jewish angel

I had to have been between 4 and 7-it was before Cody was born and after I'd started school. My elementary school had this rule about Halloween. You could only dress up as a character from a book, and you had to bring that book to justify your guise. So I had made up my young mind and wanted to be a witch. So my mom took me to the Whittier Public Library so we could find a book to suite.
We were looking in the children's section, and I remember the aisles being incredibly tall and and intimidating. Thinking back now, I'm sure they were no higher than four feet. There was a woman-I remember her in a long skirt, I think she worn earthy tones, and she had long, dark, and comically curly hair and she wore circular seeing glasses. I remember her name was Ruth because there was a girl in my class who's name was Ruth and I only remember her because she was the only jewish kid in our entire school and she never joined in on our holiday festivities (such as this Halloween celebrating disguised as the "Literary Parade"
She must have been casually carrying on an in-passing conversation with my mom, a strange and universal event I'd noticed grown-ups did quite often. At some point she directed her attention towards me and must have asked me something along the lines of what kind of book I was looking for. I don't know if she began to minister to my mom or do so in a much more subtle and gentle way to my child-self. I don't even know if she mentioned a religion at all. All I remember is her smiling a sincerely happy smile and rattling off all of these beautiful names, Sarah, Deborah, and even her own name-sake-as she thumbed through a worn black book which I can safely assume was an Old Testament.
What I remember most is looking up at my young and beautiful mother as we walked out of the library and seeing tears in her eyes as she looked back at me. I remember her smiling, really smiling, and holding my hand. She said to me, "Amberlee, you know what Ruth is? She's an angel." I remember believing her whole-heartedly.

And that really stuck with me.