Signs
I’m a big believer in signs, and a big non-believer in coincidences. The unseen makes itself known to us if we’re willing to accept the acquaintance. Signs from my Sweetheart that have made all the difference in my recovery, cheering me on when I’ve been on the cusp of despair.
My sweetie sends me hummingbirds, starting on the day I first knew he’d died, which was a pretty spectacular and meaningful display, and since then, few days pass when I don’t see a hummingbird. As always seems to happen, as soon as I dare make a public pronouncement of healing, as I did in my last post, the last couple days I’ve taken a turn for the worse and felt myself sinking. I miss him so damn much. Then yesterday on the way home from lunch, I saw 4 hummingbirds, and a 5th in my backyard; he’s a regular. Today, I saw 6 in the 10 minutes from office to backyard. 3 more after work. (Most days I see 1, 2 at the most.) I know they were for me, my spirit boosted by his. Not everyone would believe that; not everyone has to.
Not believing in coincidences, though, has a tendency to make one thoughtful and perhaps a bit more self-conscious. I find myself wondering if I am creating signs for someone else to interpret when I’m gone.
His last full weekend on earth, my sweetie took a long weekend to visit his daughter, son-in-law, and his granddaughter. He was always so busy with work that I encouraged him to go; it’s important to take time for those most important to us. He loved those girls so much. He loved his son-in-law, too, but his girls were his heartbeat. He had a wonderful time, and told me all about it when he got home. None of us imagined that he’d be gone within the week. I missed him that weekend, but even that first week after he passed I was glad that he’d had that time with his family. Still am. I know I wasn’t the only one to comment on it. I wondered if it was a goodbye that none of us could’ve recognized.
I leave Saturday for a vacation to Mexico, and I’ll be gone almost a week. A couple weeks ago, I had the strongest feeling that I really needed to get together with my dearest friends, because it had been too long. And once the arrangements were made, I thought how strange it was that I needed to do it then. Was it really just that it had been too long? Or was I, unbeknownst to me or anyone else, saying a goodbye that none of us could recognize?
Am I going to make it home from this trip? Since I only have PMS, not ESP, there’s no way for me to know. I’m not really worried about it for myself, but there are a few other people here who would be quite put out about it. And I guess I might be a little annoyed to have spent all this time and effort to put my life together again just to check out. Just like A did.
But I think this way now. Having spent almost 19 months trying to find myself, and my place in the cosmos, again, swimming in The Mystery, what was once a propensity has become a habit. I keep coming up against this: If there are signs to the good, it stands to reason that there are signs to the bad as well, right? And I can’t ignore that. That feeling of doom I felt the month before he died? A sign I see only in hindsight, but it’s clear enough.
So then I start wondering what other business I should attempt to finish in the next 3 days and nights before I get on that plane. Should I finish that Will? Burn my journals? And then the hamster in my brain is off and running on its wheel and what started as an interesting philosophical jaunt is now a neurosis, however temporary.
In the end (and The End), it won’t matter. I will never be able to make my passing painless for anyone else. I will never be able to finish all the business that will need to be finished for the easy passing on of the baton of household management. There will be something I forgot to do, some file that someone will have to search high and low for. There will always be someone I didn’t get to say goodbye to, and someone I left last with some rudeness I didn’t mean. They will have to wrestle with the "Whys" and the guilt and the recriminations and everything else, just as I did. And that’s really what I worry about: That, try as I might, I will not be able to spare those who love me the pain I have experienced.
Maybe none of us are supposed to be spared the pain of loss. Maybe it’s part of why we’re here; it certainly seems to be one of the defining features of the experience. But I remember that pain, a pain that still aches in the rain, and I’d never ever want it to touch anyone I love. I’m willing to carry the burden of being The One Who Knows if it means that no one else I care about will ever have to take on the job. If I could make such a deal with the universe, it might just be worth it.
But I know I can’t. I know because too many of the people I love know that loss already; I am too late, and I was not spared by their having experienced it. And if I’ve learned anything, it’s that most things are not under my control; only I am under my control, and there are limits even to that. And all my dashing around before my big journey, to Mexico or to whatever comes after this life, is just me trying to create the illusion of control for myself. I suppose I should just let go of the illusion, leave the dishes in the sink, and get on the plane. No matter what happens, I’ll arrive home.