Gifts from my Parents

A couple of really lovely things happened yesterday.

Just after I posted the story of my Dad I went to the sink to rinse my tea cup, and there in the shining stainless steel sink my husband had just finished washing up in was a perfectly shaped heart, made of soap bubbles.

“I love you too, Dad” I thought, recalling some of the many ways both my Dad and more especially, my Mom, have continued to communicate with me since their deaths in 2009 – some of which you may already have read about.

Then last night, when Gerald and I were watching a charming film "Elsa and Fred" starring Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer - it's the story of two people who at the end of their lives discover that it's never too late to love and make dreams come true -  a movement in the hall next to our bedroom caught my eye.

There stood my Mother, wearing her white trousers, matching blouse and jacket and her favourite blue earrings, smiling her broad smile.   I was spellbound.   I could not  take my eyes off her as I smiled back.    Then just as suddenly, she was gone.  

“Gerald!” I said, “My Mom was just standing there in the hallway!”   

“Really?” with a raise of his eyebrows, but his eyes followed my pointing finger.   There was not a shred of disbelief in his voice.  He too is accustomed if not to sightings, but to my reporting of sightings, conversation, advice, messages and gifts left for me.

I kept staring at the spot she had stood hoping she would return.   After the movie ended  I made a cup of tea and went to bed, leaving Gerald to watch the cricket.   I opened my bedside drawer to get my glasses and laying across the top of the hand cream, hair brush, ear plugs, tissues and books was a white plastic bag I did not recognise. 

I open this drawer several times a day, and had been in it earlier in the day.  Puzzled, I opened the bag and unfurled one of those long signs on shiny paper you buy which proclaim messages for special events.  I have a collection myself.

This one said in big  colourful letters

I LOVE YOU

I knew my mother had placed it there.   I took it out to Gerald and said “Do you remember earlier when I said I saw my Mom in the hall?  Well - look what she just left for me!”   He smiled, happy I was happy.

I stuck it to the bedroom door, and sat in bed staring at it, drinking tea, with my heart full of mother love. 

This morning I asked him, just to be sure – “Did you put that sign in my drawer?”   He definitely had not.

Thanks Mom and Dad.  I love you too.