Unfamiliar with the area, uncomfortable in the big Suburban my husband usually drove, and utterly tired with searching for a house, I was ready to head back for the day. That was when I heard a gravely sound and felt the Suburban pull to the right. Although we were not near any stores, I was overjoyed to see a gas station only a few hundred feet away. I steered in and got out and, sure enough, the front tire was quickly going flat.

The man at the station shook his head and told me they didn’t do repairs. As I was wondering what to do next, another man – whom I hadn’t noticed when I first walked in – said he had a compressor in his truck and would take a look at the tire for me. Totally inept with car problems, I accepted gratefully, and the man took over. He chatted amiably all the while as he examined the wheel, made temporary repairs and refilled the tire.

Although I tried to give him money, he refused, and as I sat in the Suburban, engine running, ready to go, he gave me an odd little smile before walking away. Surely a repaired flat tire is nothing to cry about. However, the cumulative frustration of moving halfway across the country with no real home or job in sight suddenly broke loose and less than half a mile down the road, my tears began to fall. The man had been so kind, so ready to help. It would have been so easy for him simply to say nothing.

“That man was an angel,” I told my daughter as I sniffed back tears. I regarded her in the rearview mirror, how she sat so snug and happy in her car seat, her big round eyes taking it all in. I smiled, and we rolled peacefully along the road.

“Mama,” Alyeska called out a few minutes later, as I was busy planning what we might have for dinner. “Mama!” she cried out, more insistent now. “Where was his wings?”

It took me a moment to understand what she was asking. The man was an angel, I had told her – where were his wings? In a second torrent of emotional overload, I laughed so hard that new tears began to form, and soon Alyeska was laughing too.

I suppose I could have explained that angels often show up when we least expect them. Or, I could have made up a story to show that angels are not limited to the traditional forms of feathered wings, haloes and glowing light – that angels are all around us, all the time, wherever we go. Perhaps I might have said that angels sometimes pop in and out of ordinary, everyday situations, working through other humans, or animals, or even ourselves.

But in that moment, our eyes drinking each other in through the rearview mirror, smiles spread wide, bodies dancing in laughter, shaking in joy, there was no need to explain anything. In that moment, we both knew the truth: we are all angels. Sometimes, we just need a reminder – a flat tire that forces us to slow down, open our hearts, give or accept help, and see with something more than our eyes.