I’ve already posted about my favorite random encounter (in response to the exact same prompt, I believe), and while I have many others that I would enjoy recounting, I thought I’d share one of my dad’s instead. This is a story I published on Medium back in the day, so you might have already read it, but here it is again.
Angels Sent Our Way
A subtle, even negligible encounter portends a reversal of fortune for a young boy facing a bleak future.
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“Ask me what that boy tried to do,” I prodded my parents as soon as I slumped into their kitchen chair.
The boy I was referring to was my then-four-year-old son, Cameron. He had been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and, to our great distress, in his case, that meant he was inclined to relentlessly demonstrate that he had no sense of danger.
Mom automatically looked up, bracing herself for a hair-raising tale.
“He had opened the baby gate at the top of the stairs and was going to ride his tricycle down!” I groaned. “Good thing I spotted him in time!”
Besides Cameron, I also had a nine-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son. I was homeschooling and working from home. There just weren’t enough hours in the day to get all my tasks done. With my baby and hormones often going berserk, I was a basket case.
My child care efforts felt like I was giving a thousand percent, and yet they still seemed pitiful. There was no way I was on top of anything, certainly not Cameron’s intentions and plans for the minutes of his day. That incident with the tricycle was just one of many close calls. I was forever uttering a prayer of thanks (after shrieking expletives) for averted mishaps.
“His guardian angel is certainly working overtime,” I quipped.
Although Mom and Dad murmured their agreement, my own comment made me sit up. “Do we even believe in guardian angels?”
My dad was a pastor, and he took a moment to ponder this question before answering, “That’s a point of contention for the different denominations. Our sect doesn’t really subscribe to the idea of each person having a designated angel. We do believe that angels exist, though, and that God uses them for his purpose, which could include helping us out in certain situations.”
Mom piped in, “It’s nice to imagine that there’s an angel watching over Cameron as he tries one daredevil stunt after another. Still, I’ve actually heard stories about mothers seeing angels guarding their sick children.”
Knowing that my dad had had some supernatural encounters in his ministry, I asked him, “Have you ever seen an angel with your own eyes?”
In his slow and deliberate way, Dad paused to think about it. He vacillated so long over what he was going to say that I actually started talking about something else, but then he spoke up.
“Only one possibility comes to mind.”
Intrigued, Mom and I waited for him to continue.
“It was my high school graduation. I had attended, but I was all alone. Mamá couldn’t make it because she was working.”
My dad had an impoverished childhood. His father had abandoned them when he was only seven years old. The oldest of three children, Dad was forced to become the man of the house at a very tender age. He started working when he was ten years old to help sustain their family. It was a real wonder he managed to finish high school. Tired from having to work before and after school and often not having any lunch to eat to boot, other boys may have simply given up.
“There I was, surrounded by my jubilant classmates as they celebrated with their families. It was a triumph to have been able to finish high school, but at that moment, I was overcome by desolation and despair. I wanted to go to college, but I knew that was out of the question. I didn’t know exactly what my future held, but it didn’t look promising. It was a tiring, agonizing life that seemed meaningless at that moment.
So there I was, feeling extremely dejected with life. I should have been allowed to celebrate, but I didn’t even have money to take a jeepney home, which meant there was a long walk ahead of me. My sadness might have been apparent because, as I was about to head off, one of my fellow graduates walked up to me and asked me if I was walking home. I just nodded my head in reply, and he told me he’d walk with me.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed as he tried to remember this person. “He was in graduation clothes, and he was about my age, but I’d never seen him before. His face wasn’t familiar at all.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I was listless and didn’t really care, so even though I didn’t know him, I let him walk with me. We didn’t talk.”
I frowned. “That’s kind of odd.”
“I suppose neither of us was inclined to talk, and I was fine with that. We just walked. As we reached the corner of my street, he said that he had to go farther down the road, so we said goodbye.”
I waited expectantly for the moment of marvel, for the expected miracle, but none was forthcoming. “What happened next?”
Dad shrugged. “Nothing. I got over my blues and went on home. I never saw him again.”
“Boo! What kind of angel encounter was that?” I teasingly demanded.
“An uneventful one,” Dad bantered.
“I don’t think they’ll make a movie out of it.” I shook my head with mock sympathy. Dad just laughed.
Later, as I mulled it over, its significance became more apparent. I felt that some things had remained unsaid. There was this teenage boy feeling hopeless about life. Who knew what drastic measures he could have taken in the degrees of aloneness he was going through at the time? What he needed then was a companion to both ease that sense of desperate solitude as well as to check whatever fancies might have been going through his head. Thanks to this stranger, Dad was able to go home and eventually proceed to live a full and rewarding life.
Dad passed away in March of this year (2021). He was 74 years old, decades away from that subtle but fateful encounter. In his memorial service, our family was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who testified to the way God used Dad to touch their lives. My father was able to use those hardships to be able to reach out to people whose hope was diminishing or lost.
As Dad’s memorial service progressed, I glanced over to the already nine-year-old Cameron. He was sitting but not really interacting with Sawyer, my former toddler, who was then already six years old. Both boys had autism diagnoses. God allowed not just one, but two! Oh, I’ve gone through the weeping and gnashing of teeth. I occasionally still get bouts of them, but I’ve made my peace with this reality.
I often remember Dad’s angel, who, in his unobtrusive way, was able to provide the comfort that Dad needed at that time. In that simple gesture of accompanying a lonely and defeated boy on his walk home, he was instrumental in the course many lives were to take, including mine. I have this hard life just rife with exhausting daily challenges, but I’m also immensely blessed. I know God always sends just the help I need — in many forms, including those of angels.
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Hi! I’m Ivy. I wrote this in 2021, but I never got around to posting it. I’ve been searching through my files and found a few pieces that somehow never made their way to publication. I thought Medium would be a good home for them, along with other anecdotes and articles of mine.If you’d like to read more of my musings, you can find them at This Small Life.
I hope my dad’s story touches and moves you in some way. Have a great one!
This Small Life 