Guardian Angels

I have always loved the idea that I have a guardian angel. How else could I explain the many times that I have escaped accident or injury? All too often my own carelessness and absent-mindedness would have caused the accidents. The book left on the staircase, the drawer left open, waiting for me to zoom through the room again and stumble over the book or run into the sharp corner of the drawer. In my more logical moments, I have told myself that guardian angels do not exist, that I simply refine too much on what was sheer happenstance. Besides, if such beings did exist, they would be too busy for someone as insignificant as I am.

That viewpoint changed a long time ago. I have escaped accidental injury, unemployment, illness, financial hardship when layoff did occur and all manner of unpleasantnesses that are endemic to the urban United States of the late 20th and early 21st centuries too often not to believe that I have a guardian angel, possibly several.

The author of the venerable comic strip "Family Circus," Bil Keane, also believes in guardian angels. He often shows one of the children in the comic strip being escorted through a dangerous intersection or being watched over at play by a protective angel. A nice touch is that the angel is often Bil's father, who left this life some years ago. It is no doubt a comfort to Bil to think that his father continues to watch over and care for him and his children.

About a year ago a lady in the office where I was working said that her young granddaughter sees and talks to angels. One day the girl noticed the angel figure dangling from her grandmother's rearview mirror and exclaimed, "Michael! That's Michael!" Her grandmother began to believe that her granddaughter could see her guardian angel. On another trip, the little girl was pointing over her shoulder into the back seat of the car. Finally, the grandmother asked what was wrong. She told her grandmother that Michael was in the back seat and had a friend with him. Preoccupied, the lady said something inconsequential but later wondered if the "friend" with Michael was not her own guardian angel, both of them there to protect the grandmother and granddaughter on their journey.

When I moved to the Washington, D.C., area and began to realize how dangerous the traffic here is, I began to hope for several guardian angels to protect me as well as anyone else my mistakes might endanger. My guardian angels have been hard at work, as I have had close calls but no significant incidents. Earlier this year I drove through the snow that had been falling for about an hour to a shopping center. As I turned onto an overpass to reach the mall, I saw a small black car crossways on the pavement and hit the brakes. To my horror, the brakes would not work on the icy overpass. All I could do was steer toward the back of the other car, away from the driver. My left front bumper hit the back left bumper of the other car, scraping some paint off that car and leaving mine undamaged. Both of us were shaken but uninjured.

Unlike my co-worker's granddaughter, I can't see my guardian angels, but I know that they are here.

— Aubrey Hamilton

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist