The Guardian

Thunder woke Betty McFane’s dog first. He stood on the end of her bed shivering and whining trying to alert her that something was seriously wrong.  She opened one eye and gazed at her alarm clock; it was 5:15 a.m.  Hail hitting the roof rattled her other eye open. The constant lightning made it look like it was noon.  Her heart began to race.  The power suddenly went out and a loud roar deafened her screams.  It was 45 seconds of Hell.

The next thing she remembered was the world going black.

She opened one eye again.  It was still black — except for one sliver of daylight.  She did a quick personal inventory and discovered she could not move her legs.  She also tasted the iron-like taste of blood trickling into her mouth.  She stilled her mind for a moment and listened.  Silence. Eerie silence.  She screamed for help.  Silence screamed back at her.

Then she heard a whimpering sound. At least her dog was still alive.  But she didn’t know if he was hurt — or even how bad she was hurt. Or if she’d even survive this.

She began to pray.

“I’ll take care of you.”

She could not see where the voice was coming from. Or tell whose voice it was.  But it was comforting.

“You’ll be OK.  And don’t worry about your dog.  He’s stunned but fine. He was thrown a few yards, but landed safely.  I’ll stay here with you until you are rescued.”

She felt calm as she reached out to the stranger’s voice.

“Who are you?” she said.

“A Good Samaritan. I love that story, by the way. One of my favorites in the Good Book.”

From the crack in the debris, she could tell that the sky had turned blue. She had no idea what time it was.

“What time is it?”

“About time for you to be rescued. Stay calm.  Help is on the way.”

She had no reason to believe him, but she did. It was a strange kind of faith — a faith born from the fact that she had no other options. Her back wasn’t against the wall; the wall was against her back.

She closed her eyes and said a Hail Mary.

“She heard you,” the stranger warmly said.

The woman, with her whole world piled on top of her, felt peace like she hadn’t before in her life.

“The cavalry is here,” the stranger happily announced.

The sound of a truck on her gravel drive broke her trance. Then the sound of another one. And another. Muffled voices grew louder and then the sound of shifting debris lifted her hopes.

Suddenly the daylight flooded in, created a square of light framing a beaming face, “I found her!”

It was her son.

An army of volunteers swarmed and quickly she was freed from the wreckage of her home. Her dog, cut but not seriously injured, sat glued to her as the paramedics treated her head wound.

Relieved that she was free, she looked at her son and said, “Did you see the stranger who was watching over me?”

“What stranger? Mom, I didn’t see anyone when we pulled up,” her son said. “Honest. The only stranger I know of is the person who called me to tell me your house had been hit and that we needed to get over here right away. He never would give me his name.”

She looked out at the wreckage of her home. Her dog licked her hand and she responded by carefully scratching behind his ears.  “I know, boy, I can’t believe it either.”  There were a lot of things that were hard to believe.

But the one thing she knew for sure was that she’d never forget the stormy morning her guardian came to watch over her. She said a prayer of thanks and started to rebuild her life.