Ron and Scott Degenhardt were father and son in name only -- until death brought them together

 On Valentine’s Day, Ronald T. Degenhardt's birthday, he doubled over with pain. The first diagnosis, gall stones, was soon changed to highly virulent – and terminal – esophageal cancer.
     Ron mailed a letter to his estranged son in Florida, Scott – saying: “I would like to be closer to you…”
     But when Scott arrived in Nashville, he noticed a striking difference in his father -- whose life had once been a chaotic tangle of stress, debts, alcohol and strained relationships – most of all with his son, for whom there had never been an “I love you” or an embrace.
     Somehow, this dying man, who had never been able to express emotion, now showed his feelings freely. He exuded a spirituality and a heightened awareness – as if a light had been turned on, and for the next two months, the 20-year-old Scott got to know his father for the first time in his life. And as they talked and bonded, Ron shared a mysterious, recurring dream he was having: a man walking in the background, holding up a sign with the number 30.
     By the time the end approached – as hospital personnel were constantly draining fluid out of Ron’s lungs while family members and even nurses stood by crying – the healing of the father-son relationship was complete. The strong-willed Ron, maintaining a stiff upper lip to the last moment of consciousness, slipped into a coma.
     “I love you,” Scott told his unconscious father. “And I appreciate how you showed me the value of honest and hard work.”
     Now, there was nothing to do but wait for the call.
     In the early morning hours of May 30, Scott said, he abruptly awoke to see a whitish vapor shooting toward him and then hovering in the air. Dad!
     It was Ron from the waist up, smiling, a misty body with a see-through translucence. Then, like a tidal wave, Scott was hit telepathically with a mass of emotions and thoughts from his father. An ecstasy at being free from cancer’s pain – a genie free of the bottle.
     Scott was happy for his father. It seemed so right. For Scott and his Dad, thinking speeded up. A question-and-answer back-and-forth soon escalated into a rapid-fire swapping of thoughts and emotions – how Scott felt for his father and how much his father loved him, Scott recalls.
     Gradually, Scott said, he began to take notice of his surroundings. He thought: Is this real or a dream? Scott looked down. He saw himself! His body was lying on the bed, eyes shut, asleep. He was half out of his physical body, sitting up in his spiritual body. He looked at his spiritual hands and arms: misty and translucent like his father’s form.
     Terror iced its way through Scott. He didn’t know anything about out-of-body experiences of the living, he said. Does this mean I’m dead, too, like Dad? And if I’m not, how am I ever going to get back in my body?
     As Scott continued to look around his room, he noticed that could “see” wherever he directed his attention, even if he didn’t face the object with his spiritual form. I’ll try looking at everything in the room at once, he thought. It worked.
     Scott calmed himself and looked toward his father. Ron was still there. Calm down, Scott thought. You might as well enjoy this experience. This is probably the last time you’ll see Dad. He and his father basked again in each other’s presence, Scott said.
     Eventually, though, Scott sensed another connection opening up – between the two of them and… infinity. Coming from the other link, Scott heard the voices of different, higher spiritual beings, one of whom spoke to Ron. “They’re calling me now; I have to go,” Ron said. Ron’s spiritual form swooshed off in the direction of an opening, and then the connection closed up, Scott recalls.
     Scott himself lost consciousness, and the next thing he knew, he was sleeping -- awakened by the ringing of the telephone. Scott’s mother Kathy came to his room. I know what she’s going to say, but let her say it, Scott thought to himself. “It was the hospital,” she said. “Your father has died.”
     “I know.”
     “How do you know that?”
     “He was just here. I was talking with him.”
Ron died at 12:15 a.m., May 30. Scott thought about his father’s recurring dream of the man with the placard marked with the number “30.”
     For weeks, the afterglow and elation of Scott’s mystical experience kept him “supercharged.”
     “There was never the slightest doubt that I was out of my body and saw my Dad. There is a difference. When you’re out of your body, thinking is much faster and clearer than even on your good days, and your senses are much sharper. Things are so readily understood that it’s hard to misunderstand,” Scott said.
     “We do resurrect after we die. We do have a better life waiting for us. It is far better than we can imagine.”  

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Guardian Angel? Five Possible Signs You Have One

A 1993 poll by Time magazine provided one of the most detailed looks at how Americans view angels. About two thirds of respondents reported that they believed in angels. Nearly half said they had a guardian angel. In fact, about a third declared that they had experiences with their angels. The great majority described the angel as a superior, non-human being -- the classic religious angel. But a minority, about 15 per cent, disagreed. They considered an angel to be a departed human being.

How can you tell if, as the popular TV show put it, you have been “touched by an angel?”

You may have a strong feeling to do or say something – even something that seems illogical at the time – which later turns out to be correct course of action. 10 nights in a row, Cincinnati office worker David Booth had nightmares of an American airlines jet flipping over and crashing down in a huge fireball. Every night booth woke up crying. The FAA took his dreams seriously and tried unsuccessfully to identify the particular jet – figuring it was either a Boeing 727 or a DC 10 from Booth’s description. Booth never had the nightmares again after May 25, 1979. On that day, actress Lindsay Wagner, TV’s Bionic Woman, had a strong negative premonition as she and her mother were about to board an American Airlines DC-10, Flight 191, at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. Wagner canceled the pair’s reservations. Seconds after takeoff, one of the jet’s engines broke off, the jet flipped over, and crashed, killing all 273 aboard in a horrible fireball.

Well, you may literally have been touched. Some report physical contact. A South Carolina businessman accidentally fell overboard in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The boat’s skipper realized some eight miles later that he was gone, executed a perfect 180-degree turn and miraculously found the victim nearly an hour later, still treading water and floating – but at the end of his strength. As he sank at the last moment, as often happens during a rescue, the businessman felt hands grip him, support him and propel him to the boat, where he collapsed. On regaining consciousness, the businessman thanked the skipper for jumping in to save him. The helmsman was surprised and informed the businessman that he had been in the water alone the entire time.

You might see a dazzling being of light – the angel in its native glory. A 9-year-old Iowa farm girl accidentally locked herself in her father’s refrigerated meat truck. Some time later, slowly freezing to death, she shut her eyes and prayed for God to “take” her to relieve her of the painful hypothermia. Through her closed eyelids, she noticed a light. When she opened her eyes, she saw two shimmering columns of light – beings of some sort – that glided to her side, levitated her and carried her to the locked door, which now opened by itself. She was deposited outside in the hot August sun.

You might hear voices calling to you. In 1989, after her plane took off, travel agent Shari Peterson prepared to loosen her seat belt and take a sleeping pill. But then she heard a voice whisper to her: “Fasten your seat belt. You’re in for the ride of your life.” Within minutes, an explosion tore a huge hole in the plane’s side – right next to her seat. She watched in horror as nine passengers were sucked out of the plane, but her belt, though strained, held her in place. The plane plunged 1500 feet per minute toward the ocean. Lights blacked out, and passengers screamed or quietly spoke final words to one another. Peterson prayed for help, and “in my mind’s eye,” she said, “I saw this hand just swoop out of the clouds ... go almost under the side and bring the plane down gently.” The violent descent stopped, and the plane limped back to safety in Honolulu amid the cheers of the passengers.

There are other telltale signs, but perhaps the most common indication could be a meaningful coincidence or “synchronicity.” In 1799, a suicidal William Cowper hailed a London taxi and asked to be taken to the Thames River, where he secretly planned to drown himself. In thick fog, the cabbie wandered aimlessly, finally giving up the task as hopeless. He confessed to Cowper that he was too lost to even get him back home. Cowper stepped out of the cab and suddenly realized he was right in front of his home! He went inside and composed a church hymn still often sung today: God Moves in Mysterious Ways His Wonders to Perform.

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