My Angel                                       3-15-02
Dedicated to Angelyn Rachael Woolsey

Many a day I spent with her.  Singing and laughing and carrying on, splashing in the pool on hot summer days.  We have a movie and a song just for us.  She swore to be my bestest friend, "Always and forever, no matter what!"

Then one day, everything changed.  We started the sixth grade and the pressures were too much.  The summer before, she taught me to be me, me and only me!  Then I walked into class and saw a crowd of new faces and thought, "What a wonderful chance to make a new start.  Rachael's wonderful, but what about all these unfamiliar people?  How many people can I become friends with in the first day?"  So I tried to make everyone happy with who I was.  I smiled and laughed with the "popular crowd" and head banged with the "skaters." I was in heaven!  I had a few friends on every edge of the circle.  But I kept thinking I was forgetting something.  I would go to bed at night wondering what I had lacked to do that day.

Then I realized I hadn't talked to her in a week.  "Oh, I'll talk to her tomorrow at lunch," I thought.  But then, I was too wrapped up to go see her.  She became pale and skinny, but I didn't notice.  I was too involved in my new boyfriend.  Then one day, I got really sick.  I hadn't been eating for about a week and while I was laying there, hoping my stomach to be ripped out of my body, to spare me the pain, I reached for the phone to call Rachael, knowing that I could complain to her about anything, no matter how trivial.

It hit me, what a horrible person I was being.  She had always been there for me, no matter what, and I wanted to die when I acknowledged how I had been treating her recently.  I knew it was unfair of me to change who I was to be more popular.  She liked who I was, so why couldn't I?  It seemed so simple, yet so far-fetched.  I made a vow that day, laying sick as a dog, that I would put myself first with my TRUE friends beside me, for the saying is true, "Do not walk in front of me, I may not follow.  Do not walk behind me, I may not lead.  Walk beside me and be my friend."  I will never forget how much she cared for me in my times of need.  And I will never shake the gut-oriented wish that I could turn back the clock, could go back and make it all right.  But I know that she's forgiven me because she loves me.

Her times got hard shortly thereafter and I ran to her rescue.  She was in pain and I gave her all of me.  I never realized that a rift carved from time could be so easily bridged with a simple hug and a shoulder given to be washed by her tears.  I held her as she cried her heart out to me, telling me of the razor.  I told her I understood and that I would be there for her.  I didn't tell her to get professional aid because I knew it wouldn't help.  That's what everyone was telling her… not what she needed.

We went through some difficult times together.  We stopped talking as much, but it was understood that we could call whenever we needed each other.  Troubles are always lurking and we don't have the connection that we used to, but I hope that she knows that I am still here.  I still dream of that summer, now only a few short years away.  I love you, Rachael.  New York and the Phantom await us.  Let's make it!