Every time a good man dies, an angel of God comes to Earth. He takes the man in his arms, spreads out his great white wings, and flies all over to the places the man loved on earth. They pick flowers and carry them with them up to God, where the flowers will bloom more brightly than they ever did on Earth. And God presses all the flowers to His bosom, but the one he loves the best He kisses. Then that flower receives a voice, and joins in the glorious everlasting hymn of praise.
All this one of God’s angel said as he was carrying a dead man to Heaven. As they passed over the places where the man used to work, toil, and play, they came through gardens with flowers. “Which flowers shall we take with us to plant in Heaven?” asked the angel.
And there stood a rosebush. A wicked man had broken the stem, and their branches still held the withering roses. “Let us take that so it may bloom again in heaven,” said the man.
So the angel plucked it, and kissed the man for his tender thought. They saw a tulip, drooping and neglected, and plucked that too. Many flowers the man and the angel took, even violets and marigolds and wild pansies.
“We have enough flowers,” said the dead man. But they did not fly up to God just yet.
In the rubbish the angel pointed to a broken flowerpot, and a lump of earth. It was held together by the roots of a field flower. “We shall take that with us,” said the angel, taking it from the rubbish, “And I shall tell you of it as we go.
“Down in the valley below, there lived a very sick boy. He could only hobble about on crutches once every fortnight. There were times when the sunlight would cross his bed and he would move to the sunlight to say he had basked in the sun. He knew nothing of the forests where we had been, receiving only an evergreen branch which he stroked, to have the scent of the forest fill the air around him. He knew nothing of the sea where you worked, but had a shell from a friend that he would put it to his ear to hear the sounds of the waves on the shore.
“And so it happened that a neighbor brought a field flower which one had a root. So his parents took the flower and planted it in a flowerpot, and it grew. It was the first sight the boy saw in the morning, a garden to his eyes, and the last sight he saw when he was called to his Heavenly Father.”
At this story the dead man wept for the poor boy, but the angel said, “Do not weep for the child, for he has been with God for this year, and the parents of this child kept the flower. Now they have no longer need of it, so it was thrown out in the rubbish. That is the flower, the poor withered flower, that we have added to our bouquet to bring to God.”
“How do you know this?” asked the dead man.
Again, the angel kissed the man gently upon his forehead, “For I was that little boy. I know my own flower well”
And the next thing they knew, they were both at the throne of God in heaven. God took the man to his bosom and kissed him, and he grew wings as his angelic companion, so they flew together, hand in hand. Then God pressed the flowers to his Heart, but the poor withered field flower He kissed. It received a voice and joined the choir of angels and all were supremely happy.
((In honor of National Fairy Tale Day. Taken from “The Angel” by Hans Christian Anderson.))