Carry on Tuesday: Where there is love there is life

Angel of Light (Photo credit: the twinkling of an eye)

My upcoming birthday is in two days, yes, that’s right in two days. I do keep track of time, today is  11/11, my youngest daughter’s favorite time (at night) and favorite date and month. I remember she was thrilled when it was 11.11.11. I think that one of her old friends got married  on 11/11, have no idea of the date but it was a very long time ago, I remember driving my daughter to her house and getting the phone call. You know the one, the one where she says one thing that is code for “please pick me up NOW.”

I know she did that for her own kids, my grandchildren. Her first boy was like her, a little tentative, I had patience but their grandmother (he said  chuckling) “no way.” I remember she growled at him “Get back to bed” and he was scared after that, poor thing. The little one, the girl, “Principessa”, I called her in Italian, she decided to sleep over at 2 and a half, no pajamas, no doll, no toys and sure enough, she did. Slept through the night, oh, this one was going to be a world traveler, just like her grandmother. There was some bond between those two from the second she was born. I felt a closer bond with the boy, he was more like his mom, and like me, a little scared, “we were no heroes.” My daughter used to hide in the dark and scare me when she still lived at home, I didn’t know till many years later that she was more afraid of the dark than I ever was. She begged her own children not to scare her, ever. The things we learn over time; the things we all hide.

This is important: Our physical bodies die, yes, but not our spirits. Never our spirits and NEVER our love for you who are still on earth. My daughter believes that, she likes a message from me now and then and I send them to her when she needs them most. My wife, her mom, she is scared of messages, doesn’t really believe so I’m very gentle with her. She had a really hard life, I knew her best and defended her but no one else really did. In our family, my youngest was just like me and my eldest daughter was just like her mother, that’s why it’s been harder for “the little one.” I get it. That, I can’t change, that she needs to deal with on her own, like the grown-up she is. Her mother and I always used to say, “she’s sweet on the outside but don’t ever forget, inside she is steel.” “She can handle anything.” She always did, I wish she could remember that more often, but that too, she needs to learn and relearn.

There is an expression that I have heard even when I was living on earth, “where there is love, there is life” I’m here to explain that. Once there is love, there is ALWAYS love. Love. Does. Not. Die. How could it? Why would we stop loving you any less in  the after life than you would stop loving us? It doesn’t make sense, right? We want you to go on in your lives, to be happy, to know that our physical bodies are healed but also know, we will never forget you just like you won’t forget us. Remember, as your love for us continues, our love for you does too. Keep your hearts open to everything good. Remember always, we love you back, and watch over you, always. p.s. To my little one, I appreciate your birthday wishes but please don’t be sad. Love, Dad

Carry on Tuesday

angel (Photo credit: M@rg)

Title : Old and wise

First line: As far as my eyes can see

I stare at an old photograph, taken in 1991, of my father and me.  It was taken in my husband’s and my first garden, actually our only functioning garden, ripe with carrots and beans and peas and three types of tomatoes and corn that the raccoons ate. My arm was around my  father’s neck, my dad and I are grinning. We both looked incredibly happy, his eyes: grey-blue, old and wise, saying without words ” I knew one day you would have your dream.”  I am 6 months pregnant in the photograph; it had taken me over 2 and a half years to get pregnant. During that time, I shed more tears than I thought possible. In that photograph, in the late afternoon sunshine, with my dad, both of us were beaming.

During the long phase of infertility however, I was poked and prodded and put through every invasive test known to woman-kind by my doctor and everything was done in complete secrecy. I was ashamed, it was all my fault.

Only many years later did magazines burst into publication with articles describing the shots we had to take, the mood swings, the twice daily blood tests and ultra-sounds, the stress and depression we felt. Back when I was desperately trying to get pregnant, we kept our feelings to ourselves. Sometimes we shared our lives with the other people in the infertility office, a very strange, yet delicate friendship. You wanted your friends to get pregnant but not at your own expense. It was a double-edged sword. Close but not too close.

The photograph before me, which stands framed on my table now, represents both the good and bad; ultimate happiness and deep depression. I was pregnant and standing next to one of my favorite people, my dad. Sadly, he died when both my children were young but at least he knew they were born. No one could replace him for me, no one could have felt more dramatically upset than my mom and I. He was my mother’s husband, but for me, he was my hero. He knew me better than anyone. We had the same personality, my sister and my mother still do. Without our spouses and kids, our nuclear family consisted of three; our mother, my sister and myself; a triangle is a tough combination. I can’t understand how they think.

I’ve had to fight on my own, grow-up, remain firm and I have done that; it’s hard for me to even remember what it was like having someone who understood me so well, having an ally in the family. I look up at the clouds sometimes, I look as far as my eyes can see and beyond that, for a sign from heaven, from my dad. I am one of those people who definitely believes in those signs, that bodies die but souls don’t; that love NEVER dies. How could it? I know my dad still loves me as I love him. When he first died I got many, many signals and messages. As time passed, I got fewer. But I know, if I truly needed him, he would, without a doubt, send me a sign to show me that he is still watching over me and that love is everlasting.

The Message

I don’t know how to begin to write this, other than with a hushed voice,  barely a whisper. It is something so important to me and something I believe in, even though I know many will scoff.  I don’t really care, I know what I have felt, seen, heard, experienced. I have felt the chills go up and down my arms, tiny hairs sticking straight up. Others, like me, will rejoice in the affirmation that they are not “imagining things” that “it’s not a coincidence.”  What we know, those of us who believe, cannot be swayed. It is a gift for us, from the other side.

After my father died in 2002 I was lost, overcome by grief and had never felt the breaking of my heart in such a literal way. Life, as I knew it, had ended. No more pep-talks from my dad, no more nurturing hugs, no more inside jokes. My dad had lived his life as a company man, working for TWA airlines for most of his life, well over forty years. He loved TWA, volunteered to be a flight attendant when there was a flight attendant strike; flew to Chicago for milk when there was a milk strike in NY to feed my sister.  He volunteered for anything TWA related; he was not a pilot although sometimes I think he thought he was.

A few days after the funeral, in the bitter, frosty cold, I finally dragged myself out of the house just to get some fresh air. I needed a destination so I drove to a thrift shop a few towns away that I had liked to go to in the past. I walked in, looked around, saw nothing of interest and walked out again. On my way in there was a clear pathway, no litter, no clutter, no loose pieces of paper, nothing. On my way out of the thrift shop not fifteen minutes later I walked down three steps and saw a bright, red, plastic wrapped luggage tag. It said TWA on it. I knew that was a sign from my dad and I crumpled up and cried right there on the pavement. I was overcome yet thankful for the message, he was still with me and I knew he always would be. I carry that card, to this day, in my pocketbook.

I had received messages from my dad, given to me by others, for example the lovely and talented Roland Comtois, a  psychic who channels messages from the dead to the living.  In fact, a message was waiting for me, written down by Roland, before I even appeared at his event. Also, I had felt my father while I was sitting at my children’s school recitals and there would be a rush of wind out of no where.  I knew Dad was watching. Admittedly, the messages, throughout the years became less frequent but to this day, when I need my Dad the most, he is there. I believe this to my core and while my mom gets scared by these stories, I get comforted.

Two weeks ago we drove our daughter to sleep away camp in Connecticut. On the way there I noticed the car ahead of us whose license plate was 222-TWA. I gasped and eagerly showed my husband who is definitely a skeptic. He smiled and I knew that he didn’t believe the way I did but it didn’t matter. “Hi Dad” I whispered. Just nights before I prayed for my dad to be with us; my husband has been unemployed since September and I have been sick with an auto-immune disease for 3 years. I told him, “Mom is really worried” which was true and he always had been so protective of my mom. “We need your help, Dad. Please.”

We dropped our daughter off, and kissed and hugged good-bye leaving her in the arms of her friends she hadn’t seen in a year. There was a lot of happy squealing and shouts of joy, a good time for parents to leave, knowing that she was happy.

The drive home was uneventful except for my husband excitedly shouting “Look at that car!”  I turned my head to the side and right in front of us was the license plate 888-TWA.  My husband became an instant convert,  knowing that the number 8 was a special number between my father and I since I was a little girl. “Thank you Daddy” I said, trying to figure out what the message was.

The pep-talk I had been missing was right in front of me. The glass of water, for me had always been “half empty” but for my dad it had always been “half full.” I used to over-worry everything and now, as my Dad once instructed, “just try to be in neutral” and I was trying, with a grateful smile above. My prayers had been answered, he was letting us know that he was there, he had heard us, he would help.

The lights in our bedroom, on the right side, go dim for hours at a time, and then they come back on later, this has been happening for three weeks now. The bulbs don’t burn out, they just have this pattern, day in and day out, night and day.  For some people it could be explained by a loose circuit. But to me, it’s my father staying in touch and winking.