ALL HALLOWS EVE
the spirits do come back again. especially at this time of the year. All Hallows Eve time. every one knows that...
every one has some ghost story or another. knows some one who saw. who heard. who felt. who was touched. who was harmed. or helped. or spoken to. or whispered to. sung to. hurt. or helped: A Spirit. An Apparition. A Ghost. I had one encounter myself. in the past... I think I told you about it before. the April Fools Day doctor who killed himself? how several of us saw him a year later to the day? only in California - not where he did it, which was Chicago? how we all called his friend here in the Bay Area and told her we had seen him for a couple of seconds? and then she got mad at us, since she hadn't seen him at all? and he didn't talk - and he never came back ever again? no? I hadn't told you? well...that was about it. happened in '75, I think...long ago....
anyways...these 'visitations' are different...they have to do with my Dad and his Mom. I could swear I'm getting visitations...not that I see. but that happen, all the same...they have been kind, actually kind. not harmful. helpful...in very odd ways....
the first one was a year ago...November and rainy and chilly and bleak. after work. I was literally dragging myself up the stairs - all twenty-two of them - to go into our house. my back had been 'out' for weeks and weeks and weeks. I was taking care of me best I could. working full-time. taking care of my husband full-time. because his inguinal area was strained badly from a wrenching fall...mine had been bad since we had moved. on account of too much lifting and packing...miserable time....
suddenly - truly suddenly - I felt that I should wear the turquoise and silver ring that I had inherited from my father...several years ago....I looked for it. found it. put it on. felt very peaceful. suddenly: peaceful. I started thinking more, as the days went by, that I should start to really change my eating habits...should lose a lot of weight. should become healthier. I thought about: if I become healthier, I can take better care of my medical problems, and my husband's too, as we get older....
then, I thought about how many of our friends had died during the past year...there had been nine of these people...the mourning had been intense...what I wanted to do was: to make new friends - especially among the young people I had taught for years as a high school teacher, who are now in their late twenties and early thirties - but, also, to find old classmates and see if friendships could happen...it had been years since I had made any new friends among my 'contemporaries' - my friends had all either been much older, or much younger...
about this time, I started feeling that my Father was 'present', somehow, in my life...I started having dreams about him. we'd be fishing again in the boats on the lakes of my childhood...watching football games or golf tournaments on TV together...reading the Sunday 'Funnies' on the screened in front porch together...singing the standards on car trips....
Inexplicably, one day, I emailed my 'first love' - the fellow I went with in my senior year in high school. who I'd loved with all my young heart. but, had felt I should 'move on' from, as we were so young. I still had college to 'do'...so on and so forth...it had been a mistake. a big one. I had never found such a love of intensity and devotion ever again. even my father had liked him...Denny McCue....
one morning, while hobbling up my stairs again to the apartment, I heard a voice. I was very startled. I knew the voice was in me - not outside of me...the voice was my father's. he was saying - as he had distinctly said at least once before..many years ago: "Why didn't you marry that Denny McCue?" I really heard him. loud and clear...that very day, Denny answered my email...he was completely enthusiastic about being back in contact again...we began emailing and then chatting and then skyping...back and forth...we were right back in love..and the love simply grew and grew...grows...and grows....
we talked a lot about my Dad...the whole time - on and off....my Dad kept coming through in dreams...I had never dreamed about my dad before...this was really something...to this day, he never has left my presence...I feel he is truly always here...watching over Denny and me...we're even going to name our traveling canoe "Sweet William" after his own nick-name for himself...and Den wears the turquoise and silver ring now....
now...there is another presence in our lives...Den's Mother...he was so close to his Mom...still is...visits her grave site to talk with her in times of need...he has felt her presence strongly in our lives - his and mine together....
Lately, I've had dreams where she is speaking with me...we are sitting over coffee, or tea, at the table near a window in her little house near down-town St. Charles, where I first met her...in every dream, she is talking with me about Denny. how she is happy that we are together...how she wants our life together to be...I don't recall the exact contents...but the dreams are very loving....
only once, the conversation was very specific...she told me she had emeralds. that she had an emerald ring. she wanted me to have this ring. I showed her the ring of hers that Den had given me. it was an opal-dust, gold plate ring of no great monetary value. but, it is very, very meaningful. very precious...because it has four little diamond-like stones and four opal stones: and Den and I had been separated for forty-four years...Den had given her the ring...and she had liked me very much, all those years ago...
she told me no, this was a special ring. an emerald. she loved it. or I would love it (I can't quite remember...)...then, in the dream, she showered me with emeralds...the bright, deep greens shone all around me...I felt they were like blessings. felt this very strongly....
then, today...something very unusual happened...this weekend, Denny would be letting all his loved ones know that he is planning to move out 'here' to be with me for life. I had filled the weekend with things to do and people to be with...to keep my psyche occupied...so that I wouldn't be too anxious...would be useful for him if he needed me....
before I went into my friends' home just up the street from me, Den had called. he told me he was by his mother's grave...he was crying. because he was feeling, and rightfully so, so unhappy about hurting his wife. by telling her that he was going to leave her. for us. for us to be together... once again, I gently told him to do what he "thinks best" for himself. he was very upset. very sad...I reminded him that we both had felt the strong influence of his Mom and my Dad in our reuniting...that they seemed to want this...on some level not understood by us....
I visited with my friends for about half an hour or so...then began to drive home. as I was beginning to move out into the intersection before my apartment building, an older woman stepped off the curb right out in front of me! I swerved to avoid her...not too quickly...but enough that I almost hit a car turning on to the street from my left...we both stopped in time with no impact at all...but she stumbled! and fell into the street. not hard...but it was scary...
both the other driver, a man...his passenger, a woman, and I, got out of our cars and went quickly to help her. she was already standing up. looking shaken, but quiet. as I approached her, she looked up completely into my face. looking into my eyes, she said, "Take good care of him... for his Mom." she said this in a very normal tone of voice...
"Take good care of him...for his Mom."....
I was visibly taken aback..."Do I know you?" was all I could sputter out...
she answered, "No...I don't know why I said that."
she began to move towards her car, which was parked on the side of the street my car was still facing, pointing to going to my house.
she seemed fine.
I had not said anything else.
the man got into his car with his passenger.
I got into mine.
we all pulled out and went our ways....
I was very shaken. I got on the computer and wrote out what had happened, to Den, right away. then I called him and left a message about what had happened...then I went on with my day...I couldn't get the incident out of my mind...
"Take good care of him...for his Mom."
late at night he called me...I babbled for awhile about the scene as it had happened...until he told me to shut up...I was really a bit hysterical...he told me then:
after he called me, he cried and cried. he asked his Mom...at her grave site...to give him a message or a sign. he wanted her to forgive him for what he was going to do...to give her blessing, as I understood him, for going to be with me...to be ourselves as we are...he wanted a sign of her approval...
and yes, it was within the hour after this, that the incident happened in the intersection. that the woman said her words to me..."Take good care of him... for his Mom."...
then I told Den more about the dreams...the emeralds and the ring...for the first time, Den told me that green had been her favorite color...
I told him that in the dreams I'm sitting by a window at a table with her...he kept trying to get me to describe the table...I told him it was either metal or had a metallic cloth of some kind...he told me that the table was metal....
his Mom had answered him...with the mouth of a real person...saying what she needed to say...saying it to me. saying it as directly as she could. through the mouth of a woman who would capture my attention directly...this is what happened...I am very, very sure of this....
Denny feels that his question for his Mom was answered directly...to be us...to be with me...
.
for me, it simply meant that this, for me...is the least selfish relationship I've ever had...if Den stays with his wife...that will be fine with me: because I want what is best for him...if that's what is best for him...then that is what I want for him too...if he wants to stay with Dixie...or Lori...if he wants to never live here... I will still love him. I love him unselfishly. really unselfishly. it's a wonderful thing. it's the best love that I have ever had with a man. it's really kind. really good. really full as can be....
these 'visitations' from the parents who loved us most unselfishly...his Mom...and my Dad...have been very real for us. very alive for us...
we both believe that they have really spoken to us. for us. that their Spirits have been alive to us. best they could be...trying to give us what we had always wanted our whole lives:
the other. the only person completely 'right' for us. completely 'for' each of us...each other....
I believe very strange things happen in this world of humanity. all of the time...many of us tell these sorts of stories to each other. they are real for us. we have to tell the stories. they speak to some thing deeper and more wonderful in each of us then the so-called reality of each day can ever, ever be...something even more real than reality...because these experiences are closer to the truths in us than the reality of the day can reflect...
and, these sort of truths always really - real-ly - set us free inside...
All this happened in the days of the souls returning to the earth: All Hallows Eve...many cultures believe firmly that the spirits of the ancestors truly come to commune with us at this time of the year...
I am sure that is why Den's Mom picked this day to speak to us...
her Spirit was truly here...she was with us today...will always be with us...
teaching us how to be happy and full of love for each other...
giving her son what she wanted him to have:
this love
blessed today...
blessed be... All Hallows Eve....
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