This angel encounter took place over thirty years ago, when I was only five or six years old. My dad was out of town, and so my mother was alone with me and my three older sisters, when this angel encounter occurred. I only mention this so you can understand how scared my mother was, and though I myself remember MUCH of this encounter.it is really through my mother's "eyes" that I am retelling this story.

I wasn't feeling very well, so my mother kept me home from school. However, by the afternoon I was feeling better, so my mother thought nothing of my illness. The next morning I was again sick but my mother sent me off to school anyway, understandably thinking I was "sick" because I didn't want to go back to kindergarten class.

At school, I can remember one of my classmates attempting to interest me in the playhouse in the back of the classroom, but my head felt woozy and all I wanted to do was rest it on my arms on top of the table where I was sitting. This alarmed my teacher, for normally nothing would have kept me away from that area of the classroom, and she usually had to force me away from it in order to do school work.

I can remember her, picking up the black wall phone which was hooked up to the office, and heard her request to speak to my mother.When she got off the phone, she had someone escort me to the nurse's station, where I laid down on a cot and waited for my mom to come pick me up.

Mom took me home, and had me lie down in bed. But by the middle of the afternoon, I was up and running again. My mother says she does not know exactly WHAT it was that made her feel my forehead, when I was busy riding my tricycle, but she did and was shocked by the heat radiating from my body.

Mom immediately made arrangements for my sisters to be picked up from school, and lovingly tucked me into the back of the car. "Going to the Doctors" she said with concern, her gentle face trying to smile.

The doctor and my mother discussed my ailment. He could not understand what was wrong with me, he thought it might be a weird case of the flu, and told my mom that I should be watched, to see what developed.

To this day, neither the doctor nor my mother understand why he decided to call the hospital, to see if I could be admitted, since, besides my high fever, nothing APPEARED to be wrong with me.

I can remember lying down in the back seat of our car, watching the power and telephone wires with an occasional bird perched on them. as our car drove by.

At the hospital, my mother had me admitted, and when she started to walk away from me, I went nearly beserk with fear, so the nurses allowed my mom to stay the night with me. All night long, mom sat by my bedside, she was filled with fright, for she could see I was dying, and nobody knew why.

While I was lying there, a VISITING surgeon stopped by my room. It was very late at night. He picked up my medical chart off the foot of my bed, and periodically looked over at me, as he read the chart.He then turned to my mom, and said, "If I do not IMMEDIATELY operate on your daughter, she is going to die." Young as I was I could see the fear and hopelessness in her tired face.

I was placed on a gurney, and wheeled into the operating room, my mother walked beside me as far as the elevators, for she was not allowed to go further than that.

I remember seeing someone standing behind my mother, holding her. In the operating room, I remember seeing that same person standing beside me. How reassuring the presence of this person made me feel, and how that same person told me not to worry, that I would see my mother in the morning.

I recall the black plunger looking mask being placed over my mouth, and that same gentle voice spoke to me, again telling me not to worry.

When I woke up, my mother was standing beside my bed, and standing in the corner, just behind her shoulder stood that wonderful person. When I pointed her out to my mother, the person had gone.

I almost died that night, of a ruptured appendix...an appendix that had ruptured at least two days before; unlike other appendicitis victims, I did not show the usual symptoms of appendicitis.

There was MORE than one ANGEL at play here. My mother later found out, that the visiting surgeon who'd operated on me, was well known for loudly proclaiming that SURGERY is the VERY LAST possible option anyone should ever undergo. He was very much anti-surgery, and so for him to say right off the bat that I needed to be operated on right away or I'd die could not be considered just a coincidence.

When I asked my mother who was the person standing behind her, when I was being wheeled into the operating room, my mom insisted that she had been alone and that NO ONE had put their arms around her, yet I can clearly remember seeing someone doing just that!

The person standing in the corner of my hospital room, with the comforting face and voice, who'd stayed with me throughout the operation, was the SAME person I'd seen comforting my mother as the doors to the operation room closed. Was She Our Guardian Angel?

Kathy has been honored by having this story published by GUIDEPOST MAGAZINE in an inspirational book called ANSWERED PRAYERS...