I came upon a one-car accident about 20 years ago. On a very hot July afternoon, an elderly
woman had lost control of her car on a remote west Texas highway (about 30
miles from the nearest community). The
vehicle had rolled several times, coming to rest in the bar ditch. I was the fourth person to come upon the
accident. Three other men had arrived on
the scene ahead of me, two of them brothers who were traveling together.
As
I approached the scene, I found the other men attending to the elderly woman. She was out of her vehicle, seated on the ground. She was badly shaken, with abrasions around
her face and head, and bruising already evident on her arms. I assumed there were other possible injuries that
were not visible.
The
woman was clearly rattled and kept asking for her glasses. Three of us began searching the
path that the rolling car had traveled through the weeds and grass, trying to
find her spectacles. One man stayed with the woman to console her as
we waited for an ambulance to arrive. After
several minutes of combing through the weeds, we found her glasses.
As
the woman put her glasses on her bloodstained face, we were all huddled around. As she regained her visual bearings
her eyes went wide. She could now
clearly see our faces. She gasped, and
chocked down a sob, then exclaimed, “Kenny!
Bobby!” Then and only then did
the two brothers, both in their forties, look closely at her face. They, in unison, cried out, “Mrs.
Smith!”
Mrs.
Smith had been the Sunday School teacher for Kenny and Bobby when they were
children, some 30 years earlier, in a town that was about 100 miles from the
scene of the accident. Kenny and Bobby
had had no contact with Mrs. Smith since they had graduated from high school
and moved on in life.
Tears
of joy and amazement began to flow (among all five of us) as the awareness
of the situation began to sink in: Mrs.
Smith’s investment in the spiritual development of two young brothers some 30
years earlier had come full circle in the two “angels” being
on the scene at her time of direst need.
Reminds
me of the song by Alabama, “Angels Among Us.”
Reminds
me, too, of all the angels that have littered my life-path. Some have been most obvious. Most, I am sure, unbeknownst to me. Sure hope I've done right by them all...
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