Some years ago, my sister Kathy, finagled me into a road trip to see some relatives in Arkansas...this trip had an ulterior motive...she detoured us to Texas for a certain...personal connection there...say no more.

 It was one of those sisterly trips that take on a life of it's own, on the road.  Road food, cruising tunes, lots of "family legends" and hilarity.  I got over my irritation about the detour because there really isn't anyone more amusing and goofy and good-hearted than my sister.  

On the way back, our conversation took a contemplative turn.  We spoke about our mother's death when we were children, and how we coped so differently.  We spoke of our siblings and our lives at length.

And then the subject of the spirit, the soul, the hereafter and the surreal drifted into our conversation somewhere in New Mexico, on the way back home.  This is the story she told as I remember it:

 When she was 19, my sister was a bit of a hellcat.  Not a "bad girl"...just drawn that way.  A  party animal, shall we say, but not ill intentioned, and very well liked by all and sundry.  She was known for her gorgeous, long, thick, dark hair.  We all had it...her's was just the most amazing for it's sheer volume.  You never saw hair that thick outside of a horse's tail.  

She was dark haired and blue eyed, and her best friend Debbie was her mirror twin...blonde and gorgeous.  They were an imposing pair.  They induced drooling in young men...I know...I often got asked, "She's your SISTER...?!)

So...one evening...a warm, late September night...fairly common in Northern Colorado...crisp, and harvest redolent...my sister, Debbie, and two young men took a half hour drive to Fort Collins from my home town to attend a party.

They drank...as 19 and 20-somethings will...and had a great time...one boy decided to stay behind.

As they got ready to leave, they decided to take a back road, through a small town called Severance...a place famous, or infamous for "Bruce's Bar...Home of World Famous Rocky Mountain Oysters".  ( You know what they are boys...dont'cha? http://brucesbar123.com/history/)

But I digress...more to the point...they hoped to avoid the vigilant Colorado State Patrol that evening, which they did, to their demise.

As they passed Severance on the two lane road, the driver, a young man named Robert, drifted into the other lane, in front of a semi-trailer, hauling a pup and a load of tar...

That's the last thing my  sister remembers before waking up...in the corn field...lying in the soft, cool plowed earth...the corn absconded by the quite recent harvest.

She rose to her feet and heard crying from near by...she walked...barefoot...now where did her shoes go?...to the sound of the weeping, and found her friend Debbie nearby.   Sitting by the side of the road...hysterical...She remembers the feel of the cool, moist earth of the corn field on her bare feet.

Their friend was in the car...trapped by the steering wheel, dying.  The truck driver in his truck...the truck was on its side...

Shocky...they don't know how much time passed.  This was pre-cell phone...in the days when you had to depend on the nearby residents to call if there was such a remote accident...on a rural road.  They wailed and pulled at the car, trying to get at their friend...get him out...

Kathy says it seemed a short time later that a woman walked over to her at the side of the road...sat by her...wrapped her arms around her and soothed her...singing in Spanish...a lullaby...She felt exquisite peace...a serenity quite out of place at the ghastly scene

A man...the woman's companion,  stood with her friend Debbie.  

After some time...it seemed quite a while...the paramedics and fire engine arrived from the volunteer fire department, along with police.

She asked again and again...the paramedic..."Where's that lady...I want that lady...!"  And the paramedics were absolutely puzzled. "What lady?" they said...

She looked around and the woman was gone.  There was no other car on the road.  There was no house nearby.  

She and Debbie were taken to the hospital...their friend Robert had died, despite their frantic efforts to...what?  Free him...wail him out of the car?  Cry him back to life?  Monumentally sad.  

Kathy had NO injuries, except for tar stuck to her back...where her halter top left her shoulders bare.  Debbie had two broken wrists.  That's it.  Not another scratch.

They spoke about the side-of-the road-helpers...they went and looked at the car in the impound/junk/tow-yard.  "It was so small", she said.  "The place where I was sitting didn't exist any more.  Nor the place where Deb had been."  

They were thrown clear, with virtually NO injuries, from a head-on collision with a semi truck.  The truck driver lived as well, lucky man.

She still remembers the song..."A La Nanita Nana"...it's Andalucian, not Mexican, though common throughout the Spanish speaking world... really a hymn to the baby Jesus, akin to "Away in a Manger"...it speaks of "mockingbirds singing" and "clear, sounding water fountains"...but the English translation speaks of "angels hovering".

Angels.   She's convinced.  As we drove through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains with the sky on fire at sunset...I too was convinced.