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The chattered for ninety miles to the city of North Platte, with Colton fighting actionfigure superhero battles and saving the world several times on the way. It wasnt quite 10 p.m. when we pulled into the town of about twentyfour thousand, whose greatest claim to fame is that it was the hometown of the famous Wild West showman, Buffalo Bill Cody. North Platte would be about the last civilized stop???or at least the last open stop???wed pass that night as we headed northeast across vast stretches of cornfields empty of everything but deer, pheasant, and an occasional farmhouse. We had planned in advance to stop there to top off both the gas tank and our bellies. After a fillup at a Sinclair gas station, we pulled out onto Jeffers Street, and I noticed we were passing through the traffic light where, if we turned left, wed wind up at the Great Plains Regional Medical Center. That was where wed spent fifteen nightmarish days in March, much of it on our knees, praying for God to spare Coltons life. God did, but Sonja and I joke that the experience shaved years off our own lives. Sometimes laughter is the only way to process tough times, so as we passed the turnoff, I decided to rib Colton a little. Hey, Colton, if we turn here, we can go back to the hospital, I said. Do you wanna go back to the hospital? Our preschooler giggled in the dark. No, Daddy, dont send me Send Cassie . . . Cassie can go to the hospital Sitting next to him, his sister laughed. Nuhuh I dont wanna go either In the passenger seat, Sonja turned so that she could see our son, whose car seat was parked behind mine. I pictured his blond crew cut and his skyblue eyes shining in the dark. Do you remember the hospital, Colton? Sonja said. Yes, Mommy, I remember, he said. Thats where the angels sang to me. Inside the Expedition, time froze. Sonja and I looked at each other, passing a silent message: Did he just say what I think he said? Sonja leaned over and whispered, Has he talked to you about angels before? I shook my head. You? She shook her head. I spotted an Arbys, pulled into the parking lot, and switched off the engine. White light from a street lamp filtered into the Expedition. Twisting in my seat, I peered back at Colton. In that moment, I was struck by his smallness, his little ness. He was really just a little guy who still spoke with an endearing (and sometimes embarrassing) callitlikeyouseeit innocence. If youre a parent, you know what I mean: the age where a kid might point to a pregnant woman and ask (very loudly), Daddy, why is that lady so fat? Colton was in that narrow window of life where he hadnt yet learned either tact or guile.

All these thoughts flashed through my mind as I tried to figure how to respond to my fouryearolds simple proclamation that angels had sung to him. Finally, I plunged in: Colton, you said that angels sang to you while you were at the hospital? He nodded his head vigorously. What did they sing to you? Colton turned his eyes up and to the right, the attitude of remembering. Well, they sang ???Jesus Loves Me and ???Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho, he said earnestly. I asked them to sing ???We Will, We Will Rock You, but they wouldnt sing that. As Cassie giggled softly, I noticed that Coltons answer had been quick and matteroffact, without a hint of hesitation. Sonja and I exchanged glances again. Whats going on? Did he have a dream in the hospital? And one more unspoken question: What do we say now? A natural question popped into my head: Colton, what did the angels look like? He chuckled at what seemed to be a memory. Well, one of them looked like Grandpa Dennis, but it wasnt him, cause Grandpa Dennis has glasses. Then he grew serious. Dad, Jesus had the angels sing to me because I was so scared. They made me feel better. Jesus? I glanced at Sonja again and saw that her mouth had dropped open. I turned back to Colton. You mean Jesus was there? My little nodded as though reporting nothing more remarkable than seeing a ladybug in the front yard. Yeah, Jesus was there. Well, where was Jesus? Colton looked me right in the eye. I was sitting in Jesus lap. If there are Stop buttons on conversations, that was one of them right there. Astonished into speechlessness, Sonja and I looked at each other and passed another silent telegram: Okay, we really need to talk about this. We all piled out of the Expedition and trooped into Arbys, emerging a few minutes later with a bag of grub. In between, Sonja and I exchanged whispers. Do you think he really saw angels? And Jesus? I dont know. Was it a dream? I dont know???he seems so sure. Back in the SUV, Sonja passed out roast beef sandwiches and potato cakes, and I ventured another question. Colton, where were you when you saw Jesus? He looked at me as if to say, Didnt we just talk about this? At the hospital. You know, when Dr. OHolleran was working on me. Well, Dr. OHolleran worked on you a couple of times, remember? I said. Colton had both an emergency appendectomy and then an abdominal cleanout in the hospital, and later we had taken Colton to have some keloid scarring removed, but that was at Dr. OHollerans office. Are you sure it was at the hospital? Colton nodded. Yeah, at the hospital. When I was with Jesus, you were praying, and Mommy was talking on the phone. What? That definitely meant he was talking about the hospital. But how in the world did he know where we had been? But you were in the operating room, Colton, I said. How could you know what we were doing? Cause I could see you, Colton said matteroffactly. I went up out of my body and I was looking down and I could see the doctor working on my body. And I saw you and Mommy. You were in a little room by yourself, praying; and Mommy was in a different room, and she was praying and talking on the phone. Coltons words rocked me to my core. Sonjas eyes were wider than ever, but she said nothing, just stared at me and absently bit into her sandwich. That was all the information I could handle at that point. I started the engine, steered the Expedition back onto the street, and pointed us toward South Dakota. As I hit I80, pasturelands unrolled on either side, dotted here and there with duck ponds that glinted in the moonlight. By then, it was very late, and soon everyone else was snoozing as planned. As the road hummed underneath me, I marveled at the things I had just heard. Our little had said some pretty incredible stuff???and he had backed it up with credible information, things there was no way he could have known. We had not told him what we were doing while he was in surgery, under anesthesia, apparently unconscious. Over and over, I kept asking myself, How could he have known? But by the time we rolled across the South Dakota state line, I had another question: Could this be real?

The family trip when our nightmare began was supposed to be a celebration. In early March 2003, I was scheduled to travel to Greeley, Colorado, for a district board meeting of the Wesleyan church. Beginning the August before, our family had traveled a rocky road: seven months of backtoback injury and illness that included a shattered leg, two surgeries, and a cancer scare, all of which combined to drain our bank account to the point where I could almost hear sucking sounds when the statements came in the mail. My small pastors salary hadnt been affected, but our financial mainstay was the overhead garage door business we owned. Our medical trials had taken a heavy toll. By February, though, we seemed to be on the other side of all that. Since I had to travel anyway, we decided to turn the boardmeeting trip into a kind of marker in our family life???a time to have a little fun, revive our minds and spirits, and start moving forward again with fresh hope.

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