Christmas Eve miracle and Montana Angels

When you live in the Pacific Northwest you know it can get snowy and I have learned to drive in the snow.

I’m from Texas, the south and not used to snow till I moved north 20 years ago. My small tale begins because a friend of mine named Mary was grieving the loss of her red heeler. I thought a great Christmas surprise gift was to get her a blue heeler puppy I located in Libby. So Caelan and I, he’s my 9 year old boy, decided to make the 3 1/2 hour drive to Montana from Mead, Wash.

Siri, my navigator, I thought was doing a great job leading me there since I had never been to Libby. Apparently Siri had never been there before either! Because she directed me on a summer only road (called 17 Mile Road) up into the snowy mountains. I thought I could make it since I was driving a Subaru Crosstrek. But after travelling 12 miles on this narrow road and no way to turn around I got stuck in the snow.

I did try digging the car out but had no luck with this after 30 minutes. It was 3 p.m. by this time. So I thought no one will ever find me and Caelan up here in the wilderness. And I decided we had to walk back to civilization. There is no cell phone service up here. I tried calling 911 anyway, no luck!

So Caelan and I, with our four bananas started hiking back through maybe five feet of snow. It was very beautiful this hike. We could hear a strea.m running below us. After an hour my Caelan, who has autism, was tired. gave him a banana and we rested maybe two minutes. It was getting dark fast. I have him walk in front of me as I know there could be cougars and bears in this area. We walked and walked and walked. By now it was 5 p.m. and nighttime. It was so quiet, it seemed Caelan and I were the only humans left on earth.

We both ate a banana around 6 p.m., Caelan ate a little snow. We said prayers to Jesus and our guardian angels. Caelan asked if this hiking would last forever and could we please just stop! He said his legs hurt so bad. I told him how brave he was being and how proud I was of him. I also told him I was sorry for putting him through this adventure.

I explained to him we could not stop or we could freeze to death. It was snowing on us and I had to use my iPhone flashlight just to see where the trail was, it was so very dark and there were no stars or moon out this cold snowy night.

By 7 p.m. we had been walking four hours. We heard a car below us, we yelled for help but they could not hear us. At least this gave us a little hope that we could make it back to Yaak Road. Caelan ate the last banana, we rested five minutes and resolved to not rest again till we found someone, anyone, another human!

Now my cell phone had died. Caelan and I kept walking and holding hands inside of his pocket coat. At 8:30 pm Caelan saw Christmas lights in the distance. We were both so excited! It was like seeing heaven. We ran towards the sparkling multicolored Christmas lights. I kept yelling “Hello, help!” I began hearing a dog barking. Then an angel’s voice said “Who is it? Can I help you?” I almost started crying, our ordeal was finally beginning to be over. I told this angel I was a mom with a small boy and we had been walking in the snow since 3 p.m. that day getting stuck in the wilderness.

Laura is her name and she and her husband Seamus welcomed us into a warm home. I think I bear hugged the two of them because they were my Christmas Eve miracle. They rescued us from the cold and snow, fed us warm gingerbread cookies and hot tomato soup. This, the spirit of helping strangers, is what Christmas and being Christian is all about. We spent the night here in Montana and in the morning other Montana people, Odie and Woody we back up the mountain to dig our car out. Montana people are some of the best people God has created. I thank God for these angels. And Laura even had warm homemade scones for us to eat on Christmas Eve morning.

Caelan and I made it home that evening, but we definitely had an adventure in Montana and a beautiful Christmas Eve miracle. Maybe in the summer we can go back to Montana and see Laura and Seamus again and finally get a blue heeler.

Holly Blue