It was still dark when they loaded up the car, pulled out of the garage, and headed toward the highway. They were on their way to a visit with their grandchildren.

About twenty minutes from home, as he was passing a slower moving vehicle, a third driver pulled into the far left lane passing him. That car hit a patch of unrecognized black ice and began to slide.

Everything happened so quickly, but she saw an angel (he looked a lot like Mr. Clean from the TV commercials) step in front of their car, take his hand and push the careening car ever so slightly, preventing a collision.

In a blur, that vehicle safely shot across all three lanes completely perpendicular to the highway!

Her client had been looking for just the right one, and she had finally found it for him. It was a Christmas gift for his wife, and Christmas was just two days away. It finally was ready! Snow was falling as she loaded the precious painting into the back seat of her van, buckled it in with the seat belt, and carefully pulled out of her driveway to make the 14 mile drive to his home for the delivery.

About ten miles in to the drive, the car in front of her signaled a left turn. She lightly touched the brakes, anticipating the slippery surface, but was totally unprepared for the result. The car began to skid wildly, and as she crossed the center line, bearing down on her was a County snowplow!

Time warped into slow motion as she whispered a split second prayer for the painting.

Thinking she would prefer to not to be hit head on, she grabbed the wheel with both hands, jerked it as hard to the right as she could. She squeezed her eyes shut and braced for the impact. What seemed like an eternity passed in an instant. No crash, no more sliding. No horn. Nothing.

When she opened her eyes, she was facing the other direction, her car was parked safely on the snow-covered shoulder of the road. No other vehicles were in sight. It was eerily quiet as she began to sob.

She was still shaking when she turned the car around and continued on to deliver the painting. When she got home, she was still choking back tears as she looked up the number of the County. She wanted to get a thank you message to the driver of the snowplow. She gave the clerk the time and location of the near-miss and was stunned to be told there was no driver operating a plow in that vicinity at that time….

As she hung up the phone, she whispered, “Whatever you saved me for, with your help, I will do it!”

Many years ago, a neighbor who was our good friend passed away. A few months later, his wife and I and our children were visiting his grave. While she and I stood at his grave, our young children were running around, as children do when they are bored. My two oldest ones, who were 4 and 6 years old and her two (about the same age) came screaming to us, looking very frightened. Their faces were pale as they reported that my 3 year-old son had fallen into a big hole. We ran to the location of a double-deep open grave which had been covered by a large piece of plywood. Apparently he had slipped in between the plywood and the edge of the grave and now was in a 6 or 7 foot hole which was very dark and scary to him. I heard his cries as we frantically removed the plywood so we could see him. His tear-stained little face was looking up at us as though he was pleading for help and luckily, he did not appear to be hurt physically.

As I comforted him with soothing words and my mind raced for a solution, I was inadvertently pushing dirt from the edge of the grave down upon my forlorn little son. I was frantic! I laid down on the ground on my stomach and I told my friend to hold my feet so I could attempt to reach him, but my arms were fart too short.
In those days, I was not savvy enough to remain calm for the sake of my child, so the more anxious I became, the more he cried. The other children were all frightened and my friend and I were, too.

Just as we were looking around for help in the cemetery and seeing no one – not a person, or car, or anybody who was alive besides us, I realized one of us would have to drive somewhere to get some assistance. As we were discussing who would go, out of nowhere came a tall man in a dark business suit. There had been no one in the cemetery just seconds before his appearance. He approached us, saying nothing, laid on his stomach on the ground, instructing us to hold his feet. He stretched his long arms down into the grave and lifted my son to safety.

As we were brushing the dirt off of him, I was hugging and kissing him. Then I looked around for the man. I wanted to help him brush off his fine suit, but above all to thank him for what he had done. He was nowhere in sight, no car had started or had even been seen, and the man disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. For those few minutes all attention had been on my young son, and none of us saw the man walk away or “disappear.”

After we had all calmed down a bit and started our trip back home, we marveled at what had happened and recalled that my son’s toy gun was still at the bottom of the grave. It had been forgotten during the rescue and now he was crying for his toy. We laughed at how shocked we imagined the mourners at that site would be when they saw the toy gun in the grave. Of course, we had replaced the plywood so another child would not have the same mishap. Many years later, my son would get teased about his graveyard story as being one of a “very vivid imagination.”

At the same time, the rescue by the tall man in the dark suit was a mystery to us, and it was a good story to tell after the fright was over. Today, I know that the man was an angel sent to help. There is no doubt in my mind now that I have heard many stories from others who reported their angels appearing and quickly disappearing once the crisis was over. Our tall dark angel came out of nowhere and when back into nowhere after being now here long enough to lift up a frightened little boy out of a big dark hole into the safety of his mother’s arms.

When my son was an adult with children of his own, I sent him a gilded angel to hang over his bed. I guess he thought he was too old for such things, and each time I visited him, the angel sat on his desk. Following the tragic loss of his sister, when I came to visit him, the angel was suspended over his bed.

The dove and feather amulet hung on her rear view mirror. The dove hung at one end, and the feather hung at the other. It had never (not ever!) flipped over. That is, not until that day.

Somehow she knew it was significant, but she really had no idea what it meant.

She could never have dreamed that she would lose him before they were married. Of course, she was young, and after he died in the accident life went on for her. She married, had a family, and it was as though the door to her past had been closed. Or so she thought….

She was having so much stress at work. She made an appointment to meet with a healer.

“There is a man here. He wants you to know that he loves you very much.”

She broke down in tears.

“He is helping you with this challenge,” the healer calmly assured her.

Suddenly the amulet’s having flipped over popped into her mind. She realized that had been a message from him! She ran out to her car to look, and it had flipped back over again.

She sent a message to the healer: “Last week and this week have been great at work. The job is easier; I am more confident. My attitude changed. Thank you for helping to improve my life and well-being! The healing work you do is a very special gift!”

She had recently moved to the country from the city. She was not really sure about the water quality at her new home, so she said a little prayer, asking that she be shown if she should use the tap water or buy purified water for drinking.

Heading to the grocery store, she heard an ad on the radio for a water company. As she sat at the stop light, waiting to make a turn, a delivery truck from that same company turned in front of her.

There was her answer!

When we ask for help, guidance always comes.

He loved the white-with-red-stripes, soft, sugary mints. And he loved her. She loved him, too, but since she worked as a dietician, his gifted sweets went directly into a drawer, never eaten….

His premature death ended more than his gifting of mints, it also ended her sense of joy.

Then the mints started showing up. Everywhere….

In a bowl at the corporate office where she went with a heavy heart carrying his death certificate.

In the salon she cried all the way to, the one where he got his hair cut.

At the bed and breakfast where she stayed near the hospital in a distant town where he died.

Friends got into the act, too. Mints were brought to her from the car wash, the bank, the restaurant.

What had long ago been avoided, judged, and rejected became savored. She knew the truth now: Life is too short to not fully receive it when love comes your way. And she knew now that love truly is eternal. His sweet mints prove it to her over and over and over.

She was facing surgery to remove an aggressive mass from her abdomen. Feeling a bit desperate, she sent off a quick email asking for help. She gave him her cell phone number as she was logging off and making the hour drive to work.

Moments later, he called, quickly giving her some suggestions. He asked her to call him late that evening.

His suggestions made an amazing difference!

He had more helpful information to share that evening. He kept in close touch with her over the next several weeks. His expert knowledge of integrative medicine, and his genuine caring for her, supported her through some incredibly frightening times.

She thought she had written to a medical doctor in Texas. His name was John. It was days into the process before she realized that her message had actually gone to another John! The person who knew just what she needed and was there to guide her every step of the way was also named John—a holistic dentist in Wisconsin.

However it had happened, the wrong John was the right John!

The 9th of November is my parents’ anniversary, and my brother’s birthday. My father, brother, and sister-in-law were all treated at the VA hospital in Phoenix, and my brother died there. I had been watching a segment of 60 Minutes about the reconstruction of that hospital.

I do not know how this picture happened. Look at the trees and the light coming down.

My phone was in sleep mode and not in the picture mode….

It was his wedding day. As he was coming out of the hotel on his way to go purchase a bottle of champange for their wedding toast. There on the awning, on the inside, was the biggest dragonfly he had ever seen! The “theme” of the wedding was dragonfly.

It was huge. As big as his hand.

As he stood there looking up at it, another hotel guest also stopped to look. “Today is my wedding day and dragonfly is our theme,” he said.

Small talk led to him giving the other guest some fresh peaches. It felt good to share the sighting with another.

A few minutes later, his chance friend came bounding out with a gift: A bottle of champange! How did he know?

They drank their wedding toast marveling at the goodness of the mystery of life.

As I was driving to the funeral home, it was late in the evening and I was racing against time. I was praying all the way there that someone would still be there. When I arrived at the funeral home my heart was heavy and my thoughts were scattered. As I walked up the sidewalk to the front door, I noticed all the lights on inside. I felt relieved. I had made it in time, they are still here!

Opening the front door, a soft ding echoed as if I had just entered a fine department store. Soft music playing, unaware I just stepped into another dimension….

Looking around and seeing no one in body, I noticed a bench in the foyer area. I sat down knowing someone had heard the front door open and would be out momentarily. I closed my eyes and began breathing deeply as I was drawing on all of the new information I was learning from my massage school training. As if I was preparing to go into a session with a client I was centering myself and becoming present in the moment.

I could feel Mom’s presence—as if she heard me come in and came right out of the back room and sat down next to me. We were communicating, heart-to-heart.

I was having what I called my own ceremony/service with my mom. It was truly magical. I had no idea how much time had passed before I heard a telephone ringing far away. It got closer and I realized the phone was ringing in the office. I thought, “Good, I will hear someone answer the phone, and I will walk back there.” But no one answered the phone; it just stopped ringing.

That gave me an idea. I walked back over to the entryway where I had seen business cards on the table. There was the phone number of the funeral home. I took my cell phone out of my purse and dialed the number, thinking, “Now I will be able to talk directly to someone in the back. After all, someone is back there—the door is open, all the lights are on, and there is music playing….”

I could hear the phone ringing in the back. It rang about three times and someone answered in a very pleasant voice. “This is the after-hours answering service, may I help you?”

“Yes, thank you.” Finally, a live person! I identified myself, telling her I had been waiting up front here for quite some time to see my mother whose body had been brought in this morning.

The voice on the other end of the phone said, “Where are you?”

I again stated, “I am in the foyer here at the funeral home, waiting to see my mother! I need to see my mother!”

The voice on the other end said, “That is just impossible! You are reaching the after-hours answering service because no one is there.”

I said again, “I am here!”

Sounding very puzzled, the woman continued, “The owner left the funeral home over an hour ago, there is no way you can be inside the funeral home. Give me your cell phone number. I will get in touch with the owner and have him call you.”

Only a couple of minutes passed before my cell phone rang. The male caller identified himself as the owner of the funeral home. He sounded very confident and professional, asking me how he could help.

I told him who I was, and where I was. He was polite and apologetic that he was called out to pick up a body and was on his way to….. He stopped in the middle of his sentence. His demeanor shifted dramatically. There was a dead silence on the other end of the line, then he asked, “Where are you?”

One more time I reported that I was inside the foyer of the funeral home waiting to see my Mother.

There was another long silence on the other end of the phone, and finally he said, “When I left the funeral home over an hour ago, I turned the lights and music off, activated the alarm system, and locked all of the doors.” He told me the front door had a both a lock and a deadbolt….

I quietly offered, “Would you like for me to lock the front door when I leave?”

He responded, “Yes, if you would, please.”