When There Are Angels

Friday morning, long hike day. Dale's been doing it since retirement, except for the long months of my illness, hospitalization, and recovery. He craves his hike days like oxygen or chocolate chippers, his finely-honed cookie recipe, which he sometimes takes on his hikes.

We say prayers together, and like most hiking days, there are two prayers going on in my head: the one I am saying out loud, and the one I am saying in my head.

The one out loud: "Father - please bless us with the Holy Ghost today. Help us listen and recognize Thy voice. Give us the strength to obey what we hear."

The one in my head: "Father - please don't let Dale think he's invulnerable on that mountain alone today. Please keep him safe and bring him back to me."

Uncharacteristically, Dale kisses me twice - the typical 'see you later' peck, and then a more lingering one, like he's serious. And I had a little catch in my heart that said, "Something's going to happen to him today."

Three hours later, I had a phone call from an unfamiliar number. "Is this Mrs. Simper? This is Tyler - I'm a paramedic with Salt Lake County. It looks like you're husband is having a heart attack. We're taking him to IMC."

He maybe didn't say that part about Salt Lake County. The words I heard were: paramedic... husband... heart attack... IMC...

As I drove to IMC, weeping, I prayed, "Father, please don't have spared my life two years ago to make me do the rest of this alone."

I felt peace and the distinct thought that everything was going to be okay. But notice - sometimes Father doesn't tell us what okay looks like. I fully recognized I was not told which side of the veil Dale was going to land on for today's okay.

Three hours later, after a frantic rush to the cath lab, two stents had been placed in the main artery of Dale's heart - the one grimly nicknamed the 'widowmaker.' He was in ICU with monitors on his heart.

Around this time I got a text from an unfamiliar number. It was the woman in the photo - on the left - Tori.

"Hi, I was one of the women trail runners that helped Dale out today. How is he doing now?"

Tori and the other women in the photo were trail running on the Salt Lake Overlook Trail where Dale was hiking. They had passed him on the way up. For Dale, two miles up, when he felt distress and knew he was in trouble, he knew unmistakably that he had to turn around to get down that mountain.

The same four runners passed him coming back down, and saw instantly he was in trouble. It took asking four times if he was okay before he could pant out, "I think I'm having a heart attack."

Miracle 1 - these women were runners. They were trained and accustomed to running this trail.

Miracle 2 - there were four of them. Two could run to the trail head parking lot and drive out for cell service to call an ambulance.

Miracle 3 - The two who stayed behind - Tori and the one in the white, Camille - helped him get back down the two miles he'd just hiked up. Camille asked Dale if they could say a prayer, which they did. He had been praying for help before they got to him.

Miracle 4 - Camille is a nurse. As she could, she started to ask Dale the medical questions she knew the paramedics would ask. She was then able to give all that information to the paramedics, because...

Miracle 5 - Dale was completely spent a couple of hours later when he finally reached the ambulance with his new angel friends. Why is that a miracle? To my mind - being completely spent at the moment he hit that ambulance, with absolutely nothing more in him, tells me there were angels helping him from the other side of the veil as well.

Dale spent the weekend in the hospital - close to 24 hours in ICU, and another 24 on a general nursing floor. He's now a cardiac patient with serious damage to his heart that needs to heal - presumably from the several hours of exertion while no blood or oxygen was getting to his heart. He went from a guy on no meds to a guy with a pill catcher full of pills to heal his heart. He's keeping track of sodium and carbs, and isn't planning on making chocolate chippers quite so often.

To say it's humbling to know both our lives have been spared so we can stay together for now is a whopper of an understatement. What could God possibly be up to?

No sense trying to answer but to live in such a state of gratitude that we never stop asking Him what else we can do for Him to thank Him. Knowing that our dearest Father in Heaven is always up to something, I'm quite sure that somehow, as we keep trying to be His little helpers, that question will keep getting answered in both ordinary and extraordinary ways.

Last Friday - the extraordinary little helpers' names were Tori, Camille, Cassi, and Erin. One thought to ask God that morning how she could help Him. Look what He did with that prayer.

I will never be able to stop thanking her and her friends for being where He needed them.