Long post about Escargot's irrational fear, sorry....
I'm dreadfully and fearfully superstitious about angels!
As a kid I was taught that angels are dead people. Thus, Uncle Bill didn't die, he went to be an angel....
I suppose this was a way of avoiding talking about death with little kids but it spooked me up big-time.
Because not only adults but children and pets died too, and they were also angels. So when my Nan's lovely Alsatian, Mona, suddenly disappeared, she was, I was solemnly informed, now an angel-dog.
And children too. I heard of several kids' deaths during my own childhood. They had gone to be angels. At the same time, one heard good or beautiful children described as 'little angels'. To me, it seemed that these kids might be marked out in some recognisable way as prospective angels, i.e. doomed!
My first child was a tiny, smiling blonde thing and like all new mothers I loved to show her off. Just occasionally, an older admirer would call her a 'little angel' and after a sharp intake of breath I'd HAVE to say, 'Please don't call her that!' It was like removing a curse.
Nobody took offence but I bet they thought I was nuts.
I attended all my kids' Nativity plays and each year prayed aloud that they wouldn't be picked as angels- that seemed too much like tempting fate! I used to look, horrified, at the kids playing angel parts and think, 'How can their parents let them do that? Don't they know how dangerous it is?'
Yes, I know, totally mad.
I understand now I'm older that I was just fed crap like all kids are, and love to read about angels and their supposed intervention in human affairs at times of stress.
But don't EVER, any of you, call a child an angel. You never know.