My niece, Laura (Catholic) was about to make her First Communion. I wanted to make her a gift no one else would give her. I don't know what possessed me to decide I'd write a story about an angel, given I knew absolutely nothing about them other than they made nice Christmas tree toppers.
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I sat at my computer for three days with writer's block. I finally decided maybe I'd better go to the library and pick up some books about angels so I knew what the heck I was writing about. I was also looking for a book with a specific style of illustrations in it.
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The following Saturday I stopped by the library. I was in a hurry as I had a list of errands I had to get done that day. I looked up angel books in the card catalog and walked over to where they were shelved.
On the way I passed an older gray-haired lady dressed in a very brightly colored floral dress. She was wearing so much perfume it smelled as though she'd bathed in a garden.
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"Good morning dear," she smiled at me.
"Morning", I smiled back, not wanting to be rude.
"The books on angels are up and to your right dear," she said.
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When I get focused on something I go into the "zone" so the fact she somehow knew I was looking for angel books didn't register with me and I was temporarily distracted by the librarian who rolled a cart of books up next to us and began reshelving them.
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"You have to be careful which books on angels you read," she continued. "So much is written about them that isn't true."
"Know a lot about angels do you?" I asked, simply not wanting to be rude.
"Well I hope so dear," she chuckled. "I AM an angel."
Oh just ducky, I thought to myself. I'm in a hurry and get roped into a conversation with some nut job that thinks she's an angel! Be kind Pat...maybe she has Alzheimers or something..."
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"Well, I have to leave now," she said. "The book of illustrations you're looking for to illustrate Laura's story is titled [insert title] and it's in the children's section. And by the way Patricia...I do NOT have Alzheimers!"
The book I had in my hands dropped to the floor with what sounded like a sonci boom.
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HOW HAD SHE KNOWN I WAS WRITING A STORY FOR LAURA? HOW HAD SHE KNOWN LAURA'S NAME? HOW HAD SHE KNOWN I WAS LOOKING FOR A SPECIFIC STYLE OF ILLUSTRATION? HOW HAD SHE KNOWN LAURA'S NAME AND MY NAME?!!
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Our library at that time was about the size of a shoebox. You could see the entire library from the front desk. In the couple of seconds it had taken me to pick up the book I'd dropped, she couldn't have gotten out of the library. Yet she was nowhere to be seen!
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I charged out to the lobby. She wasn't there either. Or on the sidewalk or in the parking lot. But this was impossible!
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I ran back to the librarians desk. "Where's that woman that was just here?" I asked.
The two librarians exchanged puzzled glances. "What woman?" they asked.
"The woman with the short gray hair, real brightly colored floral dress, smelled like a flower garden!" I nearly shouted. "You were reshelving books not two feet from us!" in insisted.
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The two exchanged glances again, this time their facial expressions betraying the fact that I was now the one looking like a nut job.
"Ma'am, you've been the only person in the library today," the one who'd been reshelving books next to us informed me.
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WHAT...IN...THE...HELL...WAS...GOING...ON?!! I knew I hadn't imagined what had just happened! Then I remembered the book of illustrations she'd told me about in the children's section. Sure enough, there it was with the exact style of illustrations I was looking for. Proof I hadn't imagined what had just happened.
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I was a cop, the one who kept a cool head in any crisis. But that morning I was a crying, shaking mess all the way home. My husband took one look at me and said "Pat! WHAT'S WRONG?!!"
I told him what had just happened.
"Well," he said matter-of-factly. "Sounds like you saw an angel."
"JOHN!" I yelled. "ANGELS DON'T JUST APPEAR IN LIBRARIES IN THE BOONIES!"
"Apparently this one did," he replied calmly.
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By that evening I'd finally calmed down enough to take another stab at writing Laura's story, The Tiniest Angel. Laura had been born on Thanksgiving Day and the surprise ending to the story was that she was the Tiniest Angel sent to remind everyone of everything they had to be thankful for.
This time it was as if someone were dictaating the entire story in my head. I'd finished writing it in under an hour. I illustrated it and put it in the mail to Laura.
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There were about 30 people at Laura's party when my brother phoned me, saying "We just read Laura's story. There isn't a dry eye in the house!"
Laura took the story to school, where it was read to her class then the entire school. Form there The Tinest Angel traveled to Puerto Rico and was read in schools there.
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A couple of days later, my brother's parish priest phoned me to tell me to get the story published. In good conscience I couldn't do that knowing I hadn't written the story. My angel in the library had.
Little did I know the Angelics were just winding up with the "Teach this nitwit about us" angel business.
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I'd worked a 10 hour shift, then done a 12 hour prisoner transport so I was exhausted that night and fell asleep on the sofa, watching TV. I had this really vivid dream in which two huge angels appeared with their wings folded around something as if to conceal it. Slowly they opened their wings to reveal Laura and commanded so powerfully "TEACH HER!" that I sat bolt upright out of a deep sleep.
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I looked at the TV screen. This is what was on the screen...
I knew the channel I'd been watching signed off at midnight. As I was looking at the screen, the off the air pattern disappeared and the two huge angels from my dream appeared on the screen.
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The screen began to scroll downward until Mary appeared. Then the off the air pattern reappeared on the screen again.
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I began awakening each morning to soft voices speaking to me, offering me encouragement. They sounded neither male nor female.
This happened several mornings in a row. I finally asked "Who IS this?!"
"Mikael"
"Gabriel"
"Raphael"
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Great. Now I had Christmas tree toppers as an alarm clock. What next?
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My psychic friends and even psychics who didn't know me personally began reporting "There's these 12 huge angels surrounding your house protecting you!"
"I see Archangel Michael standing behind you dressed in full battle gear!" Yada yada yada.
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It wasn't just 2 or 3 people telling me this, it was dozens! At the time, I thought they'd collectively lost a few shingles off the roof in the last wind storm.