My Guardian Angels

by Craig Willms

Three times in my life I believe I've received the help of a guardian angel at a critical time. One of these was a life-or-death situation. I'd like to tell you about them. If after you read this, you can recall a similar situation that happened to you please share it with someone. It's important people know about these angels. We live at a time in history when we see and hear such evil things, perhaps we've even had evil perpetrated against us. We need to know there are angels, angels that appear in human form that roam the Earth and are sent to protect us.

Breakdown

It was a cold winter day and I was driving home on Interstate 35 when my car died. I was pulling a trailer full of firewood. I had spent all day with a chain saw cutting up a couple of cords of wood from some fallen trees on a friend's land. Needless to say, I was cold, worn out and bone tired. 

Fortunately, I could see a freeway exit in the distance and the glow of a gas station, I say fortunately because this was a time before cell phones. So, I got bundled up and started walking down the freeway in the dark toward the exit. In short order an old white van pulled over in front of me. As I walked up to the passenger side of the van I looked in the side windows. I could see what looked like a bunch of survivalist gear and there laying on a cot on an unrolled sleeping bag was a rifle in plain sight. Instantly my self-preservation radar was flashing red. 

The driver flung the passenger door open as I approached. He was a middle-aged white man with long hair and a beard, wearing a dirty one-piece snowsuit. He asked pleasantly "Do you need some help?"

Thinking fast I replied " No, that's all right I can see there's a gas station up the road where I can call someone. But thank you!" This guy looked scary and considering the gun, dangerous.

He scoffed "Seriously, it's cold out there, man, what's the problem with the car?" 

"It just died on me. No big deal" I said nonchalantly.

"Tell 'ya what, I got my chains we can hook it up and I can at least get you off the freeway."

"No, that's OK, you don't have to do that," I insisted.

"C'mon, it's no big deal, let me help you," he insisted.

Before I could say anything else he waved me in "C'mon, get in" he said. I reluctantly climbed in and closed the door and began planning my moves if this guy tried to pull something on me. I sat tight up against the door with my hand on the handle. Since we were now quite far from my car it wasn't viable to go in reverse down the shoulder of the freeway in the dark. That meant we'd have to go up to the exit and go north up the other side of the freeway for several miles to the next exit where we could turn around to get back to my car. It was probably 15 to 20 minutes, but it seemed like hours. Of course, my mind was racing. Would I just disappear, and my car found in the morning by the highway patrol? It was grueling. He just made some small talk, no mention of what he had been doing and I sure wasn't going to ask about the stuff in the back.

Finally, we reached my car, and he pulled over in front of my car and jumped out to retrieve his chains from the back. I thought - this is it - he's going to whack me with the chains and throw me in the back of the van. But no, he went about hooking my car up to his van. 

We drove the mile or so to the exit, and as we pulled into the gas station I started to relax. He was offering to drive me all the way home. I had to convince him I could get my buddy to drive up with his truck and pull me home.  I thanked him profusely and bid him farewell. He had none of it. He told me he'd wait until I got a hold of someone. There he was when I got back to my car after I had called my friend Rob. Again, I bid him farewell, and again he insisted on staying until my friend got there.  

So, after better than an hour of small talk Rob showed up. We hooked up my car and trailer to his Dodge Durango. Once again, I bid him adieu and many thanks, but he was adamant that he would follow us to make sure we got there. Good God, I couldn't get away from this guy, he still scared me after all that - now he was going to know where I lived!

I told Rob the whole story on the hour ride home and with Rob being a big imposing man he told me not to worry. When we finally got there, I walked over to his van to assure him we were good and thanked him again. He rolled down the window and just said "Hey man, Jesus loves you" and he drove away.

I stood there, gob smacked, thinking 'what just happened?'.

Out of Gas

One blisteringly hot day driving home from work, and I ran out of gas in rush hour traffic on Interstate 94 in St. Paul's Midway. Now considering I had a company vehicle with a company gas card I should've never ever run out of gas, to call me stupid would not be unkind, but... Anyway, I had driven hundreds of miles that day and I was hot and tired, I just wanted to get home - I was not paying attention, obviously. I was able to get the vehicle to the shoulder as it was, as mentioned, rush hour and nobody was going anywhere fast. Again, this was a time before cell phones, I could not just call someone for help. 

So, I began walking down the freeway shoulder toward the nearest overpass. Now keep in mind that Interstate freeways are always fenced in, and in this particular overpass was also fenced with a seven-foot chain-link. The freeway was more or less a gully with steep inclines up to the fence. Walking the ramp was out of the question in light of all the traffic. I was forced to climb the fence knowing that a slip or fall would send me rolling onto the freeway. This was the first hurdle I would face this day.

I made it over the fence and began walking back toward a main city street where I was bound to find a gas station. Eventually after what seemed like miles of walking, I found a typical gas station/convenience store. They would've been glad to sell me a gas can had they had any - they were sold out. They directed me to a gas station that was a more traditional type where they fixed cars. All in all, I ended up walking several miles in 90 plus degree heat with typical mid-summer humidity. When I finally reached the next station, they were unwilling to lend me a gas can at all. Eventually I was able to talk them into selling me a gas can for $18, something that cost maybe $6. Apparently so many people never brought back the gas cans they "borrowed" they were not in a friendly, helpful mood. 

Now that I had a gallon of gas I began walking back to my vehicle via the frontage road until I reached the spot. There I was on one side of the fence and my vehicle was on the other. How was I going to get over the fence with a gallon of gas. I could not simply climb the fence, which only five feet high, and drop the gas can over it to the ground as it would roll down the hill into traffic. I suppose I could have strung it through my belt and climbed that way, but I wasn't wearing a belt. Besides what were the chances that I would stumble when I reached the ground, which was pitched very steeply downhill, and burst into flames as I rolled onto the freeway. My only choice was to keep walking to the overpass ramp and take my chances.

By now I was completely miserable, sweating like a pig and getting sick from the fumes. Here I was getting ready to walk on a narrow shoulder of a freeway ramp in packed rush hour traffic where drivers are not expecting to encounter pedestrians. 

Just then an old junker of a car pulled up next to me. The old black woman behind the wheel yelled out at me "would you like a ride?" To say I was shocked was an understatement. To this day I don't what would have compelled an old woman to want to help a complete stranger, a sweaty twenty-something white guy holding a gas can. I got in gladly. She told she lived nearby and said I was lucky because she had always made a point not to drive during the rush hour, but that day she got in her car and found herself in explicably driving down the frontage road where she saw me. I must have looked pathetic. 

She ended up driving a few miles out of her way because of course we had to backtrack to get in the traffic jam so we could come up to my vehicle from behind. When we got to my vehicle, I thanked her profusely and offered her money, but she wouldn't have any of it, she was glad to help. Charolotte, I believe she said her name was Charolotte, just said "God bless you" as I closed the door. It was then the thought of guardian angel first crossed my mind.   

 

Death Bed

Many years later I'm now in my fifties, I found myself in an ICU room of a major hospital suffering heart failure. It was New Years Eve and the hospital was operating with a skeleton staff. The two or three previous days I had undergone at least three procedures hoping to insert stents in my heart to open severe blockages. They'd all failed. They said I was going to need open heart surgery, but there was a problem... 

They had put me on a blood thinner early on in an attempt to get blood flowing to my heart. It didn't help. The problem with that was I was now going to have to wait five days for the effects of the blood thinner to clear - or I could bleed out during surgery. I made it one day. I was rushed to the ICU where they pumped me full of the maximum amount of the nitroglycerin a human body could tolerate. Nitroglycerin dilates blood vessels and can save people from heart failure. For me the pain/pressure in my chest was increasing by the minute. The nitro was doing nothing.

I laid there alone in the bed, my chest aching and I contemplated my death. I hadn't even reached 60 years old, and I was dying. I kept thinking this would be the day that I die. So, bye bye Miss American Pie... This song repeating over and over in my head. Dying was one thing, I guess I could handle that, but I didn't like the suffering, and dying alone seemed so cruel.

Enter Katie, my overnight ICU nurse. Katie was a stunningly beautiful woman; you could say angelic. This is not hyperbole, she was gorgeous. But that wasn't what made her my angel. I had been in ICU for at least three shifts and while all the nurses were competent Katie was different, special. She knew I knew I was dying. She stayed with me and took care of me, encouraged me. She was confident that I wouldn't die, her confidence and calmness made me hang on. She never left my side. She wasn't condescending, she wasn't telling me what she thought I wanted to hear, she was true and straight. She asked me about God in a way no other person has ever done. I'll never forget that night or her. 

At about 11pm the attending cardiologist was able to get the team that was on call that night to come to the hospital to attempt the cath procedure that had failed three times before. There was nothing left to try, open heart surgery at that point was out of the question. This team was made up from staff from all the area hospitals that agreed to come in on the holiday for just such a case.

Needless to say they succeeded! I lived! I never saw nurse Katie again. I did write the hospital administration a letter commending her, but it was never acknowledged in any way. For all I know that's totally normal, I hope they showed Katie the letter, but I'll never know. 

I choke up to this day when I think about that night and my guardian angel.