The Angel on Valencia Road

I was driving somebody to the airport in a cab one day.

The year was 2004. Back then, there were three cab companies that picked up passengers at the airport in Tucson. I drove for one of them, but I had also started my own small cab company on the side. The airport had strict rules, so my personal cab wasn’t allowed to line up with the main companies at the terminal. Because of that, I split my time. I drove for the company half the day, then used my own cab the other half, trying to build something for myself.

That’s where this story begins.

While I was sitting there at the airport, another cab driver from a different company asked if I could take someone to the airport the next morning because he already had a ride scheduled. At that time, as I said, I had just started my own cab company on the side, and I needed more customers, so I was extremely happy to get that run. I said sure.

The next morning, I went and picked them up on the north side of Tucson. I didn’t have a babysitter at the moment, so my daughter had to ride with me. She was about five years old and was sleeping in the backseat. I was a single parent, just doing what I had to do.

It was an older married couple, a man and a woman. The woman got in first and saw my daughter lying in the backseat sleeping. She smiled, happy to see that my little girl was riding along with me. When I told her I didn’t have a choice because I was a single parent, she said it was fine and completely understood. Then the man got in and said, You got a flat tire.

I said, I do? It wasn’t flat when I pulled up. That’s exactly what I told him. I was completely surprised because the tire had been fine just a minute earlier.

So I drove over to a Circle K, put some Fix-A-Flat in it, and started heading toward the airport. When I got to Valencia Road in Tucson, I had about three miles left to go, and the tire exploded.

I pulled into an empty parking lot. There wasn’t any business there that I could see, just an open lot. Right after I stopped, almost instantly, a pickup truck pulled in behind me with its headlights on. It was still dark out, around 5:30 in the morning. It happened so fast it caught me off guard, like she had known I was going to pull in there.

A woman with long blonde hair got out and walked up to my car door. I looked at her face, but for some reason I didn’t really see it. I couldn’t make out what she looked like, even though I was staring right at her. She asked, Is there anything I can do to help you?

I told her no at first because I just needed to change the tire. Then I realized that I really did need her help. Well, more accurately, my customers needed her help. I asked her, Hey, can you take them to the airport so they don’t miss their flight? The couple looked over at her, almost as if asking, please. She said sure.

The meter showed $25.40. The man pulled out a twenty and a five and tried to hand them to me. I told him not to worry about it since the flat wasn’t his fault. But he pressed the money into my shirt pocket anyway and looked me straight in the eye. He said it was the least he could do.

I thanked him, and it hit me how kind that was, especially in a moment like that. I got out and pulled their luggage from the trunk, still feeling bad about the whole thing. I apologized to him and his wife for the trouble with my tire, and they both smiled, saying it was okay. Then they left with her to go to the airport.

As soon as they pulled away, I took a breath and started changing my tire. It was the front passenger side. My daughter was still asleep in the backseat the whole time, completely out, not even stirring through any of it.

A short time later, the long blonde-haired woman came back, parked behind me, got out of her pickup, and walked up to me. She asked, Now, is there anything I can do to help you?

I looked at her and said, No, I appreciate you taking them for me. I just need to finish changing my tire.

I said, God bless you.

She smiled and said, God bless you, too.

I kept working on the tire, and after a minute, I started to realize she hadn’t left. I looked around, expecting to see the truck still sitting there behind me, but the headlights were gone. The truck was gone. It was still dark out, and somehow, she had just disappeared.

I stood there for a second, trying to make sense of it. That’s when I realized I had never actually seen her face. She had long blonde hair, but her face was like a blur, almost like my mind couldn’t focus on it. The more I tried to picture it, the less I could. I wasn’t even sure I knew what her body looked like. I just knew she had been there, and that she had long blonde hair. That part I knew without a doubt.

Right then, my daughter finally woke up. She sat up and looked out the window, and it hit me that she had slept through everything until the moment that the lady was gone.

And it hit me. No ordinary person could have shown up like that and disappeared without a sound. In my heart, I knew exactly what she was. She was an angel.

I looked up at the sky right then and said, If you had told me she was an angel, I’ve got a whole list of things I need help with. I was half joking and half serious when I said it, and I knew God knew that. He knew I was really thanking Him for it.

And I also knew why it had happened. A day or two before that, I had picked up a couple from the Greyhound bus station and taken them to the airport. They were a Mexican couple, nicely dressed, looking like they might have had money. The man wore a nice hat, and the woman carried herself like she came from a good family.

When we got to the airport, the meter showed fourteen sixty. She opened her purse and handed me two twenties. I looked at the money for a second, and a thought crossed my mind that I could just take it and they’d never know. But I couldn’t do that.

I said, No, it’s fourteen dollars and sixty cents. She looked surprised, opened her purse again to pull out change, and I said, No, no, that’s okay. I gave her one of the twenties back and the proper change from the other.

She said, Gracias, gracias, and they both smiled. I could tell they were shocked that I was being honest. They didn’t tip me, but I didn’t care. I walked back to my cab, looked up at the sky, and said, You better have seen that. That’s exactly what I said.

And when that woman showed up a couple of days later, I knew God was saying, I did.

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Author’s Reflection

That morning on Valencia Road will stay with me forever. I still don’t know how she appeared so fast or where she went. I only know she came when I needed help, and she left when her job was done. I believe with all my heart that she was an angel and that God sent her to remind me that He sees everything, even the small moments when we choose to do the right thing when no one else is watching.