She'd half-laugh and then melt as my face fell, unsatisfied at the answer. She'd wrap me in her soft, squishy body and whisper in my ear, "I just know it's beautiful because it's full of love."
My mom also believed heaven was more like an invisible dimension surrounding us instead of the celestial image high above us. I like her version. It lets me picture her next to me watching her grandsons play and commenting to my dad that my youngest has not only my curls but my sense of mischief.
So maybe we don't get a glossy 4 x 6 postcard of a celestial city glittering with streets of gold and a "Wish you were here" tagline from a winking angel. But I believe our loved ones send us signs just the same. And I'm a natural born skeptic who scoffs at vortexes, magic crystals, psychics, and guardian angels, the latter because mine is either lazy or constantly in the bathroom when my klutzy moments happen.
Yet, I've had occasions in my life where I felt like my parents were sending me signals from beyond. My dad, true to his larger-than-life personality seems to be the loudest and most often like the wild postcards he'd sent daily of London punks in the 80s or castles around Britain.
I remember one June a couple of years after he passed around the time of my birthday, he seemed adamant to tell me he was there. I kept seeing random images of a Welsh dragon or a daffodil, tokens of my Welsh father, just when I was feeling blue.
One day I'd been crying in the car, frustrated that I couldn't talk to him in our weekly five minute phone calls that he was famous for. He'd mastered the art of cramming politics, history, pop culture, and love all in those expensive international minutes, he could barely afford on his phone bill. I longed for the stimulation of those conversations, even when he got my hair on end with constant nit-picking and rantings, because they made me feel. They made me feel worthy of so much passion and energy, his molecules bouncing off the speaker and transmitting themselves into my living room. His intensity radiated light like one of the aliens in Cocoon. So there I was silently crying over my steering wheel on I-5 South passing downtown San Diego, numb to my favorite view of the skyline and harbor when I saw the Welsh license plate cover on the car in front of me.
A few days later, I had chills as I entered a small jewelry shop in the picturesque mountain town of Julian. I had been humming a song in my head, Nana Mouskouri's First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, a record he bought the day I was born and sang to me in his enthusiastically off-key tenor. As I opened the door, the song greeted me, playing over the store's radio, the chill of surprise warming like a hug across my chest. I smiled to myself, glowing with memories. For days after that I'd see signs with his name, Allan, an unusual spelling and the Welsh word for "out".
Then when I first started writing again in September of 2014, I'd get these manias where I'd plot out ideas while singing show tunes in the car between dropping off kids at school. But I started to have a dry spell. I felt like a recovering addict, the writing high had been so visceral, I felt numb without it. So there I was singing Don't Cry for Me Argentina, a song he taught me when I was three, and a golden Welsh dragon and the sign Cambria, the Latin word for Wales appeared before me on the side of a van. And my brain clicked. The plot started writing itself again, warm fuzzies crawled up my chest and into my brain and danced a jig. I kept seeing the sign again, coincidence maybe as the Cambria company is located her in the Coachella Valley. But it sparked my imagination and brought a smile to my face whenever I saw it or passed the office on Cook.
Finally, when I found my Claddagh ring hidden in a straw basket of seashells in the guest bathroom, I danced with joy. I'd had my 1st one stolen when our house was robbed. It had been a gift from his trip to Bunratty Castle in Ireland, a symbol of his love and my Celtic heritage. But he replaced it with another one that I vowed to never take off but unfortunately did and then lost it. To find it in the shell basket, a symbol of the sea we loved, the salt in our bloods from generations of Welsh sailors bringing Welsh coal to the four corners of the globe, I knew it was from him. A postcard with the words, "Tell my girl I love her" the last words he said to my mom before he died written in his tight, nearly illegible script. I wear it as a reminder, a connection to my dad and his passion.
My mother's postcards are quieter, more subtle. I see signs from her in art, mainly in my son, Will's passion for creating and playing with her old watercolors. He's poky like her and quiet at times. But never to be underestimated. He is her largest postcard, one of those giant, pasteboard ones sold in novelty stores.
But I will never forget the lady I met walking along the shore of Shelter Island in Point Loma. She was short and curly-haired, and my scrap-booking friends and I stopped to talk to her one dusky evening. She was from Pennsylvania like my mom and arty, but more than that - she had my mom's spirit. My dearest childhood friend, Mandy, noticed it too. It was like my mom just wanted to chat, to enjoy an evening walk along the coast, and be apart of creative people. I walked away full of her, a hug around my heart, a smile imprinted deep on my face.
Now I also wear her love around my neck, a golden thread of her pulling me in close for a snuggle or my own childish arms stretched up to reach her, as I drape her Celtic cross over my head and rest it over my chest. I bought it as a Christmas gift for her when I lived in Dublin, something to match the one my dad gave me, something that said I missed her even when I was enjoying my Irish adventure, something that reflected the beliefs we both shared. And I was devastated when I couldn't find it after her death. I searched her house, her clothes, her wallets, anywhere and everywhere I could to find it. I needed to clothe myself in something of hers after she left. I needed a talisman against the gut-ripping agony I felt when the numbness would recede and memory would bite.
For many years, I felt the necklace was gone - lost or somehow burnt with her ashes melted into her bones. Then one melancholy day while going through her pictures, I found a box of old silver. There hidden beneath tarnished silver bowls and the cheap pewter candy dish I bought her at Yellow Front was her necklace. I put it on feeling instantly connected to her. I wear it still, usually hidden beneath my t-shirt close to my skin.
Some may argue these signs are nothing more than coincidence. That we read into something trivial something that's not there. Maybe. But I choose to see the connection, the celestial nudge reminding us that we are still connected, still loved. If anything, maybe we read into these signs hidden meaning because the meaning is hidden within us. We are the biggest postcard of all, their words written across our personalities and memories, their love stamped across our lips and foreheads and anywhere else they kissed us when they were alive.
What does it matter if it's real or not?
No comments:
Post a Comment