Why I Believe In Guardian Angels

Why I Believe In Guardian Angels




I was dreaming or so I thought I was. It felt very real. All of a sudden I was in a courtyard of a garden, amongst monks. A white-colored mist was everywhere. I could not see the faces of these monks. Their brown hoods shadowed any features. Not one of them spoke to me. Yet it was as if we communicated through some kind of telepathy. I announced myself this way stating:

"I'm Garth from Earth".

Having said that, there was no reply. I was led by one of the monks down a path . We passed by a stone wall with columns and several huge open area windows. Then descended downward to a large iron door. It was arched at the top. It appeared to be very thick with two steel bars running across the front of it. I was gripped by a feeling that it signified purgatory.

Below one of the steel bars hung a large metal lock with a keyhole. On each side of the keyhole were small illuminating white pegasus with fluttering wings. Next thing I knew I was led back up the same path . This time when I passed one of the open area windows I heard a strange muffled voice saying:

"Don't look at my face. My face will change".

The sound of the voice was garbled. Turning my head away from the window I had already caught a glimpse of the side of a large face. I did not recognize it.

Suddenly, I woke up. I was startled. I had never dreamed anything like that in my lifetime. I was left with the feeling that it was real. That it had really happened to me. Still, I could not understand why I would have such a strange dream.

Approximately, one week later the phone rang at 3:00 am. on the morning of May fourth, nineteen ninety. On the other end was a voice telling me that our youngest son Matthew was involved in a head on collision. He was in the emergency room in a coma , suffering from injuries to his head. Everything slowed down in my half awake mind. I was told three more had head injuries also. I focused only on my son. The words "please come" aroused me into action. I woke my husband to tell him the grim news. We arrived at the local hospital about twenty minutes later. Only, to find out that he was not there! Told to try the trauma center in Tacoma, Wash. we headed out in the other direction, arriving over an hour later.

There he was lying on a gurney in Mary Bridge Children's Hospital. His eyes were swollen shut. His jaw was broken. His face, baring a long cut from one ear to his mouth, appeared to be twice its size. He was not aware of us. He only responded to his pain. We were told he was a front seat passenger and that his seatbelt had broken and his head starred the windshield. We were in shock. He had been spending the night with a friend.

We were introduced to the nurse taking care of Matt in the Intensive Care Unit. Her name was Candice. She was very attentive to our son. Almost lovingly swabbing the dried blood from his tongue as she explained to us in detail of his injuries and what she would do to care for him. She would talk to him constantly telling him what happened to him and that his parents were here. Three days later he began coming out of the coma. I would repeatedly tell him who I was and that he had been in a car wreck along with three of his friends. They had been struck head on by a drunk driver. He responded by saying that he did indeed know who I was . Then asked who was in the wreck with him. He seemed to have no recollection of what had happened to him.

I happened to be in his room when his surgeon walked in and introduced himself. He said he just came from performing surgery on one of the other boys in the car with Matt. "Mr. Hoskins," as he called Matt's friend, Kenny.

"Now I will see what I can do for your son", he announced.

He looked him over carefully, showing me where the jaw was broken in two places. Then told of what he would have to do in order for Matt to make a full recovery. After he left the room I tried explaining it all to Matt. I bent over him so that I could hear his responses more clearly, as he spoke so softly due to his swollen tongue and injuries. He was still saying things that did not make much sense. This time he spoke of " cookies and ice cream" . He had had his bell rung very hard. I again told him who I was. I told him that his doctor had just come from doing surgery on Kenny's jaw. He softly said

"I know Mom. I watched him."

I said, "How Matt? How did you watch him?"

He said, "They came to my room and put me in a wheelchair and I watched Kenny have his surgery!"

He explained it later as watching from above Kenny's room.

Matt was moved into the Progressive Care Unit. He was scheduled for maxillofacial surgery. I called him there the evening before and told him to get some rest because tomorrow morning he was having his surgery. Also, that he should not worry because his guardian angel will watch over him.

He said, "Oh no Mom...I already had my surgery."

It was then I realized the extent of his brain injury. I began to cry after I hung up the phone. Yes, I was lucky he and his friends were alive, but I was afraid of what damage could have occurred to his mind. I turned more to prayer to get us through this hard time.

I went to visit him in Progressive Care. A nurse greeted me as I came down the hallway near the nurses station. She said that Matt was doing better. That he had sat up in a chair along side the bed and was very talkative. She then took me aside and asked me if Matt had a twin. I said no. She said he had told her that he had a twin. That the twin was in the wreck with him. She asked him if his twin was in the hospital with him. He told her:

"No, he is from another planet."

Then she said he started to describe to her what that other planet looked like. It was then that she told me she would not go into details, and that she has heard stuff like that from other kids with head injuries. To this day Matt does not remember anything about the 'twin' thing. Although , he spent a good share of his time all that summer long gazing at the stars above him.

I sought out Candice during a hospital visit soon after. I needed reassurance from someone in the profession there that I felt I could trust. I told her of Matt's experience's , which to me seemed real enough, yet strange. She calmly told me she felt he was having out of body experiences. That I should read some material on the subject and recommended a book called "Closer To The Light". As it turned out I wasn't able to buy the book and read it till some months later.

Matt came home to convalesce about fifteen days later. There was so much he could not remember. He could not remember who came to visit him that first day at home. So, I started a journal for him. It was very helpful for him. His jaw was wired shut. He would get very frustrated about all this and yell obscenities. Out of the normal for him. He was always such a laid back kid. I knew that his frustration was due to the brain injury. He was not scheduled for any testing in that area until midsummer.

Then before the month was over our seventeen year old son Patrick ( who was a status asthmatic since infancy ) fell ill with a severe asthma attack and pneumonia. He stopped breathing and was airlifted to Children's Hospital in Seattle. There he was put on a respirator. Because his left lung had collapsed he was given medication to temporarily keep him paralyzed. Then in the Intensive Care Unit he developed staph infection in his blood. I spent days on my knees in the Chapel there at Childrens'. The Doctors there were fighting to keep him alive. He had nine lifelines going into his groin. I could not leave him alone. Luckily a friend offered to take care of Matt while I stayed in Seattle with Patrick. Their father who was retired at the time would finish up our two big paper routes, then take a ferry over to visit us every night. I was able to check into the Ronald McDonald House near the hospital during the course of his hospital stay. It was at this time that two of my sisters in Michigan decided to come west and give me much needed moral support. They arrived in Seattle the day after Patrick was taken off the respirator. He was in a severely weakened condition. More so than the norm for having been intubated and medicated. He could not feed himself , nor could he bathe himself or even walk.

It was during the time that my sisters stayed at the Ronald McDonald House with me in my room, that a call came in the middle of the night for me to come over to the hospital. Patrick had had a grand mall seizure. I sat by his bedside and just held his hand while he barely talked. He kept repeating to me how purple his other hand looked to him. I did not notice it to be purple. The room was dimly lit. It was early morning hours. I remember a dark feeling come over me. I can't really explain it but it was something I never felt before that event.

The next day my sisters and I walked from Ronald McDonald House to a Safeway store to pick up some food. We were allowed to fix our own meals at the House. When we approached the check out with our purchase there stood Candice in front of us in line! The nurse who took care of Matt in Tacoma's Mary Bridge Hospital. She recognized me and asked" How is your son doing?". I told her Matt was doing better, but that I was in Seattle because of another son. She listened to my explanation of what had happened to him and told me she would go up to see him. I'm sure she did for I was told some time later at the nurses station going thru the ICUs double doors that a woman had gone into Patrick's room and prayed at his bedside over him. When I told my sisters about this being the same nurse that took care of my Matt they looked at me in awe ,and agreed it was such a coincidence to run into her here in Seattle being that Tacoma is quite a long distance away.

Patrick attended physical therapy classes every day to get his muscles working again. I would wheel him around the hospital every day. Finally twenty one days later he was able to walk out of the hospital unaided. Both my boys stayed at home all that summer except for going to their outpatient therapy and doctor appointments. Both regained their health and made full recoveries.

I know how lucky we are. What we have to be thankful for. All of us. I've given a lot of credit and thanks to the people involved in these recoveries.

I especially know how blessed we were to have met Candice.

Due to the severity of the conditions of both my boys I never gave my dream a thought until weeks later. I then told my sister-in-law about it. She and I did some searching to try to find some possible or probable connection between the dream and what happened to my boys. I read some articles about dreams. I came to the conclusion that what I had was called an astral dream. An out-of-body experience.

I believe that the dream was indeed a premonition of the dangers involving my boys.
The sensation I felt when going through the barred steel doors of the ICU units of both the hospitals where my sons had been admitted, was likened to to the feeling I had in the dream while standing in front of the big iron door!

I feel as though I had experienced what it must feel like to go through the "Gates Of Hell" that spring and summer.

I also believe that Candice was our Guardian Angel.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I researched the meaning of the following names using a dictionary;

         Garth- a grassy quadrangle surrounded by cloisters'; a yard, garden. Keeper of a garden.

         Cloister- a covered walk with an open colonade on one side, running along the walls of buildings that face a quadrangle, a monastery.

         Colonnade- a series of columns placed at regular intervals.

         Pegasus- a winged horse in Greek mythology. Carried the thunderbolt for Zeus. Slew a fire breathing monster. Performed heroic deeds.

          Candice- fire, white, pure.





Word Count: 2267