by Amy Newmark
All that remains to be said is that I found Hope at the beach one day.
More accurately, Hope found me.
The truth is, he rescued me as much as I rescued him. I can’t say what would have happened that day if Hope hadn’t been there to meet me, but I can tell you my beach bag didn’t have a towel and a sand bucket in it.
I believe God sends us what we need. If a person had tried to talk to me on that dark day, there’s no way I would’ve listened or turned aside from my self-destructive path. But to suddenly be presented with an innocent dog in dire straits? That was a call I could never turn away from.
I’ve heard people discuss whether angels have wings or not. I think it’s a matter of dressing for the occasion. I’m of the opinion they appear from time to time on stone bruised feet—with doggy breath. And I promise you, one angel rested his chin in the crook of a deeply depressed person’s arm—at just the right time.
~Christy A. Caballero
My Lucky Day
Angels are never too distant to hear you.
~Author Unknown
After work one day I stopped at the gas station down the street from where I lived to fill up. It was an unusually cold day for March, with a breeze blowing and a thin layer of frozen snow on the ground.
After filling my tank I went inside to pay the cashier. She was a very cordial woman who struck up a conversation about the weather. We talked about how cold it seemed for that time of year while she took my money and gave me change.
I mentioned to her that I needed to wash my car when the weather got better. She excitedly told me, “This is your lucky day! We have a car wash special with a gas fill up and you can get the full wash package, regularly $8, for only a buck.”
“That’s a great deal,” I replied. “But my luck hasn’t been so hot lately so I probably should wait for it to get warmer.”
The clerk kept pushing the wash until I finally paid her the dollar and said, “Okay, you sold me!”
The car wash was located behind the station, not attached to the main building. I got in my car and drove around to the entrance, punched in the code the cashier had given me and waited for the big metal door to open.
At first it seemed stuck, like it was frozen, but then a large metal chain attached to the bottom of the door slowly moved and pulled up the door. How spooky. It reminded me of a haunted house I’d visited as a kid.
Once I was inside the wash, the water swished and swirled around the car while pink and blue soap bubbles slid down the hood of my car and slipped away into the drain.
I felt more at ease and turned on the radio while I waited for the wash to end. Because I had the full package with seven cycles—tires and wheels, underbelly, wash, wax, rinse, spot-free rinse and blow dry — it seemed to be taking an awfully long time.
Eventually the wash reached the dry cycle and shut off when it finished. However, my sense of relief slipped away as I waited and waited and nothing happened. The metal door remained closed and, like a tomb, I was sealed inside.
This couldn’t be happening.
After a few more minutes of silence, the lights dimmed, making the wash seem even creepier than before. I still had my car engine running, but something told me I’d better shut it off before carbon monoxide started to build up and suffocate me.
With my hand shaking, I turned off the ignition and fought back my panic. I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing; I had to do something. So I turned on the headlights to get a better look at my situation.
I got out of the car and searched for an exit door or a panic button that would manually open the door, or a phone on the wall to call someone for help since I didn’t have a cell phone with me.
My search turned up nothing and I began to lose hope. I could see the headlines in the newspaper the next morning (or when they found my body): “Woman Found Dead in a Car Wash.”
Images of my funeral popped into my head and I could imagine the grief-stricken faces of my family and friends at my funeral.
“This is not my lucky day!” I screamed out, hoping someone would hear me.
I got back inside my car and did the only thing I knew how to do; I prayed. I grew up believing in miracles and if ever I needed one it was now. A strange sense of peace came over me. Then suddenly I saw a bright light at the back of the wash. Glancing in my rear view mirror, I saw a man standing in the light.
In a matter of seconds the door lifted and I was free! I jumped into action, turned on the car, hit the gas pedal and sped out of the wash. I didn’t slow down or look back to see if the man was still standing there because I was so happy to be going home.
More than a week passed before it dawned on me that I should go back to the gas station and thank the employee who had saved my life. When I did stop at the station, the same clerk who had sold me the car wash ticket was working.
She recognized me and said, “I owe you a dollar. I feel really bad for selling you that bum ticket because I didn’t know that old bucket of bolts was broken down until my manager told me about it the next day.”
When I told her I’d gotten stuck in there she said, “Honey, that isn’t possible. The manager told me that old chain finally snapped a few weeks ago and there’s no way it could have opened.”
“Yes, I was trapped inside,” I insisted. “What about the man who works here that saved me? Is he around so I can thank him?” I also hoped this guy could back up my story.
“Sweetie,” she said looking a bit sorry for me. “We haven’t had any male employees here for months. I don’t know what to tell you.”
None of it made any sense! I walked out of the station in a daze with only one answer: God had answered my prayer and sent an angel to rescue me. It must have been my lucky day after all.
~Leona Campbell
Angel at the Wheel
We cannot pass our guardian angel’s bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.
~Saint Augustine
First, I have to mention that I am not a “seer of spirits.” While I do believe that anything is quite possible in this world, I have never had an angelic, ghostly or otherwise unworldly experience. I have heard things from other people, but have always taken them with the proverbial grain of salt—neither believing nor not believing. As I said, without proof I can touch, it is all wishful thinking as far as I’m concerned. Until last Thursday.
Taking a few steps back into the history of this tale, Joelese (Jo) Cornhall and I have been best friends since the day we met in 1968. Her talented fingers sewed dresses for my little ones and she has listened for hours as I regaled her with ideas for my writing and painting.
Over the years, divorces happened, people moved away, remarried — life went on and we tended to lose contact. I met Jo’s second husband Cliff, twice. Once right after they married and once when their son was about three months old. Her son is now in his forties. What used to be visiting every day turned into a call on a birthday and a Christmas card once a year.
But technology also moved on, and when Cliff retired, he became an avid e-mail friend. We connected on an almost daily basis through e-mail, sending updates on things going on in our lives or just passing on a good joke. He was repairing things for Jo, taking their dog to the local dog park, and having a very happy retirement.
Then the messages suddenly stopped. Jo contacted me to let me know that Cliff had passed away. A sudden heart attack. She invited me to a memorial his friends were holding at the dog park, where a bench and a tree were being dedicated to him. I begged off because of deadlines, but sent my condolences. I am so awkward with things like that.
But, time heals and soon Jo was back driving all over the country visiting friends and staying busy. We got together several times each year for just a “day out for the girls.”
This year I wanted to do something special. So, early in the year I bought all-season passes to the Laguna Art Festival and also two front row seats to the Pageant of the Masters.
The we
ek of the Pageant, I had been knocked out by food poisoning, but thought my symptoms would be gone by that Wednesday. I drove the hour and a half to Jo’s house in Huntington Beach, and felt tired, but okay.
Jo took me to the park to see Cliff’s bench and tree. It is a beautiful little oasis set up as a butterfly reserve. Then we drove to Laguna. I could feel it coming on the minute Jo parked the car: chills, nausea, weak knees. But I tried to push on. I made it to the first bench at the first art exhibit and collapsed.
Long story short, I spent the rest of the day and night on Jo’s pullout daybed, in agony, sucking on ice and begging for death to release me. The only words I could utter were, “I’m sorry. I ruined the whole day—and evening. I’m so, so, sorry.”
In the morning, I washed up and changed, but was determined to drive home to take care of my cats. I’d left multiple bowls of water and dry kibble, and had fed them wet food the morning before. The AC was on — but even with several cat boxes lining the hall, it had to be an insane mess.
Jo wanted to drive me home in my car, with a neighbor following. But I insisted I was well enough to tackle the long freeway home. So, she allowed me to follow her onto the 405 and then I waved her off with my best smile, and started the hour-and-a-half drive home on what has to be the worst freeway in Southern California.
As I write this, I can’t remember everything about the drive. The chills started again, the headache, and the nausea. I was disoriented. I focused on hanging onto the steering wheel and just keeping in my own lane. But it was getting more difficult by the minute. Rather than kill myself and probably take a few other cars with me, I decided that I should get off the freeway. I tried to change lanes but couldn’t manage it. I started to cry.
Suddenly, a feeling of calm and peace came over me. I felt two strong arms take the wheel and hold my hands tight. Something enveloped me from the back of the driver’s seat and surrounded my shaking body.
A voice as clear as if it came from the radio said, “Don’t worry, Joyce. I have the wheel. I’ll get you home safely.” I never saw anything, but I felt the strength as the car whipped back into total control. I felt the presence, but never heard another word. I knew from the voice I’d heard so many times on Jo’s answering machine that it was Cliff.
We drove in silence through all the cities and suburbs until finally we came to the off-ramp that would take me to the city street that led home. Like a puff, the control of the car went back to me. The voice said, “You’ll be okay now.” All was quiet. I was alone in my car, heading for home. About a mile later, I pulled into my drive, shaking and weak once again. My neighbor came out and asked me if I was okay.
I waved her off, saying I was too sick to talk and just wanted to park the car and get into bed.
Later that day, I called Jo as promised to make sure she knew I arrived home intact. I told her of the experience and said I racked it up to the raging fever I had. But she wasn’t surprised at all. She said there had been other incidents where Cliff had interceded to help. “That’s my Cliffy. I know he was there to help you. That’s the kind of person he was and still is.”
All I know is that I am still recovering, and that I am sitting here, safe in my office, writing this all because eight days ago an angel took my steering wheel and saved my life.
~Joyce Laird
The Touch of Love
Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence.
~Vincent van Gogh
My beloved husband, who I called by his Cherokee name, Yonah Usdi, John Little Bear, used his nickname for me, calling from his hospital bed to where I stood by the door. “Magdalena?”
I turned to look at him. His beautiful face was so tired, the liver failure yellowing his cocoa-colored skin, his dark eyes surrounded by shadows. The pain on his face cut right through me.
My John was dying. And soon. We knew it. We had known for a while. He was in the final stages of a long battle. His liver, heart, and lungs were all in various stages of shutting down, but I still clung to hope that some kind of miracle would happen. Maybe at Emory. He was scheduled to be transferred to Atlanta the next day, and maybe, I thought, looking at his sweet face, our miracle would happen there.
“Magdalena?” he said again. He held out his hand, and I moved to the side of the bed, taking his hand, his guitar player fingers folding around my own. My heart skipped. Even with his body swollen and devastated by disease, he was, as I told him often, still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
He smiled wearily, but kissed the back of my hand, looking at me, his dark eyes glittering. “You know, don’t you, that I will never leave you?”
I immediately went to tears, my throat thick, my chest aching. I opened my mouth to answer, but he shook his head and reached up to touch my lips, shushing me. I kissed his fingertips. And he spoke again, a soft-spoken determined statement. “Magdalena, you hear me? I will never leave you.”
But he did. Less than two weeks later, John died.
And I was broken in half. I didn’t even know how to be in my own body anymore. I bumped into walls, stumbled down steps. I’d find myself in rooms, in the yard, without remembering how I got there. I’d feel like I was being lifted off my feet and thrown to one side. My poor loving sons, sixteen and twenty-two, did their best to love and help me, but they didn’t know what to do. I cried all the time. I stared off into space. I lost time. I lost track of my keys, my shoes, my bag. I lost track of thoughts. I lost, for hours, the ability, the will, to move, to speak. I lost thought, simply sitting in a silent mind, searching. For him.
I lost track of me.
I learned what it meant to despair. I said words out loud that I had never even thought before: I don’t want to be here anymore. Taking my own life had never been an option for me. But I had never known sorrow so deep, so profound. And I simply didn’t know how to be anymore. Not without John.
I curled up on the couch a few nights after John died, the bed just feeling too big and too empty. The TV flickered blue light across the room, but I wasn’t watching. I was crying, heart breaking so deeply that it felt like my body would break too.
That’s when I heard him. Clearly, distinctly, there in the middle of my living room, I heard my sweet John say, “I’m here, Magdalena. Now turn off that TV. You’ll rest better.”
I stopped crying and sat half up, looking around the flickering room. His voice was so clear, I expected to see him standing there, leaning in the door, wagging a finger at me, or winking, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. But I didn’t see anything. I thought, “You miss him so much you’re imagining things.”
But then I heard him again, that Georgia drawl gentle but insistent. “Missy, hear me? Turn the TV off. You need to rest.”
Slowly I reached over, picked up the remote, and clicked the television off, throwing the living room into darkness. I twisted myself up in the coral-colored blanket he gave me in our Cherokee exchange of wedding vows—protection, comfort, sustenance—and rolled over tightly on my left side, pressing my tear-covered face into the blanket, and even deeper, into the back of the couch. I held back the weeping that seemed to be what I was made of now, and held my breath. I felt him so strongly, so closely, and I waited to see if he would speak again. Then I felt it.
A touch.
His hand.
Stroking my leg. A soft caress just above my knee. Again, and again, his touch so familiar, he continued to rub my leg. The same loving gesture he’d made each night when we spooned together, my back to his belly, his face in my hair. He’d rest his hand on the curve of my leg, as he settled in behind me. Always for a moment before sleep, he playfully teased me — bad coffee I’d made, or some something I’d said that he found particularly Carolina country, or he’d croon a few lines, that sweet tenor voice — “See the dog and the butterfly, up in the air she wants to fly” — all while his hand softly stroked my knee until we both fell asleep.
And there in the dark, in the wake of
his death, four days after he left his body, left me behind, when I felt most lost in my breaking heart, he touched me again.
The touch continued, and I thought back to the promise he’d made in the hospital room, the last words he’d said to me before he was put on the ventilator, the last words he’d said to me before he left his body for good: You know I will never leave you.
He was keeping his promise.
I had prayed for a miracle.
There in the dark on my couch, I knew John had given me just that, not the miracle I’d asked for that day in his hospital room, but a miracle nonetheless, one that proved that while bodies may end, love does not. I closed my eyes, feeling the soft touch of love, and for the first time in a long, long time, I slept.
~Mary Carroll-Hackett
It Was Not Our Time
We all have a guardian angel, sent down from above. To keep us safe from harm and surround us with their love.
~Author Unknown
It was a dark, snowy and icy Saturday evening in December a number of years ago when my husband Richard and I were driving our SUV along Highway 53 in Ancaster, Ontario. We were on our way to his brother David’s house for the evening. Our three children were with their friends and we were on our own for the night.
The traffic moved slowly due to the slippery conditions, hampered by blowing snow. A good amount of icy snow was on the ground and it kept coming. It was a terrible stretch of road that was often a tricky drive in bad weather.
Suddenly a large transport truck left its lane and headed straight toward us. It was going to hit us head-on. The only thing we could do was drive off the road, so we veered to our right to avoid the truck. We were out of control and travelled into and out of a large gulley right toward a very large and old tree. It had a huge trunk. I was looking right at it and yelled, “Oh God, help us!” Something would have to happen or we were going to smash our car right into that enormous tree trunk. I could see it all coming at my face. Richard was trying to control the car and turn it away from the tree trunk, but it was coming way too fast. To make matters worse, we also needed to avoid a big red fire hydrant just to our left.
