Signs and Symbols

In all the reading I have done the past 7 weeks most of it has centered around grieving or the afterlife.  All day I had been thinking about emailing a fellow widow about this subject only to log on to her Blog as see that she posted on this exact subject today.

Okay, maybe you don't believe in signs.  I suppose what I am leaning toward is the idea that events both big and small are not coincidental and that they can be influenced from the Other Side.  Are you laughing now?  Maybe you are thinking I have completely lost my marbles.

Here is the root of all of this.  I look back at the past 6 months and in retrospect see signs that we were headed toward this major event.

Chris had two separate dreams in which he was with Owen.  In the first they were on a train in the mountains and trapped all around by fire.  He said he knew they were going to die but he called me on his cell phone to tell me 'everything is going to be alright.'  In the second dream he was physically fighting another person who was trying to take Owen from him.  Pertinent?  Chris rarely remembered dreams and never was bothered by bad ones.  He was bothered by both of these.

Chris and I had plans to leave the kids overnight with my parents on Saturday, November 20th so we could buy a car and go Christmas shopping plus get a few things done at the house.  Had we bought that car, as we had been planning, we would have spent about $15,000.  I am so thankful now that I have that money in my account to help me figure out this financial piece instead of a new car in the driveway that I won't ever drive.

Chris was supposed to be working that Wednesday morning.  All day Tuesday he had been trying to get a hold of the man who could Okay him working on another foreman's job.  It ended up that this guy was out sick so Chris never got the okay.  For this I am partly grateful because he was home.  We spent his last moments with him.  He wasn't driving or alone with the kids thus causing more trauma or death.  Instead he got up with the kids, made them breakfast, we all chatted at the table during our last meal together and I know he loved every moment of it.  I believe we were all where we were supposed to be at that moment and that I was supposed to be the one to find him.  The last one to touch his skin. 

Now, you are probably wondering about now.  I have had a few experiences I have shared with a select few.  After the first I swore to myself I wouldn't tell a soul.  In the end, I blurted it out to his brother that same afternoon while sitting in the lobby at Wells Fargo waiting to put my name on the memorial account.  I had no intention of telling Jer even when he picked me up to go over there.  I have no idea why I suddenly blurted it out except I think I was supposed to tell him.  I subsequently shared it with his best friend and my mom.

I won't share then here because I suppose I feel they are slightly sacred.  Admittedly I find myself rationalizing most things away.  It's easy to do.  But I will share one more.

Today I had my IPOD playing while just Owen and I were home.  The song Just Breathe came on and as I walked back upstairs I stopped to listen to Owen...humming to the song.  He does this sort of singing/humming thing to songs he likes and somewhat knows.  I smiled and thought it was cute.  As I came back down the stairs a few minutes later, Owen was trying to tell me something and pointing at the speakers.  The song had changed.  I changed it back and he sat back down at the kids table, smiling, kicking swinging his feet, humming along, looking at a book.  It happened two more times.  I love this song. I chose it for the slide show at the life celebration.  It's no coincidence it came on because it's been on my IPOD for a couple years.  I was shocked Owen knew the song.  I'm not sure what it "means" but I'll take my own personal message from it and smile.

I love Chris eternally.  Being a widow at 33 (ok almost 34) is shocking.  Most widows are much further into their lives thus the idea of their loved one waiting for them on the other side is perhaps comforting.  If I had a dollar for every conversation I had in which the participant told me they hoped I would find love and happiness again I would be a rich woman.  In the end, my love for Chris is eternal.  I can't imagine there ever being a day when I will decide that it is acceptable to love another person.  I can't imagine that all of this just fades to black, curtain closed.  There has to be more.  In that place that is more, I have to imagine that Chris is there rooting for us, cheering us on, trying to reach out to us, wanting to dry our tears and most of all wanting us to find the strength and confidence that he knew was there in the three of us all along.

One Important Addition: (1/11/2011) I forgot to add one more event.  About two months before Chris died we were laying in bed both reading our books and I suddenly had this sinking feeling.  I looked at Chris and said "Are you going to leave me?"  Now, I had absolutely no reason to believe Chris had or would ever leave our marriage but I had this weird, pit-of-my-stomach feeling.  He laughed me off and told me I was crazy.  I laughed too and went back to ready but thought about this moment for a few days.  About a week after Chris died I recalled this moment.