signs?

I have made several entries about the signs I've seen after J died. I don't document them all, although, I probably should so I can refer to them in dark, hopeless moments.

Yesterday I had had a pretty good day; and with good, I mean, even... acceptable...no crying or overwhelming sadness. Then came the night. The kids had gone to bed, I had turned off all screens to calm my mind in order to prepare for bed time. I didn't want to have another late night. I thought, maybe if I read, I'll get tired. It was already past midnight. When I went into the kitchen for some water, it suddenly hit me again. I was drowning in his absence and I didn't know how to stop it. Before I knew it I was sobbing so hard I had to bend over on the kitchen counter to get a grip. As I lifted my head to take a breath, elbows on the counter, hands on my wet cheeks, I found myself looking straight at a piece of art-work my 11-year-old had made for her 9-year-old sister. It was a name plaque made of clay, carrying my younger kid's initials. It had been in the kitchen for at least a month or two. I have to move it every day to get to my coffee can. And, every day, I'm annoyed that it's still sitting in the kitchen when it should be in the children's room.
But what I saw in this moment took my breath away, made me smile, and chuckle through my tears. It was a detail I hadn't noticed in all this time. On the top of the plaque, barely noticeable, my daughter had carved "I Love U" but because I saw these words for the first time in this very overwhelmingly sad moment, I took it as a message from J.

The name plaque as I saw it every day for the past couple of months.

What I saw the moment I looked up from the tears in my palms.

The signs suggesting his presence are always subtle and sometimes very vague but so in tune with the way I feel at that moment, that it's hard to ignore them or dismiss them as something I'm making up in my head. When the sign is tiny, it's maybe a bottle popping [totally on cue], a door slamming shut because of a sudden draft, or a cold breeze embracing me. I don't know where the "signs" are coming from but they just don't feel like coincidence. It happens too often. Funnily enough, when J's mom tells me of her experiences like these (similarly subtle stuff such as lights flickering, his favorite shirt falling out of the closet and to her feet, or a dream) I always have the urge to rationalize it away and tell her she is reading too much into it. It never seems believable when it happens to someone else. This is probably why spirituality is such a personal thing. It has to be, for no one can truly feel what you feel. A spiritual experience is highly subjective, and, while completely fulfilling for the individual, hard to relate to by others.

Sometimes the signs are unmistakable. Like the message on the plaque, or the window shade shooting up at 3 o'clock in the morning as I am waking up out of deep sleep.
Or, for example, last week, as I was returning home from my very first grief support meeting, I suddenly noticed that the guy sitting across from me was wearing a wooden rosary - as J used to wear it. In fact, just earlier in the day, I had looked at picture of him with the rosary around his neck and I specifically paused at the memory on how he would wear it under his shirt sometimes.
When I lowered my gaze (to not totally make the guy uncomfortable with my dreamy stare at his chest), I noticed that the man standing right next to me was wearing two pairs of sock. It was so subtle that I would have never detected it, had he not been so close. According to the autopsy report I had just read a few days ago, J was wearing two pairs of socks the night he died. I remember thinking how peculiar that was and to now see this on another person got me convinced that J was sending me signs to show me that he was with me.

A few days before this, I could have sworn, I had a full conversation with him.

I was so sad...sitting in a cafe surrounded by friends and tons of people listening to a band playing. I was staring at the ground, fighting back the tears. I missed him soo much. And then this conversation began in my head:

- Stop crying. I'm right here.

- .... You are here?

- Yes.

- [very sceptically]... Really?

- Yes.

- So.. I can ask you anything.

- Yes.

- ......... Why did you die?

- ... I don't know.

-.... [I couldn't think of anything to ask so i just said,] I love you soo much.

- I love you too, Dear.  [Dear!? ... I totally forgot that J used to call me Dear.]

- I miss you.

- I'm right here.

- Easy for you to say. ...... How am I ever gonna be able to live without you?

- You're going to be fine.   .... ...  
                                             [now]  .... clap.

I dutifully began applauding. The song had ended and everyone around me was clapping while I had still been staring at the ground engrossed by my strange out-of-this-world conversation.

Last night, a friend of mine sent me a video of birds flying and it made me think about how much I loved the sound of birds...and - oh, how I wished, I could sit somewhere now to listen to them sing. And, a few minutes later, at almost one o'clock in the morning, I hear birds in the tree by my window. I can't describe the gratitude I felt for this gift, as I saw it. I listened to the birds sing for almost an hour and when they stopped I went to bed and slept better than in a long time. Here one of the recordings I made in pure disbelief. The quality isn't that great, I used my cellphone and you can hear cars but you get a little sense of the atmosphere. I have occasionally heard birds at night but usually it's a nightingale..if it's late at night. Birds like these, I usually don't hear until the wee hours of the morning.



One would think that all this metaphysical stuff should be bringing me comfort and, it does. But, it isn't enough. It isn't good enough! And there is nothing I can do.
I can't see him, I can't touch him, I can't plan the rest of my life with him.

The question is, would I have been able to do the latter with him had he not died? Was he ever going to recover from his addiction? I know, he wanted to beat this battle but could it have been that he may have spent his life on the street, like my older brother, who never recovered? Would it have hurt more to have seen him succumb completely to alcoholism and sink so low that he would be living out of a shopping cart, sleeping on a park bench? ... I am clinging on to the image that he would have made it and that it is this which I (and his family) have lost. But, maybe he wouldn't have made it and God relieved him of his misery. He was relapsing regularly and I remember fighting with him about this until the end.

But, ..... of course ... nothing matters.
I lost my soul-mate, my love, my everything ... and no hypothetical analysis of potential outcomes of his life will change that.

A friend, who lost her boyfriend to suicide 10 years ago, reminded me how lucky I am to have my kids in this time of grief. And I know I am. I feel blessed and eternally grateful for these two wonderful girls I've been given. Sometimes I look at them and I actually feel the love tingling under my skin.
Most of the time, they drive me crazy, of course. They are moody, stubborn, opinionated tweens who don't listen half the time but they are healthy, affectionate, and lovely children and I never forget to thank God for that.