Yeah, I believe in angels. Oh, I haven’t always. And truthfully, I wish I didn’t believe in angels. It would be easier not to.

It all started in third grade. My teacher, Miss Williams, read to us from a book. It was a mass-market paperback. A book about angels.

She read stories about impossible rescues, and unlikely redemptions. Then, she told a story of her own.

She was a little girl. She fell through a second-story window. She was bruised and battered. The paramedics said she would die.

But a man came to her. A man who only she could see. He said she would be in the hospital for a while, but she would be all right, if she could just hold on. She eventually taught third grade.

Yes, she was as crazy as a sprayed roach. But I believed her. And I still do.

There is another guy I know. He talks about being in the hospital, after an accident. The doctors said he was going to die, too. He was in his bed in a coma.

A nurse came into his room. She was a large woman with ebony skin and white scrubs. She leaned over his bed, held him tightly, and sang to him. She sang, “God is going to deliver you.”

When he woke up, nobody believed him. It was a hallucination, they said. He asked medical staffers who the woman was. They said no employees fit her description.

I know a guy from Alaska. He wrote to me and said that his son suffered brain stem damage after a hunting accident. The kid was going to die. No doubt about it.

When his son was unconscious, a strange woman found him and kissed his face and said he would not die, for he still had work to do on earth.

Today, that kid is 46 years old and he works as a volunteer with a charity aiding local Alaskan natives.

I once met a woman who told me she was going to visit her son’s remains at a military base, after a horrific accident.

The night the woman arrived to pay her respects, there was a guard at the main gate checking IDs. The guard was her son.

The guard came to the lady’s window and the woman was already crying.

The guard said, “Mom, I want you to know that I’m okay where I am. Don’t worry about me. I’ll give you a sign and let you know I’m okay.”

In a flash of light, the guard gate disappeared, and so did the son. In place of the son was a guard, saying, “Ma’am, are you okay?”

The guard waved her on. The woman was driving through the weaving roads at night. She stopped when she saw something lying in the middle of the road.

She threw the car in Park. She trotted in front of her high beams, and found a hockey stick lying in the center of the road. Her son was an avid hockey player.

It can’t be a coincidence, can it?

Since beginning this column, I have received stories from every state in the Union. Stories from Canada, China, Russia, Haiti, and Guam. Stories of near-death experiences, unlikely rescues, heroic feats, and impossible salvations. And, I’m sorry, I just don’t think they’re all liars.

So, yeah, I guess I believe in angels.