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Since my Dad had been very sick lately, we drove to my
family home for the weekend to celebrate my 40th birthday.
The family home was on 600 acres in East Texas and that
included the north shore of a huge lake in a dense woods.
We arrived early Friday morning and spent the day visiting
my parents and my brother’s family. My brother had built
his house just up the drive about a quarter of a mile from the
house where my parent‘s lived.
After breakfast on Saturday morning my two daughters,
Molly and Sarah wanted to walk up the drive to visit with
Mia, my brother’s daughter. I told them okay since it was a
short walk and I felt they would be safer in the country than
they would be in the city where we lived. After they left I
helped Mom with her baking and about noon my brother
came in. I ask him where were Molly and Sarah and he
answered he hadn’t seen them that day.
In a panic we all began looking for the girls. I was so
frightened since they were not used to being out in the
country. We searched the open land and part of the woods
for several hours. It was getting late in the evening and since
a cool front had came through the wind was now blowing
and the temperature had dropped about 20 degrees.
I was driving on one of the dirt roads through the woods
when I saw a woman standing in the road. I was so surprised
because I recognized her from pictures I’d seen ever since I
was a child. Her name was Lindy Bonner and she had died
in 1938. I had heard the many stories, my entire life, about
her roaming the woods looking for her little girl. But I had
played in those woods as a child and had never seen her so I
thought those were only stories that folks had made up. I
was told that her little daughter had wondered away from
their house one day and that after two days of searching
through the woods the child’s body was found in the lake.
Lindy died about a year later, folks said she grieved herself
to death. Some of the stories had called her a ghost and some
called her an angel. One city man said she had led him out
when he had gotten lost in the woods.
I stopped my van and got out. She told me that my children
were okay and that they’re in the clearing called Smith’s
Landing on the lake. I got out my bicycle since the only road
to Smith’s Landing started on the other side of the lake and
I’d have to go back to the highway to get there. I rode down
the path until I could see the lake and then down the road
toward Smith’s Landing. As I approached I saw Lindy and
she was cradling Molly and Sarah in a giant set of beautiful
angel wings.
I called and the girls came running. I scooped them in my
arms in an embrace. I then looked up to thank Lindy but she
was no longer there. The girls told me that they had seen a
baby deer at the edge of the woods. They then followed it
into the woods where they got lost. They had walked and
walked trying to find there way back to my parents house.
The nice beautiful lady had came to them and said for them
not to worry. She assured them I was coming and would
soon be arriving. Since they were cold she had covered them
with her wings to keep them warm.
I will forever call Lindy an angel since she helped me find
my children and comforted them until I could get there. I
now believe those stories I’d heard all my life about her. I
know the reason I hadn’t seen her before was because I
hadn’t needed her help.
The Bonner’s had owned the land on the south shore of the
lake for generations, just as my family had the land on the
north shore. When I talked to Jimmy Bonner at my birthday
party on Sunday, I told him I’d seen his aunt Lindy. I told
him I believed her to be a guardian angel for folks who
needed help in those woods.
Copyright @ 2003 M. Doris Fuller
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