I vividly remember the day in Sunday school where our teacher talked to us about guardian angels.

"They help you through life," she said. "They want you to go to heaven."

I can remember thinking how cool it was that there was an angel just for me. Someone to help me through life and be there for me when I was hurt. We were given guardian angel coloring sheets and I happily colored mine all sorts of different colors, then proudly hung it up in my room where it stayed for years until I put it in a keepsake box where it is to this day.

That day in Sunday school made me much more aware of the symbolic representations of angels in our culture. I would walk around in the stores and find the little statues of angels that you put in your garden and show them to my mom or dad. I would look at the stained glass windows at Church that had angels all over them and trace them with my fingers. My favorite time of the year has always been Christmas because of all of the angel decorations that would be displayed across yards and the ornaments that would be all over our tree.

Another reason I loved Christmas so much was because we would go to my grandma's house and she would have a plethora of angels all over her house.

This newfound obsession with guardian angels made me believe that I could see mine. I was a very shy, quiet kid so many of my friends were imaginary friends who I would play with. One of my imaginary friends was my guardian angel, who I pictured as a little girl around the same age as me with blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

She was with me through many of my childhood adventures. If I was on the swing set, she'd be in the swing next to me. If I was playing with toys, I'd always leave her one. If I had a glass of juice, she'd have one too.

As I got older, I came out of my shell more and my guardian angel began to appear less and less. When I reached high school I had basically forgotten about her, even though I still wholeheartedly believed in guardian angels.

Until one day when I was coming back from a swim team practice. My brother was driving me and my younger brother home. I was in the passenger seat, barely paying attention to the road in front of me because I was reading a text message on my phone. Somehow, I decided to look up just in time to see that my brother had been distracted and started to drift into the oncoming lane of traffic where a truck was heading straight towards us. I panicked and grabbed the wheel just in time to serve back onto the correct lane.

And somehow, in my state of panic, I noticed in the corner of my eye the same little girl with blonde hair, blue eyes that I had always pictured as my guardian angel was standing on the sidewalk next to the road. When I looked back there was no one there.

While I can't confirm that this little girl was my guardian angel, it was still a crazy experience. I've thought a lot about what happened that day and found comfort in the fact that there may be an angel looking out for me.