"An Angel is Kind of Like a Diamond"

Last week I was passing the nursing home where my grandmother lived and died. I was on my way home from picking Michaela up from golf practice. I had Daniel, age 3, along for the ride. As we passed by we pointed out to him that there was great grandma’s nursing home. He remembered visiting her just over a year ago and he immediately said, “let’s go in.” Michaela and I explained to him, grandma is no longer there, she died and went to sleep and will never wake up again and she is like an angel now.

I reminded Michaela that I told her the same thing when my mother passed away when she was five days away from turning three. As we talked I mentioned to Michaela that Daniel probably doesn’t really understand what we are telling him. But out of curiosity I asked Daniel, “do you know what an angel is?” His reply was, “an angel is kind of like a diamond.” I wasn’t sure I heard it right and I asked him, “what did you say?” he confirmed, “an angel is kind of like a diamond.”

This statement seemed to roll right off of Daniel’s tongue and I was surprised he would put the two together: angels and diamonds. We hadn’t recently talked about diamonds or angels and I wasn’t aware that he knew what a diamond was. This thought stayed with me the rest of the evening and I thought, wow, that was actually a pretty profound statement by my three year old. Two things crossed my mind about the comparison: angels are very valuable, and they always see God’s light which makes them bright. So I thought he was onto something.

Just two days before the little angel talk with Daniel I had a brief conversation with a friend at my “You Can Become a Saint” study group. We had just covered chapter five that night at our meeting. My friend told me she read ahead to chapter 6 in the book which was about angels. She loved the chapter. So after Daniel went to bed I got out my book and began reading chapter six.

I got three pages into the chapter when I read this: The angels were created with outstanding beauty. The mystic priest, Pere John Lamy, said of them: “The angels are a great deal better as a spectacle than the Blessed Virgin. With those fine sparkles which change perpetually on their white robes, they look like brilliant officers beside Her, who is so simple. ”

When I read this I was astonished at Daniel’s statement. I saw all the things about a diamond in this passage, especially these words: beauty, sparkles, white, brilliant. Daniel was right on.

My heart was so warm after reading the passage that with amazement I began wondering how did Daniel know to say what he said?

I will explore this question in a future post.

What do you think? Has your child ever astonished you in this way? If so please comment.