“Our task is to give her as much love as possible, and to help her to become a strong, beautiful and happy angel! Now we will divide our responsibilities for the next ten years.”

This was exactly how much a childhood without a care in the world was supposed to last, according to the laws of the lives of angels, after which something important happened and the life of a small angel changed for good. At ten years old, an angel entered the Elementary School, and the new doors opened into a new world full of amazing events and discoveries. But it was too early for Fanyasha to think about this: in the years to come, what she had in store for her was to play, fly, enjoy the marvelous life, and bask in love. All the more so as her parents decided to go to great lengths in order to make their daughter’s childhood the most happy, carefree and safe, and for her childhood be lived at the highest level, according to them.

“Borisey, your turn,” continued father. “Can you list the five languages of love?”

More than anything in the world Bosya disliked answering questions, the answers to which he knew precisely, and for that reason he straightened his back, confidently flew to the middle of the living room and pronounced boldly and without hesitation:

“Five languages of love exist in the world. The first one is the words of affirmation, the second – quality time, the third – receiving gifts, the fourth – acts of service, the fifth – physical touch.”

“Great job, son,” said father, pleased. “Choose which language you want to be in charge of.”

“I… I… I am not sure,” Bosya’s confidence disappeared; he frowned and looked at his mother and grandmother hoping for some help.

“I choose the fifth language of love, and will give my baby affection and my tender touch,” said mother, and carefully took Fanyasha in her arms, kissed her forehead, and stroked her head. Fanyasha beamed and pressed herself against her mother.

“Great, settled! Especially since in this world, there is no one more tender than you, my love,” said father playfully, then looked at grandmother, who decided to encourage her grandson and lovingly patted him on the back.

“And you, dear Nokomis, will get the most important language of love,” said father, addressing grandmother.

“Allow me to guess,” interrupted grandmother and smiled slyly. “Is it quality time?”

In angel families, mothers and fathers are often very busy. They constantly fly away and, according to them, solve very important problems, and the grandchildren are raised by the grandparents, who for some reason have far more free time.

Bosya also spent the first 10 years of his life with his grandparents. Then, when he entered the Elementary School, his grandfather said that he needed to fly on an important mission and he never came back. Bosya knew that the grandfather flew up a very long corridor and that since then somewhere up there he has been doing a very important job. Only once did Borisey try to fly up the long corridor in order to see what was up there, but he became scared. The higher he flew, the stronger the wind was blowing, and his wings didn’t have enough strength to fight that current.

Bosya loved his grandfather very much, missed him, and hoped that when he grew up and became strong and brave, he would without a doubt visit his grandfather up there.

Mother and father remembered grandfather with great respect, and grandmother sometimes sighed and said these strange words: “All of us will be there. Everything in its time.”

Bosya knew that his grandmother was a distinguished and respected angel. She was an excellent student in her youth, then she worked a lot, and so now she had an opportunity to spend more time at home and engage in activities that she liked.

“Does she really like to care for the little ones? It is so tiring and tedious,” thought Bosya, remembering how much trouble he caused his grandmother because he was a very quiet and dissocial child, and hid from her in the clouds, refused to learn how to fly, collect the rainbow, play with sunlight dapples, and sing songs.

“Although it seems that most likely Fanyasha won’t be such trouble,” thought Bosya. “She seems to be curious and cheerful, but maybe all girls are like that. All they want to do is laugh and dance. Grandfather was a different story – he could sit on a cloud for hours and ruminate. Most likely I take after my grandfather,” thought Bosya.

“Boriseeeey! My bo-o-oy! Can you hear us? Hello?” Bosya’s thoughts were interrupted by his father’s loud voice.

“So, what have we decided here? Since it is our duty to speak with Fanyasha using all five of the languages of love, it will be better if each one of us focuses on one language. Now, let me repeat: mother will be in charge of the physical touch, grandmother – of the quality time, I am in charge of the enjoyable gifts, and Borisey will get the acts of service.”

“But what about the first language of love? What about the words of affirmation?” worried Bosya.

The truth of the matter is, he was a very attentive boy, and of course, it didn’t escape his notice that father only named four love languages.

“Son,” said father with a smile, “we already discussed this while your mind was somewhere else. As for the kind words of praise and encouragement, our grandfather had no equal, if you recall. Since he is currently away on an important assignment, we decided to distribute this language of love amongst ourselves. So don’t forget to encourage and praise your little sister. Deal?”

As always, father did not wait for the response, since in this family everything he said was perceived as the law. Of course, any of his decisions were preceded by a family discussion. Father always mentioned how important the opinion of every member of the family was to him, and this created an impression that one could influence his final decision. Perhaps one indeed could.

One thing was obvious: mother, in addition to grandmother, Bosya and even little Fanyasha, understood and accepted who was the boss in the family, and this created an atmosphere of respect, safety, peace and confidence in the future. This is what the relationship within the family should be like: a man’s decision incontestable, a woman’s care and love unconditional. But even among angels, families like this are rare, let alone among humans.

“OK, give me a little bit of time and I will set up a room for Efania,” said father and flew up the corridor.

“Dear, don’t forget what we agreed upon,” yelled mother. “Only one window, and make it high, alright?”

Father didn’t answer. He didn’t like to be reminded about anything, especially since he remembered about the window.

Mother felt that they made the window in Bosya’s room too low, and that’s why the boy spent too much time by the window, even when he didn’t know how to fly, and saw what he was too young to see. For this reason, he started asking questions and began to learn about what was not necessary to know in childhood. This, according to mother, was the reason for Bosya’s excessive bashfulness and fearfulness. In addition, the parents felt that the walks with their son at an early age and stories about the living arrangements of angels were not needed.

Consequently, mother and father decided to be more responsible parents this time, and shield Fanyasha from anything unnecessary, and keep her from leaving the house, even her room, for as long as possible in order to prolong her happy and carefree childhood.

But it should be noted that the adults’ notion of happy childhood often does not correspond to what children themselves desire.

“Oh, how I would like to become firm and resolute like father, so that I would be obeyed, too,” thought Bosya, and then heard his mother’s tender voice.

“Bosya, Bosyushka, dear, come, we are flying to show Fanyasha her room.”

From top to bottom Fanyasha’s round room was filled with soft curly clouds of different shapes and sizes in shades of light pink, gold and purple. Fanyasha happily sat in the middle of the room, batted her eyes, and waited for something.

“Should we shower our Efania with love and then we’ll go about our business? Except for grandmother, of course,” having said this father flew up to his daughter and put a beautiful pendant around her neck in the shape of a large letter “E,” which was iridescent and twinkling. Mother tenderly hugged and kissed Fanyasha, then kissed Bosya and followed after father, taking his hand.

“We love you very much,” whispered mother, looking back.

“Boriseyushka, please help construct a bed for your sister,” said grandmother, and put a large white cloud in front of Bosya. “And then you can go study. Fanyasha needs to sleep more today; I will read stories to her.”

Bosya got to work right away. He knew that the sooner he finished, the sooner he could finally retire to his room and deal with the important matters.

Fanyasha wanted to get upset about her parents leaving, but grandmother pulled a beautiful soft book from under the hem of her wide dark green dress, swept the palm of her left hand over the cover, and placed it in front of her.

The book levitated, twitched as if it was woken up at the wrong time, and opened itself with a groan. Of course he remembered it! It was his favorite book “Good Old Tales for Little Angels.”

The room became filled with the gentle subtle fragrance of cedar and lavender, the soft light of sunset, sounds of the babbling brook and bird trills. Fanyasha did not know what these sounds were, but she enjoyed them very much. She turned on her side, facing grandmother, and fell asleep. Grandmother started reading to her softly.

“Grandma, look, look!” anxiously whispered Bosya pointing to the back of his sleeping sister. “Look at her wings! They are growing in front of our eyes!”

“Well, of course they are growing, said grandmother smiling kindly. “Love always makes wings grow! All of the newborn angels grow their wings while they sleep, and when we give them love, their wings grow even faster.”

Bosya was so impressed that he even stopped rushing and started making a bed for his sister more diligently, glancing from time to time at how her wings were stretching, straightening and filling with silver light.