Well, I have a few items to clear up. UGLI found my recital of the demise of one of my best friends ever a pretty heavy downer. Well, it wasn't like that for me. Yah she lived life pretty much like the full of life and happy person she was. She knew my family better than I understood on account of my sister being her chief baby sitter growing up, stuff like that. My aunt was her neighbor, my older brother her classmate. I ran into her on account of being in some advanced placement classes, and she figured I was smart or something, and just made herself my friend by sitting by me all the time, talking to me all the time, and letting me help her with her homework. . . . I might have just fallen in love or something. . . . well, I did, actually. I idealized that trashy song about a one-night-stand to have something like the fresh wonder of true love beyond explanation. I made up an interpretation to fit my ideal. She was in fact an angel, in the early time of my life. . . . but I never ever actually asked her out on a date.
The "Old Man" coach Brooks saw in me was in the saddle. At the point where I might have accepted going into the romance thing. . . . .well, I told her some of my stories. I had a lot of stories even then. . . . Something beyond the natural happened one day when we were talking, and she understood something about me, and I understood something about her. We both accepted that new understanding, and it didn't diminish the friendship at all. Somehow, I just saw her life pass before my eyes, and I knew she would not live very long. She saw that I had something else I needed to do. And that was that.
a few days after she died in the car crash, I went to see the guy who had been driving the car, still sorta banged up but obviously hurting more from knowing she had died. . . . I had a long talk with him, and centered my remarks on the reason why I knew this tragic accident was not totally something to beat himself up about.
A few years later, when visiting St. George, I was in a gospel doctrine class in our ward where my aunt was teaching, and her mom and dad were there. Her mother took the occasion to relate how they had been traveling to Israel, and how when they were on their way home, they stopped in Athens, Greece. While they walked out to the plane, they heard her voice, clearly. . . . "Mom, don't get on that plane". They stopped, looked at one another, not saying a word. . . and took a few more steps. . . .. and heard her voice once again. . . "Don't get on that plane". This time they turned around and went back. . . . got another flight home. . . ..
that plane was blown up less than an hour later at about 30,000 ft by a terrorist bomb.
yep. I knew an angel. In the early years of my life.