Michael's Angel Attic
Reported by Erik Smith
Web produced by Rachel L. Miller

Michael's Angel Attic

Whether angels dwell simply on an artist's canvas or in a delicately woven tapestry, whether they live in the words or illustrations of literature, angels have brought comfort to many in a wearied world, just as they do in Michael's Angel Attic.

It's hardly a place where you might expect to find them, but they're there because of Lisa Reed and her 3-year-old son, the angel Michael.

Lisa's son Michael.

"How I got to this place is a little sad," Lisa says. "I had lost my son, Michael, nine years ago to a virus out of the blue. He was never sick, and he took ill and within a couple of weeks he had died.

"After Michael passed away, my friends started giving me angels and my collection grew and grew and I started doing a lot of reading on children and near-death experiences and children and their connection with angels."

"It helped me a lot," Lisa says. "It gave me something positive to focus on. It was like my therapy, not only for myself, but my entire family, my other children involved as well."

The loss of a child is one of those dark and dreadful things that we place beyond the perimeters of our own reality, beyond that impervious personal wall we erect to protect ourselves and our daily sanity.

Perhaps it should not be surprising then that so many are drawn to the attic, seeking some measure of comfort. They come seeking some respite from a relentlessly numbing heartache to share a few moments with someone else whose hopes were shattered when their child was suddenly gone. That's what keeps Charlie Johnson coming to Michael's Angel Attic.

"I think the moment you come in the store, you can't help but believe in angels, and I know the moment that my son died, I definitely, definitely believed that there now was a special angel there waiting for me," Charlie says.

Originally brought together in common tragedy, Lisa and Charlie have now linked themselves to other grieving parents through a worldwide organization known as the Compassionate Friends.

"There's been people that were newly briefed that I just knew what they were experienced, I knew something was there," Lisa says. "They may not talk until a couple of visits later. They might talk that day or ask me a question. There's a people who came in here who lost their children 20 years ago, two weeks ago. Just a multitude of different scenarios. It's incredible."

While several years have separated them from their children, the angels in Michael's Angel Attic have continued to grow. Now the tiny store in the once-old house is nearly splitting at the seams. It's testimony, perhaps, to a renewed public interest in angels, and certainly the belief that they offer some inner peace to the soul of a world badly in need of such.

No, the angel attic is not a shrine. It's just a special little place that seems to be able to mend a broken heart.

"Sometimes I have to step back and think, wow, I'm really helping a lot of people, and that's my goal with Michael's Angel Attic and myself," Lisa says. "If I can let one person leave here a day who was fulfilled or felt peace, brought a smile to their face, I feel like I'm a big success."

Michael's Angel Attic has moved to 123 E. Main Street in Northville.

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