For a year or so before my brother passed of cancer, we had been unseriously talking about what kind of a sign he could send from "the other side" so I'd know he was doing okay. I came up with a couple of ideas, but Ken always said he'd do more thinking on it, and then, like with so many things, it became too late to discuss further. As I wrote already, when we went to Nova Scotia to spend some time with my parents in the immediate aftermath of Ken's death, Dave was shocked and delighted to find a dime on the floor of one of the bedrooms in the lakehouse — and while I 100% agree that, since the passing of Dave's parents, finding dimes has always felt like a message from them (a phenomenon Ken knew about and was intrigued by), I wanted to be comforted by this sign more than I truly was.
Not long ago, I read a random post on facebook that said something like, "If you want a sign from a loved one who has passed, don't be afraid to ask for one right out loud. But don't just ask to see a balloon, ask to see a red balloon. Even better, ask for three red balloons. Be bold and specific and you will be amazed by what your loved ones can manifest from the other side." This made me smile, but it's not like I asked for a sign of three red balloons "right out loud." And then the next day, I saw this art print in a thrift store:
It stopped me in my tracks, enough to make me take a picture of it, but I just keep wondering, "Is this something?" Everyone in the family I show this picture to seems to think it is — and more than anything, I want to believe that something survives death and my brother is somewhere safe and happy and beyond pain — but I don't know if hoping for this actually equals belief.
I keep being reminded of an old story: A terrible flood was coming, so a man climbed onto the roof of his house. A neighbour drove up in his car and said, "Jump in, I'll drive you to safety." The man on the roof waved him off, saying, "Go save someone else, God will save me."
The water rose to halfway up the house and a friend came by in a boat, saying, "Jump in, I'll get us to safety." But again, the man waved the friend off and said, "Go save someone else, God will save me."
The water rose ever higher, lapping the roofline, and a helicopter came to a hover overhead, dropped down a rescue line, the pilot yelling, "Grab on, I'll fly you to safety." And once more, the man yelled back, "Go save someone else, God will save me."
And the water rose ever higher, eventually overwhelming the man and causing him to drown. When the man made it to heaven, he confronted God and said, "I believed in you. Why didn't you save me?" And God looked at the man kindly, saying, "I sent you a car and a boat and a helicopter. What more could I have done?"
Within a month of Ken dying, we found the dime at the lakehouse, I had a random and unexplained feather in the back seat of my car, I've seen cardinals on my lawn when I don't remember them ever being there before: all fairly common "signs", but nothing that felt like "proof" of anything. And then there is this picture of the three red balloons and I just don't know if it's something. It makes me want to ask for a really impossible-to-be-a-coincidence sign, right out loud, but then I wonder if Ken is out there somewhere thinking, "I've sent you a dime and a feather and a cardinal and the balloons. What more could I have done? What could ever be enough?"
And if all I'm looking for is reassurance, why can't this be something? Be enough? I don't know if any sign could ever rise to the level of proof, but I do hope I can always be open to possibilities and wonder; living otherwise seems so narrow and pedantic and bleak. As with the dimes — the spotting of which always makes us smile and think fondly of my departed inlaws — I hope I never stop seeing things that make me pause and think of Ken and wonder, "But is this something?"
