One hot summer day on River Street when I was perhaps ten years old, I remember having a terrible toothache, and, of course, I didn't dare tell my mother about it. The thing is, she would get that worried look on her face that meant she wondered where she could get the money to take me to see the dentist, Dr. Cunningham.

Now, bear in mind that the good doctor and I were not on very good terms, since, at the age of eight or so, I had kicked him in the stomach when he was trying to pull a tooth. I was not at all anxious to pay him a visit, so I went into the bedroom that my sister and I shared and lay down on the side of the bed, with the left side of my face pressed hard against the mattress. The pressure seemed to ease the pain, and before I knew it, I was off into one of my daydream times, where my mind skipped about in my own personal world and all kinds of thoughts skimmed in and out of my consciousness.

I remembered something that Sister Catherine Mary once said to me about my guardian angel (in whom I believed with all my heart), "Maureen," she said, "whenever you are frightened or hurt or you don't know what to do about something, just remember that your very own guardian angel is always there to help you and to guide you and to comfort you."

That sounded pretty good to me, and as I began to picture my guardian angel in my mind, I imagined her with great soft white wings, sleek and shiny, like the wings of the geese I had seen once at a farm in New Mexico. (You notice I said "her" instead of "him", even though the nuns had also taught us that the really important angels were masculine, with names like Michael and Gabriel.) Those beautiful imaginary wings looked like a wonderful place for me to rest, and I felt myself sinking deeply into them and falling asleep.

When I awakened later in the afternoon, my mother was sitting beside me on the bed, feeling my forehead with the back of her cool hand, asking me if I felt sick.

"Oh, no," I said, "I was just sleepy, so my guardian angel invited me to take a nap on her wings." Mother smiled and stroked my hair, and said that was nice. I had not told a very bad fib, I really did feel better and my toothache was all gone.

There have been other times in my life when I have thought of that day and how I had been comforted by the thought of falling asleep on the wings of my guardian angel. And at those times, I have frequently invoked the image of those great silky white wings to rest and comfort myself.

Just before my thirtieth birthday, I was in my car, alone, as it went over the edge of a cliff in a Sierra mountain pass, at a summit of 11,000 feet. I didn't think about my guardian angel while being tossed around in the front seat, but when I regained consciousness sometime later and found myself cold, hurt and very alone about halfway down the mountainside, I remember whispering a thank-you to the angel who had not forgotten to be with me in my time of need.

When rescue seemed to be a long time in coming (it was actually eleven hours!), I began to be very frightened, and I knew I was hurt because my right leg was bent at a very strange angle above the knee, and my fingers came away with blood on them when I rubbed my head.

I didn't know what to do, because I couldn't move up or down the steep side of the mountain. Then Sister Catherine Mary's words came back again, and I began to talk to my guardian angel. I wish I could say that I heard her respond, but I didn't. However, I did began to feel less frightened, and decided to set myself on a schedule of screaming for help every 15 minutes. It was lucky my wrist-watch was still working. I took off my light-weight coat and put it around my shoulders, hugging my arms to my chest to share the body warmth.

Several times during the long wait, the thought of those great white wings drew me into short slumber, and I always awakened rested and refreshed, at least for the moment. And, of course, I was rescued, since I am telling you all this.

The rescue was not without its moments of inadvertent humor. The couple who had first stopped by the side of the highway, in response to being flagged down by a road maintenance worker, finally heard one of my yells for help, and they had a difficult time figuring out where it was coming from. After all, they didn't name that place Echo Summit for no good reason! So they answered my scream with a request to keep screaming so they could track the sound. Knowing that help was there infused new spirit into my tired and battered body...the decibel level of my screams increased to unheard-of heights!

The maintenance worker departed to call an ambulance, and the other rescuers stayed behind to try and get to me. When the man finally scrabbled and slid down to where I was lying, he had a thermos bottle in his hand.

"Here," he said, pouring a dark liquid into the thermos cup, "drink this coffee."

They told me later that I replied very politely and properly, "No, thank you. I don't drink coffee."

His response to that was a "between the teeth" growl. "Drink it anyway." And I guess I did.

They lowered a basket stretcher on a rope, and several men lifted me gently and tenderly into it, while I prattled on at great length about all the murder mysteries I had read where the victims were carried out in baskets!

When they took me into the doctor's office in the tiny settlement of Meyers, near Lake Tahoe, I was making jokes to the doctor about how I had just been thinking a few days before, "Cheer up! Things could be worse." So I cheered up. And, sure enough, things got worse. The doctor just shook his head as he grinned and told them to take me to Placerville to the hospital there.

One of the night nurses at the hospital told me later that when they brought me in, she was the one who cared for me and cleaned up my wounds, preparing me for sleep. She said, and I have no reason to doubt her, that I had literally begged her for a cup of coffee, pleading pitifully. Since I had suffered a skull fracture in addition to the broken leg, stimulants were definitely not in order, but the doctor finally gave her permission to give me some coffee (he was a friend of mine and knew I didn't drink it). When she brought it to me, I reportedly said, "No, thank you. I don't drink coffee." I'm not sure she ever got over that!

Some thirty-five years later, I again had occasion to think about my guardian angel as I prepared to undergo an operation to replace the aortic valve in my heart with an artificial one. Here we were with the fear, the pain and the uncertainty again. So it was time to call on those great white wings for comfort and support.

The night before the surgery I fell asleep once more on the imagined softness of those wings and they upheld me through the surgery as gently as they had supported me at earlier times in my life. And when that same surgery had to be redone two years later, those wings were ready and waiting for me...oh, she is a lovely being, that gleaming angel who guards and guides me in all of my life's adventures.