Angel Encounter: A True Personal Story

Caught Me

My mind knew that perching

on the top of the deck railing

Alone

in the back of the house

where no one would see me

for QUITE a while

in order to stretch tip-toe

to remove a nail from the siding

was not

using the best judgment.

But you turned potential Disaster

into an

Introduction

and revelation.

Balance was

lost,

of course.

I’m falling, but something isn’t right.

Thank heavens I’m falling towards the deck side,

not the ground.

But something so amazingly right is making it

not quite right.

I’m moving in slow-motion and I’m not afraid.

I’m falling slower than people fall and

not only do I have an absence of panic or suspended breathing

or racing heartbeat or clenched everything –

Instead

every energy cell of me

is Absolutely permeated with

comfort like being in snuggliest, warmest, flannel-coated bed,

&

love like the safest moments of toddlerdom with loving, hovering,

watching parents

&

consuming Peace.

It makes no sense.

I’m moving in a comfortable huggy glide

through the soft summer air.

Your hand must have been invisibly near my shoulder before I lost my footing.

Your strong arms carried me slowly down

without pressing on my skin.

I felt so safe –

safer than regular safe –

because you infused me with heavenly peace.

That’s when I knew you existed.

YOU EXIST for ME!

I knew some other people had guardian angels –

close enough for them to touch,

close enough to hear whispered warnings from thin air

or get feelings in their gut to do something

or go somewhere.

But those people were exceptions, not the rule.

I didn’t know until then that I had a guardian angel,

that I had you,

or that I had you SO CLOSE!

Thanks.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

This free verse poem is based on an actual experience.

I had indeed determined to work on cleaning up part of the house siding near a newly installed window. I didn’t have an extending, telescoping ladder and the ladder I own would not get me anywhere near my goal. There was a raised deck with railing four feet to the right of that miscreant nail mentioned above. Of course, I decided I would stand on the railing and reach to the left to complete my cleaning.

No one else was around to either scold me for such foolhardiness or to sound an alert if I fell, so I was on my own.

Prior to this day, I believed angels are real but I thought that the “guardian angel watching over a person” happened in the Family Circus comic strip or just with some people. I had read stories of young women walking alone being saved from harm because bad guys “saw” them being accompanied by a muscle man. That was their guardian angel. Also, I knew accounts of people receiving strong gut feelings to go home right away, or to refrain from entering a building, and following the gut avoided disaster.

However, neither I nor anyone I know had anything like that occur in our lives. Therefore, I assumed that intervention by a guardian angel happens to random people and rest of us are out of luck. Them’s the breaks, I thought, and I didn’t ruminate any further about it.

I certainly did lose my balance and fall. However, it was an unimaginable experience.

First, I experienced it all in slow motion. No other slip and fall of my life has been that way. Next, I was filled with an emotional high. Serenity. Peace. Otherworldy happiness filled me. Love filled me. It was good stuff, and no, I was not under the influence of ANY drug. I was floating down smoothly and securely as if I was being held by two arms behind my back and my knees.

This heavenly intervention ended with a resounding whomp! of my body onto the deck. Even as I lay there in a pile, I marveled that I had fallen towards the deck instead of a much farther and more dangerous cascade to the earth much farther away under the window. I easily could have broken my back or my neck if I had fallen directly down beneath the nail.

As I lay there, I just replayed the event over and over with full confidence that I had just interacted with my own Guardian Angel. And, that felt grand!

Over the next weeks, whenever I viewed or felt the resulting grapefruit-sized bruise on my thigh, my primary reaction was how lucky am I. It made me accept a new paradigm: If I have a Guardian Angel, Everyone must!

Perhaps the angels do not always reveal themselves in a way we can perceive, but they most certainly are there for us. And that is very good.

Photo, text, and poem copyright 2011 Maren E. Morgan, all rights reserved.