When you have a situation that deeply tests your faith, how do you respond? Praying? Getting angry with God and asking why me? Turning to any other distraction to ignore the situation at hand? Or do you have to look at the big picture and find hope and peace in the signs around you?
I was raised in the Episcopal church. We went every Sunday, faithfully. I went to church camp and weekend religious retreats, went to youth group and Sunday school, served as an acolyte. After college, my first job was a full time camp counselor at an Episcopal camp in Maryland. I spent two summers there. I felt very strong in my faith and relationship with God.
Matt was raised Catholic. I know he was not involved in church activities to the extent that I was, however our two backgrounds religiously meshed well. He was received into the Episcopal church and we felt it important to baptize our kids in my childhood church.
Once Matt was diagnosed with cancer, I remember thinking, "Why us, Lord?" We haven’t done anything wrong. Life did not seem fair. I really leaned into prayer. I prayed for his health, our family, I prayed for everything to turn out in a positive manner.
And with each subsequent re-diagnosis of cancer, I kept my faith even when the situation seemed to get bleaker and bleaker. His last few days in hospice I had our friend, a priest, come to do a laying on of hands and prayers. I thought it would be Matt’s last night. It thankfully wasn’t, so the next night we again circled around his hospice bed and prayed. Matt was at peace. He told us he was. He knew where he was going. There would be no more pain, no more suffering, just a complete healing and eternal life.
Months later as I am floating around in a fog of grief trying to make sense of my life “now”, trying my best to be there for my children and learning how to make it all work on my own, my friend, Cassie, and I had a deep conversation. She too had lost her father in her teens, just like my children. She said I may never see Matt in my dreams, as her father has only come to her once in all these many years. Cassie encouraged me to be open to all of the signs of the universe, and by simply being aware, I would soon realize that Matt was communicating with me and assuring me he was okay. I mean, I have a little earth mama in me, but what was Cassie really trying to say?
I thought back to the night of his visitation. As we were leaving the funeral home a huge rainbow circled the horizon, stretching from the funeral home to my house a few blocks away. I remember feeling comfort at that time, assured that that had to be Matt telling me he had made it home.
And so, moving forward, I have been using my faith and my belief in being open to anything the universe throws my way as a way to manage my grief, and allow myself to slowly heal.
Nearly six months to the day after Matt passed, my mom suffered a devastating stroke. She had not shown up to brunch with her friends and one of them called me in a panic. To be honest, Mom had been a bit “off” the days leading up to the stroke. I found her, dazed and bloody, on the floor of her apartment. She was rushed to the hospital where I instantly felt a mix of both concern for my mother, and after seeing the nurse assigned to my mother, who happened to be the last nurse to treat Matt in that particular ER for a case of pneumonia, an instant rush and reminder of the deep grief and trauma I had from losing my own husband not too many months before.
The neurosurgeon immediately spoke to me and told me she needed to get into the radiology department for imaging. The panic started welling up in me as I walked with my mom as she was being rolled away. I didn’t want to be here in the basement of this hospital, in the department Matt worked in, with the people he worked with. Tears immediately came to my eyes. A 30-40 year old man was being rolled out of the room as mom was being rolled in. I watched him slowly pass me, stared at him as he went down the hallway until they reached the door. I shook my head. It couldn’t be - it was the face of Matt on this stranger. The nurse, the same one that had treated him previously, whispered to me, “I saw it, too.”In that moment, although he didn’t come to me in a dream, I knew my mom was going to be okay. We were all going to be okay. I believe that I did see him that day and it brought me a sense of peace.
Almost two weeks after Mom’s stroke, I received a message on Facebook. A friend of mine from back in grade school, Billie, was actually a radiology tech that worked with Matt. She was at the cafeteria in the hospital and at the register was a small envelope. On the outside was written, Happy Valentines, Matt & Allison. She had written me to see if I had lost this envelope. She sent a picture. It was my grandma’s handwriting. Inside was a gift card to a local flower shop. It was, in fact a gift that we had been given, but I have no recollection of carrying that envelope or even dropping it in the hospital cafeteria. I am not even sure why I would have had an anniversary card from eleven months previously on me at all. Billie asked if I was currently at the hospital. Could we meet in the cafeteria? It was great to see a familiar face and to just sit for a few minutes and catch up without having to think of mom and her long journey to recovery ahead. Billie handed me the envelope. She told me she had a dream and Matt was in it. He looked happy. He looked healthy. My heart! I knew that we would most likely not had this conversation had the envelope ever been found.
Around this same time, I decided to have energy work done. I do believe in the power of vibrations and chakras and energy. My body slowly felt calmer and calmer as the energy work was being done, and my masseuse, another friend from grade school, told me she felt strongly that I had two spirit guides that wanted to be in my life and could offer me support. Now, if you don’t believe in energy, or psychics, or reiki, or things not black and white…. this won’t make sense. But to me, I completely believe in the power of saints, and prayer, and planets and all of it. She saw my two spirit guides as the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene.
I did some research, particularly on the Virgin Mary and soon learned that when she cried at Jesus’ cross, her tears turned into Lily of the Valley. Lily of the Valley!! This small, beautiful, delicate flower has always been special to me. I love it so much I carried fake ones mixed in with all the live flowers in my all white wedding bouquet. I love it so much I wanted to honor Matt with a casket spray, also all white, with specifically Lily of the Valley mixed in. This special flower was now tied to my new spirit guide. I feel this can not be a coincidence.
In May of 2023, nearly a year after Matt left us, I went to buy a new car. Matt would never have wanted me to buy fresh off the lot, but I was feeling empowered with ordering and buying this on my own. I had ordered his headstone in July of 2022, a special, custom order that may happen to be a smidge taller than the other ones around him. Hey! He was a special guy - he deserved a beautiful monument. The headstone would take 32-33 weeks to arrive. As I was preparing to make payment on the car my phone rang. The number looked familiar but i couldn’t place it. It was the cemetary. Matt’s headstone had arrived that day and as they were placing it, the stone was dropped and Matt’s marker cracked. It was a sign - a sign from Matt he was displeased with buying new. I got off the phone teary. There are no coincidences. I chocked it up with a teary laugh and bought the car anyway. A few months later, as I went to place a drink in that new car’s cup holder, I realized the cup wouldn’t sit flush in the holder. I put my hand into the holder and pulled out a fake Lily of the Valley flower. There is no reason that flower would be in a car Matt had never seen but here it was. A little reminder that he is always with me.
I could go on and on about signs and how I see them all the time and believe he is near by. But the other major sign he is near is the cardinal that now lives in the trees outside my house. It flutters and zips by, instantly bringing a smile or a tear to my face. The cardinal flew past the window as my sister Elizabeth and I cried in my bathroom, sad that we had to sell our childhood home now that Mom had her stroke. I am in the middle of purchasing a new home and as I looked at the Zillow pictures on the property, the last few contained a cardinal and a rainbow. My friend Lisa said, "Well, if that isn’t your sign." I have since learned that in the tree outside my new home lives a whole cardinal family. They keep coming back to the tree, season after season.
And as I enter another season, Fall, without Matt, I will continue to find joy and comfort in the small gifts and signs I see from him often. I have learned that you need only open your eyes and heart to truly see all the messages being presented.
XO, A
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