Angels anyone?

A number of times, in many guises.

This one I don't remember so it could be dismissed as hearsay.

When I was still a toddler I contracted polio. I was told it was touch-and-go for a time. My parents later related that they had hit a rocky place in their marriage, and one night I woke up during a high fever and told them I'd seen an angel, and I had a message for them. If they didn't get their marital act together, I was going to go with the angel.

Second, during my husband's catastrophic illness, after an especially soul-grinding episode, I came unglued. I ended in a large antiseptic hospital restroom sobbing uncontrollably in a stall.

When I came out, there was a petite, beautifully dressed black woman gazing at me with compassionate eyes. She opened her arms to me. As I cried on her shoulder, she told me such grief could only come from love, and - something - passed from her to me. Strength. She told me her name was Delta, and I never saw her again, but I have never forgotten her. I was able to go back to to my husband in ICU and get on with it.