Saved by an Angel (29 page)

I later learned that I had crushed my right hip, broken my pelvis in three places, broken my right femur, and sustained a skull fracture. Due to the stress of the accident, my heart had stopped three times. I spent ten days in the ICU, but I eventually recovered. I’m sure the angels saved my life.

Thank you, Dr. Ray, my guardian angel!

G
ENTLE
B
EINGS OF
L
IGHT
by Dorothy Womack

As my mother lay dying, she said that her room was filled with glowing beings. They were all smiling warmly, softly touching her skin, and beckoning her to go with them. She was lifted up; and found herself walking in a beautiful, lush expanse of greenery. The place had fountains, flowers, and more glowing beings. The gardens were illuminated, but without sunlight. She wondered how she was able to walk, since she had been bedridden for four years.

These beings flew around her and lifted her up again, and she felt weightless. They brought her back to her bed, kissed her cheek, and told her she’d be coming home soon. My mother said the glowing beings were so gentle and tender. Their eyes were large and filled with love, and their bodies were small and childlike. They had wings that felt like silk and shimmered like satin. They spoke to her in whispers and encouraged her to anticipate their imminent return.

Mom said that no one should ever be afraid to die, and that we go to a beautiful place when we leave our bodies behind. Six weeks later, Mom died. Her courage in the face of certain death gave me the courage to face an uncertain life.

A
UNT
N
INA
by Sonia Huston

When I was 16, I died. It was the worst car accident in the history of the city of Vacaville, California. A police officer traveling at 65 miles per hour in a 30-mile-per-hour zone ran into the car I was riding in. She didn’t have emergency lights or a siren on, as she was responding to a silent burglar alarm across town. The exact moment she came over a steep hill, my three friends and I were making a U-turn at the crest of the hill. Right in the middle of our turn, she smashed into the back and the passenger side of the car. I was sitting in the passenger seat. My two friends in the back of the car tragically died.

My injuries were severe and indeed quite life threatening. I lay in a coma and was on life support. The doctors told my family to expect the worst—that I probably wouldn’t make it through the night.

While I was in the coma, my favorite aunt, who had passed away six months prior to the accident, came to me. She didn’t say much, but she stood there with me while I took in the situation. Every time I turned to ask her something or cry to her, she merely smiled and nodded. I remember a glow around her, and the absolute peace that she brought to me during my state of panic. I wanted so badly to escape the confusion that filled me at that point. My first instinct was to reach out and grab her hand and go off to wherever she had come from. She just smiled, extended her hand to me, and nodded.

Then I was awake, beginning my long road to recovery. At first, the doctors assured my family that I would live as a vegetable. Then they said that I’d regain some of my old self but would never walk again. When I woke up, I couldn’t speak, walk, or comprehend anything. I was an infant in a 16-year-old body. I worked through physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy; and now I sit here and am writing this. I was considered dead, yet here I am promoting life.

Each time I feel that I can’t go on, I go back to that moment when Aunt Nina smiled and nodded at me. Yes, the old me died then, but the me I know now was born.

A D
REAM
T
HAT
S
AVED
M
Y
L
IFE
by Jill Wellington Schaeff

Armed with a journalism degree from Ohio State University, I was thrilled to land a job at a tiny radio station in Racine, Wisconsin, back in 1979. The hours were grueling, as I was covering evening city-council meetings, and then I was up at 3
A.M.
to report the morning-drive news on the air. All this for a paltry paycheck.

After ten months of little sleep, one of the disc jockeys, Andy, asked if I’d join him in a move to a bigger station in Evansville, Indiana. Wow—a raise and a bigger market! I was really on my way at the age of 23.

Five weeks later, Andy and I were fired. The station switched to automation, and the humans became obsolete. Andy easily landed another job in Evansville, but I did not. I started to get really worried when I scouted every station in town only to find that they had no news openings. Suddenly I missed my old job, my friends, and that slim paycheck.

Andy offered to drive me back to Racine for a party weekend with the old gang. He said we could stay with his parents in nearby Milwaukee. I called my mother in Cincinnati and told her my plans. Not a half hour later she called me back.

“Grandma is in the hospital in bad shape. I’m going to Kenosha.” Amazingly, Kenosha is just ten miles south of Racine. We planned to meet for dinner and go to the hospital together. What a strange, but nice, coincidence.

A violent thunderstorm pelted Kenosha when we arrived at the restaurant. It seemed to place a heavy pall over the meal. I was thrilled to be with my mother, but I was vaguely depressed. She and Andy felt the same way, and we barely talked over dinner. But I remember that Mom asked Andy what his last name was several times.

When we arrived at the hospital, Grandma was sitting up in bed looking normal. We were confused by her spunk. She would be released the next day, and Mom wondered why she had made the long trip. I kissed her good-bye and went with Andy to attend a party with my former co-workers.

The party was a downer as well. Everyone was depressed. We couldn’t put our finger on the cause of the lethargy. Andy came up to me several times to tell me that we had to leave his parents’ house at 7 the next morning so he could make it back to Evansville for his first day at his new job. By 1:30 in the morning, I was exhausted.

“Let’s get to my parents’ house,” Andy said. “We have to leave tomorrow at 7.”

As I hugged everyone good-bye, various co-workers began to cry. One girl said, “Jill, we’ll never see you again.” That struck me as being “wrong.”

“I’ll visit. Don’t worry. We’ll get together soon,” I assured them. I couldn’t figure out why everyone was acting so strange.

I was relieved to collapse into bed at Andy’s house. I glanced at the clock. Two in the morning. I heard a knock on my door, and Andy’s mother entered. “Your mom is on the phone.”

I was certain something had happened to Grandma. Andy’s mother ushered me into her bedroom to use the phone. My mother was hysterical. “You can’t leave with Andy tomorrow morning!” My mom had just experienced a vivid dream in bright color. A woman had come to the door and said, “Your daughter and my son were in a terrible accident. My son lived, but your daughter was killed!”

My mother sat up in bed and had a unshakable instinct to find me. She remembered Andy’s last name from the conversation at dinner, grabbed a phone book, and found the number. She said she would have stood out on the highway all night to stop me from making that trip.

I went to tell Andy we couldn’t leave at 7. He looked pale and shaken. He, too, had felt a horrible dread about the trip. We realized that the whole weekend had been darkened with a sense of doom.

Andy left the next morning at 8 to break any “chain” that might have been in place for an accident. My mother drove from Kenosha to pick me up and take me back to Evansville. When Andy’s mother opened the door, my mom gasped. His mother was the woman in her dream!

I know angels were working overtime that weekend, and I wasn’t supposed to die at the age of 23. Whenever I’m down about something, I remember God’s guidance. There are no coincidences. We are never alone.

A T
RULY
U
NFORGETTABLE
E
XPERIENCE
by Nicola Kimpton

I was asleep. In my dream, I was in a big old house, lying in bed. I was trying to sleep but feeling fearful. I called out for Archangel Michael by chanting his name over and over. It was so vivid that I even “heard” myself speaking.

All of a sudden, Archangel Michael appeared in my dream! He was overhead and to my right. I had a clear vision of him. He looked youthful, with blond hair. He was smiling and emanated a powerful purple energy, which felt very reassuring. He pulled a purple cover over me as I lay in bed, and as he did so, he spoke to me, offering words of encouragement. He said that I was doing well, but that I should seek out like-minded souls. Then he seemed to cleanse my aura of fear and bathe my crown chakra with golden light.

Archangel Michael was loving and friendly, and I felt overcome, both by his power and his love. I didn’t know what to say … I was so amazed and humbled by his appearance! I could only watch and listen, as if I wanted to take in every detail. It was a truly unforgettable experience.

As I woke up, I knew intuitively that this was the angels’ way of saying, “Don’t worry, everything’s okay. You are loved. We are here.” I am truly grateful for this experience. As a result of this dream, I have developed a personal relationship with Archangel Michael and now feel and recognize his presence. Through his dream visitation, Michael transformed my belief from hope to trust, and showed that he really
is
here for me … and for us all.