I've had a life with may twists and turns and lots of bumps in the road, but some of these were for the better, despite how awful they seemed at the time.

There are two I can think of, and they tie together in a mysterious way that nobody could've seen coming. The first was the death of my grandmother right after my seventh grade year.

My grandmother Louise, on my mom's side, was a really smart person. She taught me so much that I've used in my life, and I was with her the day she died. And, in a soft voice, she told me something I've never forgotten, not in all my years.

"Claire, there's so much coming ahead in your life that you can't even imagine right now," she said. "You'll have great moments, and terrible moments. But sometime in your life, you'll meet amazing people that can change everything. These people, these amazing people, are there for a reason. You have to hold on to them, and treasure them, and never let them go. These people, Claire, can change your destiny. You have to watch for these people to come in your life. Just wait patiently, and sooner or later, they'll come."

She gave me the news, the alert that special people were in my destiny. I just had no idea how soon they would come into that silly little destiny of mine.

I always thought that my destiny was something prewritten into the fabric of the Universe, that this would always be how things were supposed to turn out. But these special people could rewrite my destiny, something that wasn't as solid as I thought, but rather fluid and bended by others, bended by my own choices.

The other major change was something that wasn't what anybody could've fathomed would happen. Many bad things happened, but so many good things did too. I'm still puzzling over it, but I don't think anybody would write some of those bad things into the destiny of the Universe itself.

Partway through my eighth grade year, so many of these special people came into my life. They came in a dark time, and together we stood and rode out everything that was thrown at us. They turned my life from a horrible experience, just something that I wanted to end already and just be over, into the best thing that ever happened to me.

Later, after this incident, I told my best friend about what my grandmother had told me before she died. My friend and another one of the very special people I hold dear to me, Massie Block, told me she thought they were the angels that wrote out our destiny and decided to bless our lives to heal the Universe a little bit at a time, to bring some happiness into every life.

Maybe they are angels, and maybe they do write out our destiny for us, millions and billions and trillions of years before we come around. If my destiny was always supposed to be this way, I wonder who wrote these amazing people, these angels, into my life, and if I can ever thank them for what they've done.

But if my destiny was always supposed to be flexible, then I would've never made the acquaintance of so many angels, because I wouldn't have been entered in a contest against my will by my friend Kristen Gregory.

Either way, my destiny, my path, was blessed with many angels that did so much for me. I am the person I am today because of them, and there's not a single thing I would change.

So the question remains, who are these special people? Are they really angels that write themselves into the legend that is our history? Or are they just normal humans that happen to be extraordinary in so many ways that can brighten our lives?

This is the story of these special people, the lives they affected, the lives they led, and where we ended up because of them. And they all claim I was among their ranks of angels, because I was in this adventure as much as they were. I don't consider myself an angel, but maybe none of us do. Maybe us angels never know our identity until the very end.

Read my story, my friends, and decide for yourself.