Let's pretend that I was killed on that day, when I wasn't.

The day when my guardian angel managed to throw my F-86F half a second from becoming a fireball in the desert, up into a clear sky, way above what would have been the impact point.

If she hadn't done this, if she hadn't spared my life time after time in the 80-some years that we've been together, I wouldn't have written this book that brings those strange times together, and suggests why we choose any lifetime in the first place.

For 78 of those years, I had no idea that she existed, hadn't heard about guardian angels and what their job might be. Hadn't heard that our angel stays with us from the minute we're born till the time that our mission is done, and we come home to the place we call heaven.

Today I've just about finished a lifetime, and at last I can understand what it is that we do as mortals, and why we choose these over all the other possibilities.

Thank you, dear guardian angel, and please consider that with your consent and signature, our contract will extend to yet another lifetime.