By Bernadine Harrar
Some time ago, I was inspired to talk to Dorshei Emet about living in the north.I am from a town called Rouyn- Noranda in the Abitibi region. When I say north, I don't mean Laurentians . Noranda is situated north of the next parallel line that divides our earth. It is 8 hours north west of Montreal driving with very short stops to pee only !! My brother, Marvin, took over my father's business when we were young adults and after several years, my brother decided to sell the business and move to Montreal. I went to help him move. This meant that I had a young child with me, Miki, who was about 3 years old at the time. Marvin rented a U Haul on 3 wheels ,packed up his furniture and belongings, added my suitcase and Miki's tricycle, and we left very early Sunday, on a cold fall day. Well , a half hour later, we could see that the U haul that we were hauling had a problem. It was smoking and rubbing at the hitch site to the car. We stopped and had to keep stopping every half hour or so, to allow it to cool off. We could not do anything else as even though we gradually passed a Val D'or and Malartic. It was Sunday in Quebec rural areas and everything was closed. Keep in mind that Google and cellulars had not been invented yet! We started to take out some things from the u Haul and shift the weight, but we were limited in what we could do on the side of the road. . Part of the trip involves going through a provincial park called Parc La Verendrye. This is a beautiful area of nothing but wilderness. Not great for our predicament. It was afternoon and we had not made much mileage and.it was clear that we were not going to make it to Montreal. Our goal was to make it to Mont Laurier and not sleep in the car on the highway. Marvin decided to look for a clearing in the forest. The idea was to back into a clearing, unpack the u Haul and try to pack it better. Miki could ride his tricycle, while I helped shift furniture. Marving backed the U Haul and car onto the clearing and Oh Boy!! It was some kind of mud like quicksand and the wheels sank and sank. We are northerners and we know how to get out of snow and ice but not out of mud!! OK, we decided that I should flag down someone to help us, while Marvin watched Miki. It didn't take long and a truck stopped. The young French Canadian said in French, of course that we were very lucky because he was a chimney sweeper and had kilometers of sturdy rope.He was very happy to pull us out!! We tried to pay him. Then we thanked our angels who sent us none other than a chimney sweep to help us. But there is more to this story of protection from angels!! We were still in the wilderness with a defective u Haul, and a fidgety young child who was tired at this point!! We drove through the park and had not hit Mont Laurier yet. It was getting dark and we were worried. The hitch connection had caught fire and we really could not continue. Marvin pulled over and this time we decided that I should stay in the car with Miki and that Marvin would flag down someone. He returned a short while later in a truck with a nice man. Everyone was smiling. We are bilingual so the man's patois French didn't bother us. He explained that we were really in luck because he was the owner of the U Haul garage in Mt Laurier!!! He added that no one goes north from Mt Laurier in the dark on Sunday evening!! We were lucky that he had an urge to go north on a jaunt at that time!! Well, he brought us to his garage, opened it, and exchanged the U Haul. We let Miki drive his tricycle to his heart's content in the empty parking lot, while we shifted all the furniture into the new U Haul. We did all this with a flashlight in the dark but we did not complain.. 2 miracles: It was clear to us that our angels had protected us. It was the worst trip in my memory, but we came out of it safely with our angels watching over us!! Thanks for reading. Please use this address to write your angel stories. I would like to read about them.
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