Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep . . .

Throughout my childhood, my mother always had a beautiful picture of a guardian angel hanging in our bedrooms.  The angel was a lovely blonde woman in flowing robes looking over two young children crossing a dangerous, rickety bridge. I used to ask my mother about those children in the picture as I was worried about them getting hurt.  My mother always told me that we all have guardian angels looking over us to protect us from harm   Here is the picture:

My Childhood Guardian Angel

I know that this has to be true, since there have been more than several occasions where I thought for sure that I was going to get seriously hurt, but something happened at the last second to avert disaster. I'm sure that it was my guardian angel protecting me from harm as it was not my time to die.

My brothers and sister and I always knelt down by the bed before we went to sleep to say our prayers, and this was one of our prayers:


Angel of God,
my guardian dear,
to whom God's love commits me here,
ever this day,
be at my side
to light and guard,
to rule and guide.

It's a Catholic prayer to a Guardian Angel.

The reason I am remembering all of this today is that I saw something very disturbing on the TV while working out at the gym late this afternoon.  The news reported that Sarah Burke, the 29 year old Olympic Women's Freestyle Skier died today from brain injuries that she sustained a week ago during skiing practice in Utah.  I was shocked by this news!  I remember seeing her and Shaun White skiing at an Olympic event not too long ago and she was fantastic!  She was a pioneer who got her particular genre of skiing onto the docket at the Olympics.  It is likely that she would have been favored to win her event in the 2014 Olympics in Russia. What a tragedy!  She was such a beautiful and talented girl, not very much older than my own daughter!  Here is a video of Sarah:

All of this is a poignant reminder that we don't know how long that we have on this earth.  When it is our time to die, that will be the end of our time on this earth.

For some special reason, it was Sarah's time to die.  I pray that she was escorted to heaven by beautiful angels, where she will be at peace for eternity.   Meanwhile she lives on here on earth in her skiing legacy.

Rest in Peace, Sarah!