Angels Watching Over Me

“Wow, Great!” I exclaimed, as I opened the gift envelope given to me by our site owner, the Gatchalians. They gave us a voucher for a night’s stay at the Manila Pavilion, a hotel near Dapitan street that they own.

“Perfect for a boys night out,” I told my wife Fanny.

“Hey John,” I called out to my son, “Want to spend a night at the hotel, watching movies and just relaxing?”

“Yes, Papa,” John said.

So on Thursday night, John and I set out to go to the hotel, which was just around 20 minutes away from the house.

“John,” I said, “You know what? Here’s an additional bonus for us tonight. Mom is not with us tonight, so we can buy all the chips that we want, and eat chips and drink Minute Maid while watching movies round the clock.”

“Yes, yes! Good idea, Papa,” John happily said.

So we stopped at Mercury Drugstore along the Roxas Boulevard service road near UN Avenue. John and I each bought a bag filled with snacks we liked, and went back to our car.

Our car was parked on the other side of a two-way street. Each of us was carrying a bag, and John went ahead of me walking towards the car. As I looked towards the car, I suddenly noticed John was watching out for cars but in the wrong direction. He was looking for cars coming from the left side of the street, which was correct coming from Mercury; but when we crossed to the other side of the street, John continued to look at the cars coming from the left, when he should have been looking out for cars coming in from the right.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of light coming from the right side of the street, and realized that it was the headlight of a motorcycle that was hurtling at full speed towards John, who was walking directly into its path. The motorcycle was moving so fast that I knew it couldn’t stop in time, and, as it was night time, the rider didn’t know that John did not see it.

I was 15 feet away from John, and all of this happened in a split second. As I saw the motorcycle fast closing in on John, with John still looking at the left side of the road, I attempted to shout a warning, to go towards John to pull him away, but in that split second I knew I was too late to do that either. So instead, I closed my eyes, shuddering, waiting for the sound of the bike hitting John.

But at the last moment I had to open my eyes, to immediately prepare for what would happen. Miraculously, I saw the bike just grazed John. I couldn’t believe what happened! I let out a sigh of great relief, and then, in anger, I ranted and raved at John for the next 10 minutes.

I pulled John into the car, asked him why he was only looking in one direction, lectured him on how to cross a street, went out with him on the street to demonstrate to him what he should do, and went back again into the car ranting about what had happened. 

Then, in the midst of one of my rants, John suddenly said, “Papa, it’s a good thing you pulled me back.”

I immediately froze when John said this, and said, “No, I didn’t pull you back, I was too far away from you. In fact, I was immobilized 15 feet away from you, and I was sure that bike was going to hit you.”

John then said, “Then who held me back?”

I said, “John, there was no one beside you. I was the one nearest to you.”

Then it dawned on me that it must have been God’s intervention that saved John. I said, “John, what happened?”

John said, “I saw the motorcycle coming up on me at the last moment, and I panicked. I could either have gone backward, which would have been the right move, or gone forward, which would have been even worse. And because I panicked, I decided to go forward. Just before I went forward, something held the back of my shirt collar, stopping me, and the bike just whizzed by me. I thought it was you.”

Sitting there, taking in what John had just said, I praised God that He must have sent an angel to protect John from a very bad accident. Praise God for His protection!