By Deborah Durbin
The guardian angels of life fly so high as to be beyond our sight, but they are always looking down upon us.
~Jean Paul Richter
It was about ten o'clock on a Saturday morning. Having changed my baby daughter Holly, aged eight months, I decided to take a trip to the shops to get something for our lunch. We lived in a small village at the time and although it was only a ten-minute drive to get to the local shops, the drive was via several narrow lanes. I had lived in the village all my life, so I knew the road like the back of my hand.
I strapped Holly into her car seat and we set off for the short journey, listening to her favourite nursery rhymes CD. We arrived at the local shops, went into the bakery and the post office, and then I strapped Holly back into the car and we set off for home.
The lanes in the village were never designed for heavy goods vehicles and yet truck drivers still insisted on using them as a short cut to get to the main road. Over the years I had signed many petitions that had been drawn up by other villagers, but the council still allowed them to use the narrow roads. So I was always careful navigating the lanes, in particular one very tight bend that was almost an S shape and just a little wider than one car. If another vehicle were coming the other way, one of them would have to reverse up the lane a few yards to allow the other to pass.
As we headed home and approached the S-bend, I put my foot gently on the brake just in case a car was coming the other way. As I drove round the bend, there heading straight toward us was a huge red truck. At the speed he was going, there was no way he would ever hit his brakes in time to stop and he was heading directly for our car.
I really believed that the truck was going to plough straight into us, so in a split second I hit my brakes, unbuckled my seat belt and threw myself over Holly. At least if I took the impact, she might survive. They say your life flashes before you, but that's not what happened to me. All that went through my mind was, "Right, this is my time then." My darling dad had a saying when he was alive: "When the white feather touches you on your head, then it is your time to go." All I remember thinking is, "I hope this doesn't hurt too much and I pray that my baby survives."
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In those few seconds, I closed my eyes and prepared myself for what was coming, telling Holly how much I loved her. I could hear the truck rumbling loudly towards us as I shielded my little girl.
Suddenly everything went completely silent. So silent that I thought the impact must have happened and I was already dead, being transported to heaven or wherever it is we go next. There was no noise whatsoever. After what seemed like ages, I gingerly opened my eyes. I was still lying across Holly, I was still in my car, and the road was completely quiet. No traffic, no truck coming towards us, nothing. It was as if a huge hand had picked up my car, moved it out of the way and placed it back down on the road again. I looked in the rearview mirror and there was no sign of the red truck. It had simply vanished into thin air.
Shakily I drove home. There wasn't another car on the road for the whole journey. When I got Holly out of her car seat, there in her seat was a small white feather.
I keep the feather in my car as a reminder that angels were looking after us that day, almost ten years ago, and I thank them every day for looking after us when we travel anywhere.
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