services bureaucracy took her away just 18 months
later, Angel would remember the Wilsons with enor
mous affection.
Each glimmer of love sustained Lizzie Pintye's
spirit as she went forward into a tough world. As
she moved from one foster home to another, Lizzie
still was sent to her parents for occasional weekends
and holidays.
At age five, while she was staying at her parents'
house, something happened that was a wondrous balm
to Lizzie's spirit. She has locked herself in the bath
room in order to get away from the others and to look
at a picture book. Beside her, suddenly, was the figure
of a woman in flowing robes.
It was like witish gray smoke. Lizzie looked her
up and down and then closed her eyes tight. The figure
was silent, but with her presence came a gentle peace
fulness Lizzie had never before felt. When she opened
her eyes, the vision had gone.
That peaceful interlude was a turning point in
Lizzie's childhood. For the first time in her life, she
knew that there was something special about her - that
maybe she was something more than another little kid
no one wanted around.
While she would have gladly changed some aspects
of her childhood, Lizzie was exuberant in her enjoy
ment of the independence she occasionally wrested
from those who were in charge of her. It was clear to
her that if she stood still in the foster-care system, she
would be crushed by it. So she pushed for as much
control over her life as she could. And she did so with
a good-natured resilience of spirit that puzzled and in-
