Guardian Angels

Have you ever seen your Guardian Angel? If you said "no", I bet you have, but didn’t know it.

Here’s my Guardian Angel story.
It was in the early ‘90s and I was scheduled to fly into the Ontario, CA airport to visit Pam and Steuart Bell who lived in Chino Hills. My flight was for mid-afternoon on a Friday. Then the line of severe weather (from Maine to Florida) came through and delayed all east coast air travel five hours.

By the time we finally took off, the flight plan took us north into Canada, over Lake Ontario, then south along Lake Michigan to O’Hare Airport in Chicago. We flew between storm clouds being lit internally by lightening. Our plane was so small by comparison…imagine a walnut sailing between two aircraft carriers. We actually saw Niagara Falls all lit up. What a sight! So far, this is the good news.

Once we deplaned, all connecting flights were long gone. United Airlines was offering vouchers for restaurants (which were all closed) and for hotel accommodations (but would not help obtaining those accommodations). I heard others screaming into phones that such and such hotel had to give them a room; after all they were stranded! I decided to bed down at O’Hare. After changing my flight plans to land in Los Angelis instead of Ontario (Pam and I were going to a Whole Health Expo right there in LA), I grabbed a couple of blankets from the United podium and stretched out on the waiting room seats to spend the night.

I could not have been safer. There was no one around except the cleaning people and they weren’t there for long. And it was cold. I found out that Chicago O’Hare is kept at 45 degrees and the rest of the warmth is made up from running equipment, lights and warm bodies. At night none of that exists except lights.

I woke up at one point and a man in his 30s was sitting at the end of the row of seats where I was sleeping. He had on sneakers, blue jeans, a plaid shirt, suede jacket, had a briefcase on his lap and was working on a legal size yellow pad (all night). He never looked my way. He never said a word. He was there all night and I had a sense of being watched over and protected.

In the morning, around 6 a.m., O’Hare came alive. The coffee vendors were the first to arrive and soon the whole place smelled delicious. I got up, folded my blankets, and gathered my backpack and one piece of carry-on luggage. As I turned toward where the man had been sitting, the seat was empty. I never saw him get up and leave.

I knew then he was my Guardian Angel. I’m not talking “metaphor”; I mean the Real Deal. How do I know? There are some things you just know.

Oh, yeah. Just so you know what happened to my luggage. It traveled on to Ontario Airport and arrived in Chino Hills 8 hours after I landed at LAX. At least it arrived! ☺