The first one was my mother and I didn't realize she was an angel until she almost died. My mother had an AVM, arterial venal malformation. This was a bad blood vessel she had in her head since birth and one day it burst, leaving a half dollar sized hole in the middle of her head. The neurosurgeon on staff wouldn't do anything for her and said she would slip into a coma and die. We called in another neurosurgeon, Dr Grin. We didn't talk to the doctor, we spoke with his assitant Dottie. We were told by the staff that this doctor did not like contact with people and all communication would go through Dottie. She told us if my mother stabilized overnight, the doctor would operate the next day. This is when I began to see the evidence that my mother was an angel. The number of people who started to come or call the hospital grew by the hour. Soon, we had taken over an entire waiting room. Ministers from four different churches showed and a growing picture of the people my mother had touched in her life began to appear. The next day, as the surgery began, a staff already overwhelmed by the number of people and the amount of support showed for my mother got some more surprises. Part way through the procedure, to the amazement of the staff, Dr Grin came into the waiting room and spoke with us. He told us he had uncovered an aneurism when he was cleaning up from the AVM. He told us not to be concerned though because the operation was going as smoothly as could be. I will never forget the words he said, "It almost feels as if something is guiding my hands!" After the surgery, he put the staff in shock as he came out and spent a considerable time with my family. Never in all his years of practice had he done this, but he took the time to talk with many loved ones as hospital staff walked by with thier jaws on the floor. He warned us that he did not know in what capacity my mother would be able to function when she awoke, yet when she did, she was fully aware of who she was and everything that had happened. She was expected to be in the hospital for 5-6 days before transferring to a rehabilitation facility. She was out in three days. She was supposed to be in inpatient rehab for 4-6 weeks. She came home after one week and along the way continued to touch the staff who worked with her in a way they had never been touched before. I have since began working in hospital administration, and I have yet to see staff react to patients the way I saw staff react to my mother. The doctor who operated on her retired shortly after and joined his sons as a consultant in their physical fitness chain. I have seen him doing commercials for the business and I can't equate the doctor I spoke with and see on TV with the doctor hospital staff tell me he was. I have heard that the reasons he did not normally visit with people was because of bad personal experiences and that he was not a man of faith. I don't know if it is true or not, but it would make what happened and the words he spoke much more significant. After this I would be a fool not to believe in angels or miracles.
I had the privilege of encountering another angel a few years ago but that experience cost me my heart and is a story for another time.