Since the subject of angels has come up, I am venturing this submission. I haven't told very many people this, but every word is true.

About 15 years ago, when I was single and living in Miami, my roommate and I were taking a trip to the Keys to see my parents for the weekend. We had both been through a rough month in our respective jobs, each of us being unfairly harrassed by co-workers for things that weren't our faults. We had both built up bad attitudes towards these people, one being African-American and the other being Cuban. Without realizing it, Joyce and I had both let our frustrations with a single individual become a blanket attitude towards an entire race.

After spending a relaxing weekend, we started the trip back home. There is only a two-lane road leading in and out of the Keys. One lane in and one lane out -- that's it. We had traveled this road many times, so it didn't bother us that it was already dark when we left. We were both lamenting that we were going to have to go back to work and face our harrassers again when we saw in the headlights two cars on the side of the road. There were two couples with the cars, a young African-American couple and an elderly Hispanic couple. The young African-American man was waving us down.

Joyce and I NEVER stopped for anyone. We had seen too many stories on the news about young women who had stopped to help someone and ended up dead. As we passed by, we both looked at each other. We couldn't explain it, but we knew we were supposed to go back and help them. We did a U-turn and parked on the shoulder across the two-lane from them. Carefully, we both got out and asked if they needed help. The young man said he was trying to change the flat tire on the elderly couple's car, but couldn't see anything without a flashlight. (For those who aren't familiar with this road, it is pitch black at night. Smelly mangrove swamps on either side of the road and absolutely no lights of any kind.) Joyce always carried a flashlight in the trunk of her car, so we got it and walked it across the road.

The young couple was very thankful and friendly, and the young man began to take off the flat tire on the small white car while his wife held the light. The elderly couple, who couldn't speak a word of English, were visibly upset. The old woman took my face in her wrinkled, shaking hands and kept repeating something in Spanish I couldn't understand. I could tell, though, by the tears in her eyes and the tone in her voice that she was thankful that we had stopped to help. My heart went out to her as I took her hands and spoke comfortingly to her. Her husband, a dignified gentleman in a suit and using a cane, also comforted his wife. He put a frail arm around her and spoke in a hoarse voice words that made her smile. After so many years of marriage, his love for her shone through the night like no light could have.

The spare tire was one of those small, skinny things that Joyce and I referred to as "toy tires." It had a warning label on it that said the maximum speed for this tire was 45 mph. We told the young couple that we would follow them the rest of the way into Homestead, which was a good hour away, since there was nothing between there and where we were. We crossed the road and got in our car while the two couples got in their vehicles.

When we did a U-turn to follow them, Joyce and I couldn't believe our eyes. There was no one there. No cars, no tail lights, nothing. We stared at the spot they were just at. We sat there in the road, car running, just staring into the blackness. We rode the rest of the two hours home in near silence. When we did speak again, we decided that God had visited us with angels to teach us that coloring a whole race for the actions of a single individual was wrong. It is a lesson I've carried with me ever since.