“Thank you SO much for picking me up! I didn’t think anyone would accept the ride at this point,” I exclaimed to the Lyft driver, Jesús. I climbed into the back of his SUV soaking wet and discombobulated, having run from the entrance of the Museum of Natural Science to the waiting vehicle while lightning flashed, and thunder snarled overhead.

“Oh Kelly, you’re welcome. I was just about to shut the app off when your request came through. I accepted the ride because my house is close to your hotel. and I’m going home. My wife is going to start to worry,” he explained. Soft-spoken with a bushy grey mustache and weathered hands, Jesús reminded me of a vaquero from an old Hollywood movie.

A couple of hours earlier I arrived at the museum amidst a thunderstorm and some flash flood warnings. I had done my due diligence in checking the weather reports; Tropical Storm Imelda was hitting Texas, but the worst of the weather was forecasted to be east of the city.

Some favorites from the Houston Museum of Natural Science. 1) Trilobite; 2) Didelphodon (Cretaceous Tazmanian Devil); 3) Triceratops; 4) ammonite (w/sea-lizard bite marks); 5) araucarioxylon (fossilized triassic tree cross-section); 6) peridot and diamond necklace and earrings

I began getting emergency alerts on my phone while geeking over light refraction with a museum docent. It was a little after noon and I needed to get back to my hotel by 2pm to check-out. I allowed myself a few more minutes of optical mineralogy chatter before working my way down to the lobby and requesting a Lyft.  Jesús and I embarked on what would become, unbeknownst to either of us at the time, an epic 3.5-hour, 11-mile journey from museum to hotel, navigating through rising flood waters, abandoned vehicles, and a few tears.

After exchanging some pleasantries and chatting about the unexpected shift in the storm, Jesús explained that we had to try and get to the higher ground. Initially I thought he was slightly overreacting; I quickly understood the severity of our situation as we drove away from the museum and towards the highway. We were traveling slowly and as the water began to rise, so too did my stomach into my chest.

Jesús maneuvered in and out of neighborhoods, dodging already abandoned cars and utilizing his knowledge of Houston to find backroads and cross streets. We had been driving about 30 minutes when I realized the water was already so high the movement of the car was creating waves.

“Waves. Jesús, there are waves on the street.” We both chuckled nervously. We had been chatting the entire ride – about travel and Houston and food and family – but fell silent at this realization.

The F-150 in front of us came to a stop. We were on a heavily trafficked road filled with businesses and restaurants, so I assumed we had come to a red light or the visibility had gotten too poor for movement.

 “We have to turn around…the road is flooded…we have to get off this street.” Jesús was composed but I could hear the tension in his voice, and I frantically scanned the streets to determine the cause of this sudden shift in energy.

As we were turning around, I spotted a side street in front of us that was no longer a street. It was a river. And it was running downhill, right towards us. The fear set in and tears involuntarily welled in my eyes. I had never seen anything like it in my life.  

Jesús expertly finessed the car away from the river careening towards us and we began to hatch an escape plan should we need to exit the vehicle. We concurred that we would climb out the windows and swim/wade to the nearest structure.

“Jesús are we going to be ok? “ I finally caved and asked, having avoided the question for fear of the response I might get.

“Yes, Princesa, I will make sure of it.” And I trusted him.

His phone rang which snapped me out of my fearful haze and back to attention. The caller ID displayed the name as “Mi Cielo” – my sky, or my heaven.

“I have to get this, it’s my wife.”

Oof, my heart.

My stomach still in knots, Jesús turned the SUV around while consoling his wife, explaining our situation, and took an immediate left. Side roads were water laden but more navigable than the previous route, and we intersected another main road and decided to test it. Flooded.

We repeated this pattern – side road to main road to hard stop to turning around - for what felt like an eternity, all the while the water crept higher and higher.  

After close to two hours of navigating, Jesús said the highway was near. As we approached, we saw hundreds of cars and dozens of people outside their vehicles; the highway was flooded, too, and subsequently closed. We simultaneously sighed. While we were seemingly somewhat safer, we were no closer to being out of danger and no closer to being back to his wife, or my hotel.

Jesús didn’t take the exit onto the highway, and instead pulled hard to the right and back into the residential neighborhoods.

“I’m going to attempt to go north, onto this raised highway, and then go south to where we need to be”, as he gestured to the map on his phone.

“I trust you. You’ve kept us safe so far...I swear you’re my guardian angel.”

“Who, or what, is your cielo?”, he inquired. “Who are you trying to get back to?”

I paused, as I normally do when someone makes an inquiry that can only be answered by speaking your name, and I thought of you. About your calm, cool exterior and the way you comforted me always.

“My heaven is gone, but he’s always here”, I said, instinctively grabbing the necklace around my neck.

He nodded, understanding, and left it at that.

We were approaching three hours in Jesús’ SUV when we made it to the alternate highway. While there was an obscene amount of traffic, we were finally above the flood waters and my stomach released from my chest for the first time since leaving the museum.

It was almost another hour before we got to my hotel. I thanked him profusely and beseeched him to hug his wife for me, to tell her that I would not have made it out of the downtown area safely had it not been for him, and that he truly was my guardian angel. 

He nodded and laughed and agreed to do so, adding, “But Princesa, I think your heaven has been with us. I think he was our guardian angel today. I’m going to tell her that, too.”

Understanding exactly what he meant, I smiled, and left it at that.