitary confinement—my own personal Guantanamo Bay.

There had been so many harrowing moments during those years that I lost count, but I walked through each year with Jesus and saw the challenges—financial, medical, social, mental, emotional, and spiritual. And then I saw how the angels had guided me through each and every one. I likened the experience to walking through a dangerous, untamed jungle with a guide walking ahead of me to clear the path with a machete. I was still snagged by a few thorns, was slapped in the face by an occasional tree branch, and even bitten or stung by annoying insects. That is to say, each experience kicked my butt one way or another.

Yet, I’m still here.

I remember back in 2008 when my routine blood results from a doctor visit placed me on a temporary quarantine. My white blood cell count had plummeted so low that my doctor initially feared I might have been stricken with leukemia.

I was told not to leave the house and to stay out of public places and avoid anyone who had anything contagious. With a compromised immune system, even the common cold posed a serious threat.

And all of this emerged just weeks after the debut of my first book,
Azrael Loves Chocolate, Michael’s A Jock
.

I sat in my room in total silence for hours. I remembered back to when doctors had thought I had leukemia when I was seven years old and I’d had the exact same symptoms: low white blood cell count as well as low platelets. To this day, I can still hear my own screams as the doctors performed a bone marrow test.

I wasn’t about to go through that pain again. And I felt I shouldn’t have to.

“I did what you said, Lord. The angels told me to write a book. You got the book, and this is what I get in return?” I was incensed. It wasn’t fair! While drowning in hopelessness, poverty, and emotional anguish, I had still managed to attain my biggest dream of becoming a published author. And now, it seemed that I’d have little time to celebrate the accomplishment, as death would soon be knocking on my door.

After the rant I directed heavenward, Archangel Raphael appeared with his hands gently folded before him.

“It’s not leukemia, Chantel. Please, do not tax yourself with worry and fear.”

“But the doctor said …”

“Chantel, trust. It’s not leukemia. I promise you.” With that, the angel was gone. Still, I worried, albeit not as much. I would, over the course of two months, follow up with more blood tests, and to my doctor’s astonishment, they came back normal. Somewhat, at least. Granted, there were other issues that had to be addressed, but I was wholly against the treatment for them.

“You do realize that without treatment, you’re setting yourself up for all kinds of health complications in the future,” my doctor said, agitated by my obstinacy. I knew the risks of my condition, and if an early death were to be the result of it, so be it. In my view, the treatment posed more risks than the illness itself, so I was determined to find alternatives. It would take me four years to find that alternative, but once I did, my condition improved and treatment was no longer required. It’s a condition that can creep up at any time, but at least when it does, I know what to do about it.