Can someone love but not touch? Feel but not see? Hear, yet remain deaf? She is in despair. She loses something very dear to her. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever get it back. Then Seth appears and everything becomes just as before. Better, in fact.
The film City of Angels tells the story of a surgeon (Meg Ryan) who questions her belief system soon after losing a patient. Some time after, she gains a friend—Seth (Nicolas Cage)—an angel. Women Who Wow Wednesday celebrates the life of Dr. Maggie Rice, the woman who can make angels want to become human.
They admire each other from a distance. She knows when he’s there. The storms may envelop her senses, but his presence comforts her. The warmth of his arms wrapped around her shoulders cradles her at night, lulling her to sleep.
“I don’t understand a God who would let us meet, if there’s no way we could ever be together.”
She’s also curious about Seth. He’s not like anyone she’s ever met. He’s different. Special. She hears about his history from a friend of his:
“Seth knows no fear. No pain. No hunger. He hears music in the sunrise. But he’d give it all up. He loves you that much.”
Maggie knows she’s not like him. She knows she will have to do something. She can’t see him anymore. It just isn’t right. So she visits him with the intention of making it the last time she talks with him. She says good-bye explaining the other man in her life asked her to marry him.
Seth doesn’t understand. How can she do that? How can she break his heart like so? Doesn’t she feel the same way? She doesn’t understand. Maggie makes him feel alive. Maggie makes him feel invincible. Maggie makes him feel…
And I’d give up forever to touch you
‘Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be
And I don’t wanna go home right nowAnd all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
When sooner or later it’s over
I just don’t wanna miss you tonightAnd I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I amAnd you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah, you bleed just to know you’re aliveAnd I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I amAnd I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I amAnd I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I amI just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I can’t reveal how the story ends. In some ways, the story doesn’t have an ending. At least not the ending we would hope. But isn’t that how life is anyway? Perhaps like Maggie, we find love in the oddest places. And try as we may, it takes a lifetime to understand it. At the same time, maybe we were never meant to understand it. Maybe, just maybe, love is a growing process that takes time to nurture, trusting in its power to lead us to have faith to understand it some day.
Have you seen The City of Angels? What did you think of Maggie?
Looking to God 