Was She An Angel? True story from when I was a child.
NonFiction Created on 4-25-07
Views(108)
Story Rating G
When I was young, maybe about 12 or so, I was collecting shells on a the beach that was a few miles from my house. This was a private beach. The only people that lived on it were ones that owned cottages on it or knew people who did. I knew most of the people on the beach and had an aunt that lived there as well. During the summer my cousin and I spent many many days on this beach. We would collect shells, lay in the sun, play in the water or just be silly. One day, as we walked along the beach collecting shells, a woman apporached us. We had never seen her before. She was a little heavy set, some gray hair and seemed quiet. She watched us pick up the shells. We didn't pay too much attention to her until she spoke to us. She looked down at the shells we had in our hands and asked us if we knew what kind of shells they were. We said "yes, they're called toe nails." (The shells we were picking up were either yellow or orange in color, Very thin and had an interesting shape to them. Very light as well and made a nice sounding jingle when they hit each other. These shells do have an "official" name, but I can't remember what it is. We used to call them "toe nails" though.) After we told her what they were called she looked back at us and said: "they are not called 'toe nails', they are called 'Angel's Feet'." We looked at each other and told her that we didn't agree and that we were always told they were called "toe nails". She once again told us that the real name is "angel's feet". We asked her why they were called this. She turned to us and said: "At night, when everyone's asleep, the angels from heaven come down and walk on the beach. As they walk they leave their footprints in these shells." My cousing and I kind of just stood there and didn't know whether to believe her or not. The woman then picked up one of the shells and turned it over. She told us to look at the inside of the shell. As we looked we saw a white outline of a foot. We thought this was just a coincidence, so we picked up several of the ones we had in our bucket. We looked at several different sizes and all had, what looked like, white footprints in them. The large ones for the adutls and the small ones for the children and babies. My cousin and I just stood there and felt shocked. We asked the woman where she lived (because we had never seen her before). She pointed to a very very small house/shack on the end of the woods near the beach. Then she just walked away. We decided to just continue going back to collecting our shells.About 2 weeks later we came back to the beach. I remember it being a few days or so after the 4th of July. When I came onto the beach I looked towards the woods and noticed that the old womans small home had burned down. I saw someone I knew and asked them what had happened. They said that it caught on fire some how. They think that maybe a firework had landed on it and it was so old that it just burned. I asked if the woman in the home was ok. The person I was talking to just looked at me and asked "what woman?". I said "the woman that lived there, didn't you know her?". She just looked at me and said "no one lived there..it was empty.". I said "no it wasn't. Last week my cousin and i were walking on the beach and an old woman saw us. She talked to us and told us the names of these shells. She told us they were called Angle's Feet and said the angels from heaven walk the beach at night and leave their footprints. She said she lived in that house." I even described the old woman to her. This lady looked at me and said "I've never known of anyone living there or ever seen the woman you're describing.". I asked a few other people that day, including my aunt and no one knew who I was talking about. I couldn't believe no one had seen this woman. There were so many people outside, the day she was talking to us. No one saw her talking to us and no one saw her walk by them. My cousin and I never saw the old woman again.To this day, when I go visit home and walk on the beach I always pick up an "Angle's Foot" , turn it over and look for the footprint and think back to that day. Was she an angle? I don't know. But, she was someone I won't forget and I feel there was a reason why she talked to us that day and told us what she did.
NonFiction
Created on 4-25-07
Views(108)
Story Rating G
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