CLOSER TO HOME
by the Web Master

In the previous account we learned of the Angels' assistance to in myriad ways, which at the very least cause us to pause and reflect.

I had reason to recall that inspiration several years ago when a friend and I were driving an uncle of another friend home through some treacherous mountain roads, an unfamiliar setting for us. The man had Alzheimer's and had found the keys to the family car and taken off for Maine and landed inexplicably safe at his nephew's home. Knowing there was no one to take him and the car back home to Vermont, we ladies volunteered after some trepidation. In fact, we dreaded the trip as both of us each owned very old cars of uncertain reliability for such a journey. But in the middle of the night a voice awakened me and bade me to drive the old man home. So my cherished friend, who had a spirited sense of adventure agreed to accompany me and off we went, she with the uncle in his car, and I following at a tail-gate distance in mine, to prevent the car from veering-----we were not authorized to drive his car. When we reached the treacherous portion of the trip, at twilight, the uncle's car kept lurching and I had to literally bump up against it to nudge it back on the road properly. At one point there was no guard rail and just a deep mountain ravine on the border of the road. I was literally frightened to death but I kept praying to my Guardian Angel and giving my friend the thumbs-up signal for her to see in the rear-view mirror of their car. Just when I was ready to scream in fright at one too-near mishap, I saw two Angels in white kneeling on the hood of the car for about 20 seconds, just long enough to be reassured and after that I was calm. I could not make out their exact features as they were so transparent with light.

After we got the man safely home to his family, we set off for home in Maine, an all night journey in my rickety old auto. I told my friend, a recent convert, about the Angels and we said the Rosary, all fifteen decades in thanksgiving-----we learned it takes fifteen decades to get from St. Johnsbury, VT to the border of Maine. But this is only half the story.

Unknown to either of us, my husband had been informed the day before that the car was in need of a new belt and was not to be driven under any circumstances until repaired. My husband had either thought he told me and did not, or he had done so and I did not hear him. Either way I did not know that the car was not to be used. Meanwhile he had taken our better car to go out of town for his job, not realizing I would be taking an unexpected trip so far from home. Before my friend and I reached home early in the morning my husband was frantic because he had returned from his trip and found my note explaining where I would be and why and he knew of the condition of the car. He imagined something awful had happened to us.

When I got home he was amazed that I was alive and well and that was when he told me what the mechanic had said. When he later related everything to the mechanic he was in utter disbelief saying it was impossible to have made the drive to and back without an accident occurring, given the condition of the car. So our Guardian Angels had protected us from the car itself, not just the circumstances of the roads and the old man's driving his car home with our help and most especially with the help of these Heavenly guides and friends. To this day my heart beats fast when I recall this special event. How many times has this happened to you and to me and we have not considered such a possibility or if we did, have not shown our gratitude enough?