Capricorn Full Moon + Lunar Eclipse: Calling All Angels (How to Save a Life)

IN 2012, ON A FLIGHT FROM VANCOUVER TO WINNIPEG, I sit beside Hugh, a young man who shares before the plane takes off that he’s going to visit his family which he hasn’t seen for almost a decade.

The reason? He has just spent the last several years in jail for drug trafficking.

In fact, he informs me, I am the second woman he has spoken to in years since his release from prison the day before.

I’m instantly drawn to him, recognizing the familiar feeling of butterflies in my stomach that this seat assignment has a gift in store for us both.

I can tell by the smile in his eyes that he’s relieved I haven’t judged him, but I sense he’s still nervous. I make some small talk about the weather and our shared destination in the hopes that he feels a little more relaxed.

Hugh does, indeed, open up. With trembling lips and a sweat-soaked brow, he begins by sharing the deep terror he feels about flying. I tell him I used to feel the same way, but I have sought out many tools that now allow me to enjoy the entire experience of flying, including meditating at the beginning of each flight, calling on all angels to bless and protect the plane, the crew and the passengers.

He sits up straight at the mention of the word “angels.” He probes me about what I do for work.

He is enthralled with my tales of the Other Side and I am caught up in sharing with such an attentive listener. For 45 minutes, I deliver a one-woman show to my one-person audience until I look outside the window beside him and realize we’re in the air and according to the flight attendant have been for over 25 minutes.

This high-flying conversation has transported us somewhere in which the laws of time and space as we know them have collapsed, evidenced by the fact that we didn’t realize we’ve moved off the tarmac, down the runway and into the air.

Hugh looks outside the window and after confirming we are indeed sky-born, jumps out of his seat, his hands slapping the armrests hard. He peers into my eyes as if he’s trying to unlock a mystery, finally concluding, “You’re an angel.”

I laugh at his words. However, Hugh refuses to let me so casually brush off what we’ve just experienced. He leans over the middle empty seat, whispering in my ear, “I know you’re an angel. I had another angel visit me in prison the night I was going to kill myself.”

A lump instantly grows in my throat and tears spring to my eyes.

For thirty minutes, he tells me the relevant details of his life and how he drifts into the dark world of drugs. He was a child when he immigrated from Vietnam, feeling disconnected from others because of a language barrier and his own low self-worth over not feeling smart or good enough—too short, too Asian, too stupid—in his words. He has experienced racism and other abuses in many forms about which he doesn’t delve into too much detail, but I can tell by his pain-filled eyes, he’s still hurting, still remembering.

In his early teens, he finds connection and community by joining a gang. His status in the gang is low-ranking, but he doesn’t care. When he is with his brothers, he no longer feels alone. When his new family shares their drugs with him, he willingly accepts and enjoys riding high with them.

He feels braver and stronger he tells me. He begins to commit bolder and bigger crimes to find the money to buy the drugs he is now hooked on. When his brothers ask him to start delivering some small packages around town, he doesn’t blink an eye. Over the course of his high school years, he graduates into higher levels of trafficking until a police crackdown changes everything, eventually landing him in jail with a seven-year sentence.

In prison, he grows depressed. He spends much of his time caught in a painful loop of thoughts that relentlessly plays the tape of what a bad person he is and how he has shamed his family–the ones living in Canada and the ones living back home. A lifetime of unchecked, unexamined and undigested pain catches up to him and he begins to feel as if he’s drowning in his unworthiness and his despair.

He has contemplated suicide often, believing that if he’s no longer on the planet, he no longer has to feel the pain. He tortures himself with this one terminal possibility for his life.

One night in his cell, he has come to a dark, dark place where he’s decided to kill himself.

He tells me how he sobbed so deeply in part with the relief of making the decision but still a part of him doubts this course of action. In a desperate plea, he cries out for help and asks God to please send an angel to help him.

Moments later, a flash of light appears outside his prison cell.

Hugh looks up to see a figure whose light is so bright that Hugh has to cover his eyes. He cries out with outstretched arms, “Are you my angel?”

It is. The prison chaplain has heard Hugh’s cries and has come to offer him comfort, mercy and hope. He addresses Hugh as “my son,” asking him why he is crying. They talk for some time, Hugh seeking answers for why his life has been so hard and how he can move through his pain and shame of a life that he can no longer endure.

Hugh notices the chaplain holding a small green book in his hand that he hands to Hugh to read. The book? Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life.

I haven’t heard of the book, but a quick Google search later reveals that millions of others have, making it the best-selling non-fiction book in history for over a decade.

The nightlong conversation and the book that the angelic chaplain gift to Hugh are so impactful that Hugh’s plan to kill himself changes course—of course.

He will dedicate his life to finding meaning in his life–his purpose–and sharing with others what he learns.

At the end of the flight, Hugh takes my hand and kisses it. He thanks me for my time, says he will write a song about his experience with the angel lady on the plane and I will know the song is for me because it will have the name of our airline flight.

He then incredulously hands me his book The Purpose Driven Life. I refuse it at first because this book has been his lifeline. I know his tears have soaked these pages. He has underlined it and written in his mother tongue. But he insists so I take it before we say good-bye.