As Martha Hickman explains: “One bright summer afternoon, while our family was on vacation in the Colorado Mountains, my daughter, who by now had grown into a beautiful young woman of almost seventeen, fell from a horse and died.”

In the following excerpt from Martha’s writings, Martha talks about herself in the third person as she shares her experience:

“She is grown now and married, the mother of children – three sons and a daughter.  She is a writer, a maker of stories.  In the attic is her nativity set, the one her mother gave her when she was ill.  Every year she takes it down.  Her daughter helps her set it up.  It is something they do together.  One year her daughter cuts little shreds of paper to replace the thinning straw. They take turns holding the tiny baby Jesus. ‘Look at him,’ they say fondly to one another, smiling. 

“Then, one day, her daughter dies.

“Grief immobilizes her, nudges her awake each morning, numbs her into sleep, shades her dreams.  When she reaches for her husband, even then, she yearns for the child.  She looks in the mirror.  Her face is scoured with grief.  Behind her hollow, burned-out eyes, she reads another message: You have failed as a mother.

“She will rescue the child.  Resuscitate her, write her back into life.  She writes and writes.  Stories about children.  Memoirs of loved ones.  It is her way of keeping up with her child.  Her writing moves through her, saying what it must.

“Other young women come into her home – friends of her sons, lovers, in time, wives.  She loves them.  There is room in her heart for many loves.  But one room always remains empty.  In the center of that room is a keening sound, like a moan.  Often she goes steadfastly past the room.  Sometimes, off guard, she is drawn in.  Other times she opens the door herself.  Inside is a hollowness like the hollowness of her own body, where her dead child once lived.  But it is larger than that.  It encompasses the whole world where her child once lived.

“She writes and writes.  It is the best way she knows to reach out for her daughter, to make something of her hunger, to fill the empty room.

“Her sons marry, so she has other daughters.  She thinks of herself as a happy woman – perhaps happier than most. ‘I am blest,’ she says.  But in her mind there is always the significant exception.  She does not speak of it as often now.

“Every Christmas she puts up the nativity set…. She imagines the wise men approaching, searching the skies for a star shining in the east. She remembers how one night soon after her daughter died she stood on the veranda, looking across the valley into the high mountains, searching the skies and wondering, ‘Where are you?  Where have you gone?’  She saw a single star slip behind a mountain peak and re-appear on the other side.

“‘Maybe it’s a sign,’ she said to the child’s grandmother who stood beside her.  She knows that for the rest of her life she will be looking for her daughter.  She expects to find her.

“There is room in her heart for many loves, but one room always remains empty.”

~Martha Whitmore Hickman; American author (I Will Not Leave You Desolate)

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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Angels are watching over you
in your heart you’ll see,
They are always there to help you
have faith in what will be.

They are ever with you
and lovingly will stay,
Embracing you with heavenly wings
protecting you each day.

Angels walk beside you,
they understand and care,
They will inspire and uplift you
with a guiding love to share.

They bring a sense of peace
to everything you do,
Angels sit upon your shoulder
They’re God’s special gift to you.

~Lynn M. Diehm

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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“One night I was grieving for my dear Nan who passed away a year at the time. I was lying in my bed and it was complete darkness. My bedroom door was open a little and I happened to look at the door and I saw something that startled me but soon made me at ease. It was only what I can describe as an angel. It was a golden glow with a little girl with curls in her hair. She smiled at me and put her finger to her lip as to say don’t cry, and put both her hands together and she lay them down as if she was to sleep. I instantly felt no more pain for my Nan and fell asleep with great comfort. I never grieved like that for my Nan again from that day.

“The thing is: the little girl I saw almost looked like my Nan when she was about four years old.

“Did I see an angel?”

~Rebecca

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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“I was out for an evening with friends and I was driving. There were four other passengers in my car.  The night was terrible, hard driving rain. The road I was traveling was very dark and there wasn’t even any light coming from the headlights of other cars. I had never been on this road before and was unfamiliar with it. I seemed to be traveling very fast down this road, faster than I had meant to be driving. I am known to be a ‘lead foot’ but it was dawning on me that I needed to slow down and despite easing up on the accelerator and applying the brake the car did not seem to slow at all.  It seemed to be going on it’s own.  The road was so dark; I really couldn’t see a thing.

“I felt like the car was accelerating all on it’s own and suddenly, the steering wheel turned completely to the left and the car came to a complete stop. In the headlights of my car, we could all see that I was only inches away from falling into a ditch. The road had seemed to come to an end of sorts, they were doing construction or something but there were no signs or roadblocks up. 

“We all sat there quite stunned for a few minutes. We all knew that we were just inches away from being killed or at least very seriously injured.

“I never talked about it for many, many years but I ALWAYS knew that my Guardian Angel had taken control of that car and turned the steering wheel and stopped the car. I always knew I had nothing to do with saving us from falling into that ditch.”

~Peter

<Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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“I humbly request that You manifest to me my guardian angel. I know You send someone to protect and look after me daily. I want to thank this person for his/her constant care. You have manifested an angel to others; if it is Your Will, please help me see mine.”

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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“Some might say that an angel raised me although to most she was simply my maternal grandmother. My mom died eight days before my second birthday, when she was just twenty-eight years old. My dad died before I was nine.

“When my grandmother got custodianship of my two siblings and me, she was already widowed. In a period of twelve years, she buried her mother, her father, her husband, three daughters, and two sons-in-law. Altogether, she raised nineteen children, of which none of us have ever had any type of criminal record.

“When I was thirteen, I was diagnosed with the same heredity disease that was responsible for my mother’s early passing, familial polyps of the colon. From the age of thirteen until I was thirty-one, I went through numerous surgeries, practically yearly. One of these surgeries was to perform an Ileostomy. Since the Ileostomy, I have had three emergency surgeries that was the result of obstruction and gangrene.

“I vividly remember one occasion after the Ileostomy was performed. I had regained consciousness from the surgery and got the nerve to raise the hospital sheet and see just what the doctors had done to me. I was nineteen at the time and what I saw devastated me. I thought my life was over. Who would want anyone that had to live the rest of his life with a bag on his stomach?

“My grandmother was very a keen woman. Even though she only had a second grade education, she had a PHD in worldly knowledge and common sense. She sensed my despair, and was quick to act on it. I will never forget what she said to me. ‘I once complained about having no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.’

“I knew what she meant. She was telling me that no matter how bad my condition was; there would always be someone somewhere worse off than me. She assured me that I would find a woman that would love me for who I am, and that the bag would not matter.

“She was right. I have been married almost twenty-four years to the most wonderful woman I could ever be paired with. Over the years, many things that she said have revisited me, or came to pass. Her wealth of knowledge, her singing of gospel hymns, a familiar scent of something cooking. Most of all, her ability to never question God for all the pain, heartache and misery that she had to endure.

“On February 22, 1987, I was privileged to be holding her hand when she left this mortal world to go to paradise. I had been at her beside for days, and wasn’t going to leave. She drifted off into her heavenly rest as peaceful as it can be with the most wonderful expression on her face. No struggle for breath; no pain; just peace.

“It is no wonder I think of her as an angel, this great woman who raised my siblings and me along with and many others. She was the family patriarch, the foundation for our family.

“Grandma, until we meet again, you are forever in my heart. Upon our reuniting, I ask only that God will allow you to be the one to introduce me to my mother.”

~Mike

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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“My daughter, Christy, was a Special Education teacher for a small, rural school district in East Texas. Besides teaching, she is the mother of three beautiful children. Ailish, age eight, attends the same school where Christy teaches; three-year-old Ian and two-year-old Ainslea are ‘stay-at-home’ kids.

“On November 11, 2005, Christy and Ailish were on their way home from school. Christy was momentarily distracted and when her attention was focused back on the highway, she was headed for a mailbox. She overcorrected the car, lost control and crashed into a tree. The impact sent the car back across the highway to crash into yet another tree. The demolished car burst into flames under the hood.

“A witness to the accident extinguished the fire while his wife checked for survivors. When asked if she was okay, my granddaughter stated, ‘I’m okay but my mommy has gone to heaven to be with Jesus.’

“She was right. Her mother was killed on impact.

“My granddaughter’s seat belt broke during the accident leaving bruising where the seat belt had been. Her profile was imprinted in the windshield of the car. She had no cuts on her face, no broken bones and no bruises except those left by the seat belt. It is truly a miracle that she survived the accident.

“I know that Christy is with God. Still, my heart is broken and there are things that those of us left behind must do. The hardest thing I have had to do was to face Christmas without her and to decide what to do with those special gifts that I had bought just for her. After giving it a great deal of thought, I decided to give the gifts to her sister. I placed the gifts on the bed in our guest bedroom where they stayed for several days. Every now and again, I would go in and touch the gifts but I couldn’t bring myself to wrap them.

“One morning I went to the guest room to touch the gifts; however, I was stopped at the door by a most unusual sight. Inside the room was a beautiful rainbow. It started at the baseboard on one side of the bed, continued across the bed where the gifts were laid and ended on the baseboard at the other side of the bed. I remember calling my husband to come look at the rainbow; I don’t remember anything else. I believe the rainbow was a message from Christy telling me she was in heaven and happy that her sister would be receiving the gifts.
Do I believe in angels? Yes, I believe that Christy was an angel on Earth and that she was called home to be with her Savior, Jesus Christ. I also believe that divine intervention saved my granddaughter, Ailish.”

~Lynne

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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“When I was five, my grandfather passed away.

“I called him Grandpa Bunny because of a cute little book my mother had given me. He knew he was going to die, so about a month before he had given the whole family presents.

“The day after his small funeral, I wanted to sleep in my mother’s bed. It was something I’d do every so often when I was feeling lonely or scared. Before we fell asleep, we both said a prayer for Grandpa Bunny.

“At dawn, I woke up and looked up. In my mother’s bedroom, windows lined the top of the wall in front of her bed. Out of the far left window, I saw a group of angels. I remember this very, very distinctly: First came two women angels, and in the middle was my grandfather, followed by another two women angels. The room became very bright with white light, and my chest filled with a feeling of complete and utter warmth. I can still remember this feeling to this day. I woke up my mother and told her that Grandpa Bunny had just come into the room with four other angels. My mother was trying to explain to me (being four years old) that Grandpa was dead, but I stuck to my story.

“I know that my Grandfather watches over me when I am in bad situations. Being a 16-year-old party girl now, I know he’s saved me from some pretty scary situations.”

~Carla

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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Do you believe you have an angel that was assigned to protect and guide you?

Have you had an interaction (either directly or indirectly) with your guardian angel? –Do you know someone who has? – (Have you repeatedly heard a song, or had a specific book come into your life at the right time, or had a need to contact someone or go somewhere [but don’t know why]…)

I’d love to hear your guardian angel story and share it on my Blog.

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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I absolutely love this poem about cherished friendship using the representation of our material and spiritual worlds:

“I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.”

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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