By Anne, November 16, 2019 — Okay. Okay. This one’s good. [My husband], Don, wasn’t a nice man. He liked to drink too much and he wasn’t very nice when he drank. I don’t know why I stayed so long. I think it was because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. All of my family was gone. Except for my mom. She was back here but she couldn’t take us in. She was too old and not doing so well. I didn’t have a job because I got hurt when I was 25. I was living off of what Don made and I was at home raising [my two kids]. But things got really bad, really fast. And one day, I knew I couldn’t keep the kids around him without losing them. He would have killed them. He almost did. And that was the end of it. I had to plan. I had to get them out. If it wasn’t for our church, I wouldn’t have been able to … I’m religious. And that plays a big part in this story, so keep that in mind. I reached out to this man named John from the church. We were friends and our families would always have dinner together and go away for the feast.
Well, I told John what had been happening. I never said anything to anyone before that. I was scared it would go around and Don would find you and I couldn’t imagine what would have happened if he did. John was so good about it though. He stuck to the plan and never said a word. Now, for months I had been sneaking a few dollars out of Don’s wallet when he had passed out after dinner. He never seemed to notice because I only took a little bit at a time. Maybe a dollar or two. If he had a couple of fives or tens, then I figured he wouldn’t notice one of them missing. I knew it was stealing and I knew it was wrong, but it was our only way out of there. So for months, I had this plan. I was saving away money for something. For anything. A car, plane tickets, even a hotel room if we needed it. John spoke to the head of the church and got us some extra money for members who wanted to donate to the less fortunate inside the church. It was meant for holidays and grocery shopping and things like that, but it was all anonymous so no one had to know. I saved up a lot of money from all of that. So one day, Don went to work. He got up in the morning and he got in the shower. When I heard the water turn on, I ran into the kid’s room and told them to wake up and get ready for school. They didn’t know that they weren’t going to school. But it was a good excuse because Don wouldn’t have known the difference. I already had some bags packed. John had taken them one day when Don was at work. It wasn’t enough missing for him to notice. Just a change of clothes or two and whatever I knew the kids couldn’t live without. So when Don left, it couldn’t have even been five minutes, John was out front and waiting. He had been down the block and waited until he saw the car leave. He pulled up, ran to the door and I told the kids to take whatever was most important to them. One thing. Just one. Whatever they wanted. And then we left. We left everything at home the way it was before. There were dishes in the sink. A half-finished cup of coffee on the table. And we were far gone by the time Don came home for work. He must have been furious. But that’s only the back story.
When we got to the airport, something happened. John parked close to the front and grabbed some bags for us. We ran inside faster than you could even imagine. We couldn’t afford to be seen. If anyone saw us, Don would find out and it would have been bad. Back then, there was no security. No metal detectors or anything. That all came in after 9/11. So John was with us. He took us to the ticket window to get our tickets and left. He couldn’t be seen either. If Don found out he was apart of all of this, he’s be as good as dead. When we got to the ticket window, we had to stand in line. I was so nervous. I did want to wait. I couldn’t afford to wait. But we had to. And when we finally got to the window, I told the lady behind the counter where we were going and she said the flight was full. I swear my heart sunk. I felt it. It just dropped and I was ready to cry. I told her we needed to get on it. I told her we couldn’t go home because if we did, bad things were going to happen. I’m pretty sure she thought I was crazy. She just apologized and said there was nothing she could do. So I grabbed the kids and went to find a payphone. I needed to call John and have him bring us back home before Don got there. We didn’t have much time but it was doable. And just when I got to the payphones, this man tapped me on my shoulder. He told me he had heard about the flight being full and handed me his tickets. Three of them. No one was there with him, so I just assumed he had walked away from his family. I told him I couldn’t take them. They were his. He paid for them. When he insisted, I took the tickets and went to grab the money from my purse. I only looked down for a second. Maybe half of a second. But when I pulled out the wad of money, ready to give him everything I had saved, he was gone. And I don’t mean that he walked away. I mean he was gone. There was no one around us, no one walking away, no man that was just in front of me. Gone. The best part was when my daughter looked up at me, almost terrified. She was young back then, but definitely old enough to know what was going on around her. She was 7. She looked at me and said “Mom. He was a ghost! He just … He was there and no he’s not. He’s a ghost!” I was a little confused by what she had said, but now looking back it all made sense. I said I was religious. [My grandchildren] were raised Christian too. [They’ve] been to church with me. We go all the time together now. [They] know my faith. And I will sware on my own grave that the man I met that day was not a man. He was an angel. A guardian angel. Because as soon as we walked up to the gate, there were only three seats left. Just enough for us. And our ticket numbers matched the numbers for those three seats. And that man vanished. In thin air, he vanished. Just gone. And I can’t even remember what he looked like. I can’t tell you what he was wearing. I can’t tell you what color his eyes were, even though I was looking right into them as we spoke. All I can tell you was that as soon as he approached us, I felt instantly relieved. I felt like everything was going to be okay. And that was even before he offered us the tickets. And then he vanished. If we had gone home that day, if Don had found out, none of us would be here right now. But whoever or whatever saved us that day. And as soon as we sat in those seats and the plane took off, I just knew that God was on my side and all of this would work out. It would all be okay. My family was safe. How about that? … I swear I’m not crazy. Even [my children] can tell you. My son Bill was in his teens. He remembers it all. And he’ll tell you the same thing. It was an angel.