The whirlwind of activity quieted down almost imme diately after the funeral, when the rest of the family was forced to return to their homes to get back to work. Since Peg lived so close to her mother's house, she had agreed to take care of all the remaining business involving their mother's death. Meanwhile she continued to work as a de signer at a local florist shop while also caring for her chil dren.
Before long, the peace that had helped her through the initial days after her mother's death had all but disappeared. Instead, Peg felt desperately lonely and over whelmed with the idea of selling her mother's house and with the amount of work left to do.
One night after Rick was asleep, she buried her head in her pillow and sobbed. Silently, drowning in the pain of losing her mother, she began to pray.
“Sweet Lord, please help me to feel that peace that I felt at first. I believe Mom is with you now, but help me to really know it in my heart. Help me feel your peace once again. And let me know everything's going to be okay.”
The next day Peg was up early as usual, preparing the children's lunches, when the phone rang. Rick had already been gone more than an hour, and she wondered if he might be calling. Just before she picked up the cordless phone, she realized that the other phone in the next room was not ringing. The sound came only from the cordless phone in the kitchen.
“Hello?” Her voice sounded tired, and despair from the night before still hung over her like a cloud.
When no one responded, Peg tried again. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Still there was only silence. Peg shrugged and hung up the phone.
An hour later, when the children were off to school, the phone rang again. As before, only the cordless phone was ringing. Peg set down the storybook and walked into the kitchen for the phone.
“Hello?” she said.
Silence.
“Is there someone there?” Peg asked. “Say something if you're there.”
But there was no sound at all. Shrugging once more, Peg hung up the phone and returned to the sofa where Haley was waiting for her.
Nearly two hours later Peg was making lunch for Haley when once again only the cordless phone rang. This time Peg sighed loudly in frustration as she reached for the re ceiver.
“Hello?” Her tone had grown aggravated; she had nearly run out of patience. She had much to get done that day and didn't have time for prank callers.
When no one responded, Peg wasted no time. She pushed the disconnect button, waited for a dial tone, and immediately dialed the number of her friend Joe.
“Joe will know what to do about this,” she muttered.
When he answered, she told him what had happened. “The strange thing is it's only ringing on my cordless phone,” she told him. “The other phone isn't making any noise at all.”
Joe suggested she unplug the phone from the electrical outlet.
“Might be a malfunction. But it can't ring if it isn't get ting any electricity,” Joe said. “That should solve the prob lem for now, but you might want to have that phone looked at when you get a chance.”
Peg thanked him for his suggestion, and immediately unplugged the cordless phone.
“That solves that problem,” she said out loud.
Thirty minutes later, the phone rang again and Peg wrinkled her brow curiously. Once again, only the cordless phone was ringing, but it seemed impossible since there was no electricity feeding the phone's base unit.
“Hello?” she said. “Is anyone there?”
When no one answered, Peg hung up and phoned Joe once more.
“Unplug it from the phone jack,” Joe advised. “That way it won't be hooked up to anything at all. No way for it to ring after that.”
Peg hung up and followed Joe's instructions. She even pulled the phone away from the wall and bundled up the detached cording. Mentally she made a note to take the unit in for repair.
Another hour passed as Peg sifted through paperwork regarding her mother's death.
“This is hard, Lord,” she sighed, feeling tears once again gathering in her eyes. “I miss her so badly.”
Suddenly the early afternoon silence was broken by the ringing of the telephone. Peg walked into the bedroom and saw that the wall phone was not ringing. She followed the sound and felt a chill run through her body.
The cordless phone—no longer attached to either the electrical outlet or the phone jack—was ringing. Over come by a combination of fear and curiosity, Peg moved slowly toward the phone and gingerly picked up the re ceiver.
“Hello?” Peg's voice was soft, uncertain. Once again there was only silence at the other end.
Suddenly Peg remembered the date. It was December 11, her mother's birthday. In the sea of responsibilities and duties she had forgotten what day it was.
Instantly she was flooded by the same feeling of peace that had washed over her the moment her mother had died. She thought about the prayer she had said the night before and knew in that moment that God had answered her.
First by allowing her to restore her relationship with her mother. And now by letting Peg know she was loved and that even with her mother gone, everything really was going to be okay.
On Angels' Wings
Jackie Connover had driven the road a hundred times. She and her husband had spent the past seven years as full-time counselors for Mountaintop Christian Camp, a retreatlike cluster of cabins nestled 7,300 feet above sea level, in the mountains above Colorado Springs. Windy, dangerous road was part of the life she and her family had chosen.
Since taking the job and moving to their mountaintop home, Jackie, twenty-eight, and her husband, Michael, had prayed for children. But so far they had been blessed with just one: a charming, brown-haired, rough-and-tumble boy named Cody.
On the warm summer afternoon of August 10, Jackie finished organizing the details for the next group of campers and walked through tall pine trees to their cabin,adjacent to the main hall. Her face lit up as she opened the door and entered the room. Michael and Cody were cud dled on the couch inside, reading a book.
“Hey,” she announced. “Wanna come with Mommy down the mountain?”
It was a planned trip for supplies, and regardless of whether Jackie or Michael made the trek, Cody always came along. It was a special time for him and gave each of them one-on-one time with their precious son.
Michael leveled his gaze at Cody and kissed the child on the nose. “You be good for Mommy, hear?” The child nodded and Michael stood to kiss Jackie. “And you be care ful, okay?”
Jackie grinned and pointed heavenward. “Always.” Years earlier she and Michael had begun using the gesture as a way of reminding each other of their belief that prayer would keep them safely in God's hands. Michael returned the sign and smiled.
“See you soon,” Jackie said. She reached down for Cody's hand and the two of them headed toward their brand-new Ford Ranger parked outside.
The two-lane highway that led from the camp to the city below was barely etched into the side of the mountain and was bordered by sheer clifflike drops of several hundred feet. It wound like a roller coaster up and down the moun tain and left little room for error. Each year there were nu merous fatalities along the twenty-five-mile stretch of roadway from the valley floor to the camp. The Connovers had known people who had been killed when their cars flipped over the side of the road and tumbled into the canyon below. Even someone like Jackie, who knew every curve and straightaway of the road as if it belonged to her, could easily spend an hour of complete concentration while driving to the nearest market at the base of the mountain.
As Jackie and her son set out, the day was beautiful: soothing rays of sunshine filtered through the pine trees, and the sky blazed a crystal-clear blue above. Jackie hummed to herself as she buckled Cody into his car seat, checking to be sure it was attached securely to the backseat of the vehicle. She kissed the child's forehead and tousled his hair before climbing into the driver's seat.
Nearly three hours later they had gotten all th
eir sup plies and were heading back up the mountainside when Jackie began to feel the supplies shifting in the back of her vehicle. She slowed down enough to prevent the load from spilling. At about the same time, she reached a busy section of the narrow highway, which served as a shortcut for com muters. Jackie knew that a spill could trigger a dangerous ac cident and she silently prayed that the load would stay in place.
Glancing in her rearview mirror, Jackie saw several im patient drivers behind her. She tried to accelerate, but as she did, the supplies in her truck bed shifted dangerously and she was forced to slow down once more.
Cody was singing to himself, unaware of the predicament his mother was in. He sang in his sweet, childish voice as Jackie looked for a place to pull over.
Help me, God. Protect us, please.
If only Jackie could let the cars behind pass, she could resume at a slow pace and avoid spilling the supplies. She scanned the side of the highway in frustration. There were only inches separating the road from the canyon's edge and there was no turnout for several miles.
Once more she glanced in her mirror and worried that one of the drivers might try to pass—a common cause of se rious accidents along the highway. Her eyes were off the road for just a moment. When she looked again, her truck was heading off the roadway. Terrified they might fall over the canyon edge, Jackie made a split-second decision against slamming on her brakes.
“Hold on, Cody, baby.” She directed the truck onto a narrow shoulder and slowly applied the brakes. The other cars quickly passed and Jackie sighed aloud. She tried not to think what might have happened if she hadn't looked ahead when she did.
Then, before she had time to pull back into traffic, the earth under the truck's right tire gave way and in an instant the Ranger began tumbling down the mountainside into the canyon.
“Hold on!” Jackie screamed. Somewhere in the dis tance she could hear Cody crying.
The Ranger tumbled wildly downward and Jackie was struck by an uncontrollable force that slammed her body against the shoulder harness of her seat belt and then against the truck's shell with each complete roll. As the vehicle bounced and rolled down the mountain, Jackie could feel her head swelling. I'm going to die, she thought. But all that mattered was her baby in the backseat.
“Cody!” She screamed his name, but there was only si lence in response.
Finally, more than five hundred feet down the moun tain, Jackie's Ranger came to rest upside down. Jackie was trapped in the front seat, but she was conscious. A warm liq uid was oozing around her eyes, mouth, and ears.
“Cody!” she shouted, desperately trying to maneuver her body so she could see the child. “Cody, where are you?” She listened intently but heard only the sound of the wind whistling through the canyons. Her body nearly paralyzed with pain, she worked herself out of what remained of her Ranger. It was then that she saw the backseat. Amidst the mangled metal, Cody's car seat was still strapped to the backseat, its tiny body harness still snapped in place.
But Cody had disappeared.
Jackie felt a sickening wave of panic. If the child had been thrown from the truck during the fall, he could not possibly be alive. He would have died immediately upon im pact.
“Cody!” she screamed again. Tears streamed down her face as she gazed up the steep hillside above the mangled wreckage for any sign of her tiny son. Suddenly she knew what she had to do. She fell to her knees.
“Lord, thank you for allowing me to live.” She whis pered the words, her body shaking violently. “Now please, please let me find Cody.”
She stood and took a few painful steps up the hill.“Cody!” She yelled his name as loudly as she could, her voice choked by sobs. “If you can hear me, baby, I'm coming to find you. Can you hear me?”
Jackie looked straight up the rocky mountainside and realized she would have to climb it herself. There was no other way to find her son. Suddenly, she saw people standing along the road's edge waving toward her. Then she re membered the cars that had been following her so closely. Someone must have seen the accident.
“Are you okay?” a man yelled, his voice echoing down the rocky canyon. Nearby, another passerby was already using a cellular telephone to call for help.
Fresh tears flooded Jackie's eyes as she screamed back, “Yes! But I can't find my son!”
Moving as quickly as the pain would allow, Jackie began making her way up the hillside. She was coughing up blood, and her head felt ready to explode. Still she continued to call Cody's name every few feet. Finally, when she was forty feet from the road, she heard his voice.
“Mommy! Mommy!” he cried. “I'm here!”
Jackie felt a surge of hope and refused to give in to her body's desire to pass out. She had to reach the boy. “Cody, I'm coming!” she shouted.
At that moment someone standing alongside the road pointed downward. “There he is!” Three bystanders scram bled down the cliff toward a small clearing hidden from the road. They reached the child at about the same time Jackie did.
Cody was sitting cross-legged on top of a soft, fernfronded bush. His eyes were black and blue and he had dark purple bruises around his neck. His tiny body shook with fear and he was sobbing.
“Dear God, help us!” Jackie prayed out loud, fearing that Cody's neck might be broken.
At about that time a medical helicopter landed on the highway. Paramedics ran toward Jackie and Cody, surrounding them and swiftly administering emergency aid. Within minutes, mother and son were strapped to straight boards and airlifted to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.
Jackie's head had swollen to nearly twice its normal size from the number of times it had slammed into the back of the truck. Her lungs were also badly damaged from the pres sure of her seat belt, which had definitely saved her life. She was placed in intensive care and given a slim chance of sur vival.
Meanwhile, Cody was taken to the pediatric unit where he was held for observation. Doctors took X rays and deter mined that despite his severely bruised neck there was no damage to his spinal column. He had no internal injuries and had even escaped a concussion.
Several hours passed before Michael got word of the ac cident and was able to rush to the hospital. When he reached Jackie's side, she was unconscious, hooked up to nu merous tubes and wires. Her head was so swollen, her face so badly bruised, that he hardly recognized her. He held her hand, crying and praying intently that she would survive.
Then he went to find Cody.
The little boy began crying when Michael hurried in.He muffled a gasp at the sight of the child's bruised neck and eyes and took hold of the boy's hand.
“It's okay, honey, everything's going to be all right. Why don't you tell me what happened?”
“Oh, Daddy,” Cody cried harder, burying his head in his father's embrace. After several seconds, he finally looked up. Tears streamed down his face as he began to talk.
“We were driving and then we started to fall,” he said. “Then I was on the bush but Mommy kept on rolling and rolling and rolling.” Cody began to cry harder. “I was so wor ried about her, I didn't know if she was ever going to stop rolling. Is she okay, Daddy?”
“She's going to be fine,” Michael said. He narrowed his eyes. Something the child said didn't quite fit. “How did you wind up on the bush, honey?”
Cody wiped at his tears. “The angels took me out of the truck and set me there. Right on the bush.”
Michael could feel the blood drain from his face. “An gels?”
Cody nodded. “Yes. They were nice. They took me out and set me down so I wouldn't be hurt.”
Michael gently ran his fingers over the purple bruises that circled his son's neck. Suddenly a chill ran the length of his spine. Goose bumps popped up on his arms and legs. Angels? Taking Cody from the car? He remembered scrip tures that spoke about angels watching over those who love God.
“Do you know my angels, Daddy?” Cody asked. He was no longer crying; his honest eyes were filled with sincerity.
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Michael shook his head. “No, Cody, but I'm sure they did a good job getting you out of the truck. Sometimes God sends angels to take care of us.”
Over the next few days, as Jackie's condition slowly began to improve, sheriff's investigators learned more about the accident. First, they determined that no one had ever survived a fall of five hundred feet along the Colorado mountain highway. Typically, even if a person is wearing a seat belt, the head injuries caused by rolling so many times cause fatal hemorrhaging.
Second, they found the Ranger's back window in one piece without so much as a single crack. It lay only a few yards down the mountain from the highway. Although the officers had never seen this happen before, the window had popped out in one piece upon initial impact with the steep embankment.
Next, they determined that Cody would have had to fall from the tumbling truck on the first roll for him to have landed where he did. Which meant that in a matter of sec onds the back window would have popped out, and Cody would have somehow slipped through the straps of his seat belt and fallen backwards through the opening onto the soft bush.
“A virtual impossibility,” the investigators said. In addition, the area was covered with sharp, pointed yucca plants. Had the boy landed on one of them, the wide shoots that jut out from the plant could easily have punctured his small body and killed him. The soft bush where he was discovered was the only one of its kind in the immediate area.
“From all that we know about this accident,” the inves tigators said later, “we will never know how Cody Connover survived.”
For Cody, the explanation was obvious.
Jackie made an astonishingly quick recovery and months later she was home and pregnant and preparing their cabin for Christmas when Cody approached her. He had a tree ornament in his small hand. The ornament was shaped like an angel.
“Angels don't really look like this, Mommy. Do you know that?”
Jackie felt her heart swell with gratefulness. To think they could have both been killed made this Christmas their most special one yet. She smiled at Cody. “No? What do they look like?”