Those stories where people’s loved ones die and then they find that missing cufflink or that special piece of jewelry that the person cherished in life, sitting on top of the pillow of their freshly made bed — those stories sometimes kill me.

It isn’t that I don’t believe them, I do believe them. That’s the problem. It makes me wonder sometimes why my dad didn’t do that for me.

When he died, I never found a single piece of his cherished items from life. In fact, I began to lose even the things he had given me right before his death: the brooch of silver worked around varicolored stones and gems in the shape of a roadrunner, the pocket watch with the train engraved upon the back that still worked. These treasures faded like the memory of his smirk and the feel of his grizzled face when I kissed him goodnight.

Three decades later, I am sitting in meditative space and reflecting on yet another story I’d heard of the long lost item reappearing. I say to my father, who I know can hear me and feel me still, “If you can, bring me back that pocket watch.” I instantly feel guilty. What a specific request and how impossible, perhaps, and then, like a perfect trap, if his Soul or consciousness can’t pull it off, what then? I’m left to believe he doesn’t love me enough or care enough to do it? It is like a woman asking her husband if she looks fat — there’s no good end to the conversation that doesn’t result in dismay.

I instantly apologize and tell him, from the heart, “I know you love me, obviously you don’t have to make the pocket watch come back. I love you.”

This was days ago… I would’ve never reflected upon it again. Not ever. It was a non-occurrence. A random, Tuesday thought in the middle of nowhere. It had no significance and it wandered off into the place where the other ten-trillion thoughts have wandered to.

Yesterday, my love, Johnny, received a package from a friend a few states away. They hadn’t spoken for decades and then suddenly reconnected, recently. The friend had been cleaning out his basement of old family stuff: things from grandparents, random relics, strange acquisitions over the years. Johnny had commented how fun that must be to just be able to dig through memories and treasures. The friend said he had been moved to put together a care package for both Johnny and me. When it arrived, I was distracted and playing a video game. Johnny opened it and the first thing he pulled out, saying, “Oh that’s cool!”, stopped me dead.

I began to cry uncontrollably and asked to hold it. It was a pocket watch. A little silver pocket watch. It wasn’t the same pocket watch, no train engraved on the back, but it was a pocket watch in the middle of nowhere, from nothing, seemingly from the aether itself.

After I cried forever, Johnny finally got the story out of me. He texted his friend and his friend’s response was that he “didn’t know why he included it, felt stupid about including it, but felt literally moved to do so, as though guided”.

I would’ve never remembered, never held it against him, never looked back at all…but there it was, the pocket watch I asked for from my father. He was right there again, smirking and hugging me and laughing at how insane life can be and my heart is fuller for it.

No words can really describe the feeling of knowing your prayers are heard and responded to. Nothing can transmit the feeling, the knowing… but here’s a start:

Life is beautiful, death is not an end to life, you are always heard, remember to reach out and ask, let your heart be open.

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