My parents were divorced when I was 16 years old. Although my Father had a lot of problems most of his life, I loved him dearly. He had deep imbedded pain that haunted him from the time he was a child. I don't mean physical pain, I am talking about emotional pain. Unfortunately he sought solitude in drinking too often, I guess it was his way of escaping the pain, even though we all know that is no solution. With all of his problems he still had a very good side to him and he loved children, all children.

One night in January of 1984, I was dreaming. In the dream I approached a one story elementary school. I went in the door and the room was full of children playing and laughing. I looked across the room and there was another doorway, as I started towards the door, the doorway began to distort. As I went through the doorway it tried to close on me. I was able to get through, and it stopped closing as I made my way through the door. The second room was also full of children laughing and playing. Again, across the room there was another doorway. As I started towards the door, this doorway also began to distort. As I went through the doorway it tried to close on me, but again, I was able to get through and it stopped closing as I went through the door.

This happened again and again, each room was full of children playing and a distorted doorway. I continued, until I had went through the fifth door. I almost didn't make it through the fifth door, it was bound and determined not to let me through, but I did make it, and the door froze with a small opening.

When I got into the last room it was not a room full of children, it was a smokey Tavern, dark and creepy. I noticed that my Father was sitting on a bar stool. I approached him and tapped him on the shoulder, he turned around and fell into my arms . . . I woke up in a cold sweat. I got a drink of water and went back to bed.

The next morning, my Father's new wife called me and told me that he suffered a heart-attack last night. The doctor said that they would be doing a by-pass on three valves of his heart. I associated the dream with the heart-attack, but didn't analyze it too much. I lived in Illinois at the time and he lived in Georgia, he was going to have the operation in Alabama.

I felt it was important for me to go and stay in the hospital and pray for him during the operation. I met the Surgeon and shook his hand. I felt an amazing sensation go from his hand to mine and I felt good about him doing the surgery.

When the surgery was over, the Surgeon came out and told me that they had to do the by-pass on 5 valves that were severely damaged. At that moment the dream came back to my mind . . . You may not believe me, but I feel very strongly that this is true . . . what I did that night, is walk through the chambers of his heart and help to keep them open long enough to keep him alive for the surgery.

He recovered and lived another 6 years. I know he would have lived longer if he could have just found true happiness, but sometimes the pain is more than a human can stand and don't think he knew how to find happiness. He did believe in God and had been re-baptized after the operation. I feel he is happy now, everyone deserves happiness, not everyone can find it in this world. --Sherry Bell Dukes

It was during the Christmas holidays, and my husband, two children, and I went shopping in a larger city 100 miles away. There we met my sister and her husband. We had a full day of shopping and visiting, and not in a hurry to return home. The day had been cool but sunny. We had not heard any bad forecasts for our area. So when we left for home after 11:00 that night, we were tired but happy and not expecting any driving problems.

We had made it as far as 36 miles from home when it began to snow quite furiously, but the roads were O.K. The closer we got to home, though, the roads were worse, and the snow was coming down so hard we had trouble staying in our lane of the highway. My husband slowed down to 10 miles an hour, but still we had problems staying on the road. Unable to see the road and distinguish it from the ditches and canyons, I began to pray for help from my guardian angel. I asked for him to guide my husband through this terrifying time. I called on my husband's angel and my children's angels for help. I picked up our cellular phone and called my sister. They had made it home to another town with no problems. I asked for them to pray for us.Sis and her husband immediately knelt and prayed for our safety.

By now my husband's eyes were so tired of straining, we were weaving all over the road. It seemed we were the only ones on the road this late. Suddenly from a distance behind, I spotted a headlight. It was coming at us at a remarkable speed considering the road conditions and heaviness of the snow falling. In a short moment it was right behind us. I told my husband that someone else must be just as insane as we were. Then around us came the headlight. As it zoomed past, we could tell it was an old pick-up with dents and little paint, and, of course, sporting one headlight.

But as it moved in front of us, we could follow a definite set of tire tracks. The pick-up was still traveling faster than what we could keep up, and soon was out of sight. But we could now follow the straightest set of tracks right down the middle of the road. We followed them for several miles. The snow did not cover them. As we neared home the air cleared, and we could go faster ourselves. We never did see the pick-up going down the road, but we still followed the tracks. Then just as quickly as the headlight had appeared before, the tracks suddenly ended. There in the middle of the highway those tracks ended. No turning, no exiting, no pulling off to the side, these tracks just ended. I looked at my husband and told him I knew who was in that pick-up. He looked at me with a surprised face and asked who. It was my guardian angel, or yours, or one of the children's.

As a small child I deeply loved and lost both my favorite aunt, Rosie Celeste and my maternal grandmother, Nella. I was devastated by their deaths and still, almost 40 years later, miss them with every cell of my body. This is a very brief explanation of only one of many experiences I have had with them since they left the earth.

My aunt and I were extremely close. We shared our birthdays and have the same middle name, Celeste, a name that is carried by one female in each generation of my family . She lived in a little house behind my grandma's house, a few blocks away from my house, and I visited her almost daily. She moved from California to Florida when I was 7. I saw her only 2 more times before she was killed in an auto accident at the age of 39. I was so upset I did not go to the services or want to know anything about them or the details of her death. I wanted to pretend that she was still alive in Florida and that someday I would visit her.

Many years later, when I turned 18 years old, I moved away from "home" and into the little cottage that my aunt had lived in when I was very small. I was even sleeping in the same room she slept in when she lived there.

One night while sleeping, I woke up because I felt a pressure at the foot of the bed, like someone was sitting down upon the edge of the bed. I was scared. Who was in my house, my room? I was afraid to let "them" know I was awake so I slowly opened my eyes and glanced over the blankets to see who or what was there.

I saw my aunt just as young and beautiful as I had remembered her, sitting calmly, smiling at me with great love in her eyes. She was very real appearing except that she was semi-transparent. I couldn't believe what I saw, so I closed my eyes really hard and then opened them again. She was still there.

I did not think of trying to speak to her. We just looked at each other for awhile and then I fell back to sleep. The next morning I called my mother and asked her what dress she had buried Rosie in. She told me that she went to a department store and bought an Angelic-looking, flowing white sleeping gown and matching robe for her. That is exactly what she was wearing when I saw her.

The first visual visit from my grandmother was a different type of experience, several months later. I was looking into a mirror that was above the fireplace, checking my hair, when my grandmother's face appeared in the mirror as if she was standing behind me. She was also semi-transparent. It was very brief--just long enough for me to recognize her, turn to look over my shoulder (nothing there) and back at her face in the mirror where her image slowly faded away.

I used to "feel" them often, like they were in the room with me. And once in awhile I would dream about them. They died 9 months apart of each other and I know that they are always together. I know that they will be waiting for me when I cross over.