Little Signs And The Story Of My Life

I wrote the following on my Facebook page a few weeks ago:

"I'm sure there are those who get tired of these posts (to which I say, 'Don't read them.'), but for me, they help me through my grieving process.

"I am and always have been a mama's boy. My mom was one of my very best friends. Even though her early passing saved herself and her family from a lot of suffering, there are days when I still can't believe she's gone.

"Many days I'm fine, but there are days like today when I miss her terribly and long for her immediate presence.

"Since her passing nearly five months ago, she has let me know many times that she is still around and very much a part of my life. That is comforting, but it's not the same.

"I just miss her. I hope it gets easier. I guess it's a testament to our deep love that the deep pain of her passing still remains.

"-sigh-"

I discover that I miss Mom terribly.  While the rational part of me knows that things worked out for the best, the emotional part of me just wishes she were here.

Yet she has shown me many times that she is very much around.

They're just little things, and others might chalk them up to coincidence, but I believe Mom is letting me know she is still very much a part of my life.

I've already talked about the Josh Groban concert.  The song "Smile" has become a way for Mom to let me know she's around.  Recently my brother and sister-in-law and their kids through town and we agreed to meet at a local IHOP.  I started my car to meet them, and a version of "Smile" by Barbra Streisand began to play.  I felt maybe it was Mom's way of letting me know she'd be attending breakfast with us (and sure enough there were two empty seats at our table, so maybe Dad was with us as well).

That's actually happened a lot (the two empty seats).  I attended a fairly full house of the show Rock of Ages, and there were two seats next to me (although I'm not sure either Mom or Dad liked the show), and at a Kristen Chenoweth concert the same thing happened.

I recently visited my family in Utah and we had dinner at Su Casa, one of Mom and Dad's favorite places, and again, there were two empty chairs at a rather full table.  I also saw a rehearsal of one of Mom's favorite shows, A Few Good Men, and found myself beside two empty seats.  (I know Mom loved that one.)

I've also felt Mom communicate to me through music.  Not just "Smile," but other stuff as well - the Josh Groban and Kristen Chenoweth concerts; songs on the radio; etc.  I was playing a rendition of a song I like (which I imagine Mom would have liked) called "And I Love You So,"

and I got in my car to go to work, and the exact song started playing on the radio.

It just felt like too much to be just a coincidence.

One unexpected song has become a sign for me.  About a month or two ago I had seen "The Story of My Life" performed by One Direction.  I liked the song and wanted to watch the video, which I did and which left me a weeping mess.

I don't know if it's because I've been dealing with Mom's journals and photos, but the whole idea of the video (these frozen memories in time; the moving on of time even after loved ones have left us) just really connected with me.

During my visit home when I was visiting Mom and Dad's grave at the cemetery for what turned out to be the last time it was warming up a little after a cold week and I could feel the sunshine on my body, and I closed my eyes and imagined Mom and Dad were beside me, much as I felt Dad beside me when I was on my mission shortly after he died.  I don't know if I've ever shared that story here, but the week he died, I was in church and bore my testimony and when I sat down I felt like Dad's hand was on my shoulder (and I believe it was).  Much in the same way, I felt like Mom and Dad were standing beside me in the cemetery, and I felt that same feeling in St. George recently when Jonah and I were married.  After I basked in that feeling, I got into the car and what should start playing but “The Story of My Life” by One Direction , and I started crying because I just felt sure it was Mom telling me she and Dad had been there. 

Other remarkable things that happened two other times I visited the cemetery.  The first time I visited it was a windless day a bit cold.  I'm not really a cemetery-going kind of guy, but the cemetery was only three blocks from where I was staying so I figured why not?  I was met at the grave site by several geese who were milling around, and it felt like kind of a sign to me.  I guess the life that was present felt like Mom reminding me that she's not really dead, just on another plane of existence. 

  
I hadn't been to Mom's grave since the week she was buried and I broke down.  I just miss her.  Sometimes I feel bad because I didn't behave the way I did with Dad's passing as I am with Mom's.  It's certainly not because I loved Dad any less.  I adored my father.  But Mom and I just had more in common (plus 21 more years together than Dad and I had).  Plus I was away when Dad died, so it didn't seem as present in my mind as Mom's death, when I was stroking her hair and looking at her face at the exact moment she passed.

There were two pinwheels on the graves of a nearby couple, and although I did not feel any wind, they both began to turn.  

 

I wondered if maybe Mom and Dad were making it happen.  It made me feel good to think they did.  I just let them know how much I missed them.

My other visit to the cemetery was at dusk so it was dark, but as I drove in I saw a herd of seven deer leaping and bounding about the cemetery.  While it is not uncommon to see deer in this part of Utah, the cemetery is in a fairly suburban area where deer don't frequent.  I was actually afraid to get out of the car until the deer departed, but they were a truly beautiful sight to see.  And then I saw a flock of the same geese I had seen previously honking and flying above me.  I took it as another sign of Mom's presence.  It was almost magical.


Recently, for their tenth anniversary, Facebook created commemorative movies based on each individual's photos and posts.  Somehow I felt mine was tailor-made to let me know Mom was around.  Yeah, I know it's based on algorithms and popular posts and photos, but it just felt like Mom had a hand in it.

The movie starts out with my profile photo of my headshot.  Then as it shows my first moments, we see the house Jonah and I bought together when it was just in its beginning stages.  Then there is a cast photo and a teaching job I had.  My most liked posts have to do with acting and my job and the day Mom died.  Then there's a shot of the sun breaking through the clouds the day after Mom died that was my sign from her that she was okay.  Then more shows, a trip to Disneyland I took with Jonah and a close friend, a favorite photo of my cat, the march I did with Mormons Building Bridges at the Gay Pride Parade in 2012, a picture my niece drew of Jonah and me, my current job, a silly photo of me, my family in the early 80s (complete with Dad, Mom, and my siblings), my recent trip to Disneyland with Jonah, and then as the movie ends with a compilation of several photos, there's Mom right in the middle smiling at me, and I think to myself, Facebook could have picked any photo.  I think the center one is based on a profile photo, but if it had chosen the most used or popular one, my headshot would have been at the center, but no, it's Mom. 

I just felt her love, and when I showed it to Jonah I just wept and wept in his arms because I felt so close to my dear, departed mother.

People can call these coincidences.  I don't believe they are.  Even if they were, they bring me great comfort, so I'm taking them as little signs.

Day of the Dead and Missing People

Since Mom passed away, I find that every little thing reminds me of her.  This is not a bad thing, but it can sometimes cause a previously normal activity like, say, eating a yogurt to fill me with sadness.  Mom liked yogurt a lot and would often eat it for breakfast.  I was eating a yogurt the other day and it made me think of her.

Or Listerine strips.  The day I started cleaning Mom's room out after she had moved into assisted living, I found a drawer full of about 20 packs of them.  I use them now to freshen my breath after I eat dinner on my break at work.

Or a movie or a song.  A few weeks ago a local movie theater was showing The Wizard of Oz on the big screen.  Jonah wanted to go, but it was one of Mom's favorite movies, and I just wasn't in the right place emotionally to be able to do it.  (I wish I had; the movie we ended up seeing, The Family, was a dud, and we ended up walking out halfway through it).

I can't hear "Smile" or "Embraceable You" or "Que Sera Sera" or a million other songs without thinking of her.

Or places.  If I'm at a Sweet Tomatoes or eating sushi somewhere, I am reminded of the many lunch dates we had together.

And of course, I am consumed with her stuff, whether it be transcribing her journals, receiving her mail, or handling her financial and legal matters.  She is ever-present with me.  And that is a good thing.  But I am also more prone to feeling great sadness at the loss of her.

Two nights ago I had the night off as did Jonah.  Jonah wanted to go to a Day of the Dead celebration at a local park.  I am not very familiar with Day of the Dead, but it's apparently a pretty big holiday in Mexican culture, and while Jonah doesn't celebrate it, it is a part of his heritage, and he had always wanted to go to one of these events.

We went with a friend of ours.  It just so happens that the park where the celebration was taking place was the same park I had taken Mom to on her last visit here.  So being there already reminded me of her.  The fact that the theme of the day had to do with death or celebrating of the lives of those who had passed only made me think of Mom more.

While intellectually I know that Day of the Dead is a celebration of life and can often even take a humorous tone, emotionally I find the art depressing.

Even though I know there is the fanciful, mocking sort of attitude towards death, to me, culturally, skulls and bones represent a side of death that seems so permanent and without life, and I know it's just a cultural difference, but it made me feel sad rather than joyous.

We passed many altars dedicated to the likes of the poor kids shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary; victims of domestic violence or gang violence; girls who never reached adulthood (and there were dolls dressed in corn husks to represent that); and memorials to such fallen icons as Harvey Milk, Selena, Michael Jackson, and Frida Kahlo.  The more we wandered around, I just felt a great heaviness of spirit and I began missing Mom terribly.

Jonah and his friend had primarily come to examine some of the art, which just isn't my taste.  Jonah noticed I seemed withdrawn, and came up to me and said, "I'm sorry if you're not having a good time."  It wasn't that I wasn't having a good time; I actually found the experience very interesting.  I just missed my mom.  As I started to explain this to him, I just started weeping, and amidst a large crowd of people who didn't even seem to notice, Jonah just held me in his arms and hugged me tightly while I sobbed.  I told him I just felt overwhelmed by all the death talk and that we were in a place that reminded me of Mom, and it was just hard.  Jonah kept repeating "I know, I know."

Just a day before Jonah had been feeling similar emotions because his dad had always given the grandkids a ride on his miniature train for Halloween, and Jonah was feeling a deep sense of loss.

As Jonah has said, it's not easy.  We both have lost our parents so recently, and we are still grieving.  Some days are easier than others, and I feel like I'm adjusting quite well.  Other days I feel incredibly sad that our parents are no longer with us in life.

I will always miss my mom, I'm sure, although I imagine the pain will get easier just as it did after my dad died.  I miss hearing Jonah's dad hum his little songs or seeing him sit out on the front porch or hearing him ask me if I brought snow from Utah.  I see how his passing has made Jonah's mom more lonely.  I miss my dad when I hear a particular country song or "Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley" by the Kingston Trio.  I miss my mom when I happen across a favorite movie of hers or when I'm out to lunch at a restaurant we frequented.

I guess that's life.  And I'm grateful for the reminders that bring back pleasant memories.  I often wonder what people will miss about me when I go.

Yesterday Jonah and I went to the cemetery to honor his father.  Neither of us are really cemetery-goers, but Jonah was curious about Day of the Dead festivities that were taking place at the heavily Hispanic cemetery.  I was truly surprised by the goings-on.  There was a high school Mariachi band (a very good one at that); a taco truck, balloon animals; face-painting, people hanging out in lawn chairs, etc.  For many, it was an all day celebration.

The cemetery where Mom and Dad are buried has a reputation for being a bit solemn and quiet, which is actually how I prefer it.  I would think a Mariachi band and a taco truck would be kicked out of the cemetery for disturbing the peace.  The most music I've heard at Mom's cemetery was the sound of a lone bagpipe.  Jonah's dad's cemetery seems much more relaxed than Mom's cemetery does.  To each his own, I guess.  Truth be told, the Mariachi music was quite enjoyable.

But the atmosphere was much different than I am used to.  Not bad.  Not good.  Just different.
 
Jonah left some flowers, candles, a coffee cup (representing his Dad's favorite beverage), a garden glove (representing his love of gardening) with a brick on top of it (representing the foundation he built with his children and family) and a framed photo along side the other mementos that had been left, including a wrench (representing his love of fixing cars), a statue, and a piece of duct tape that said "I love you."  It's so interesting how different people memorialize their dead loved ones.  I have a feeling Mom's cemetery would only have allowed the flowers.

When we were listening to the Mariachi band, I noticed two gravestones placed very close to each other: one was a Jewish man who died at the exact same age I am now, and the other was a black man who died at 20.  I don't know why it struck me, but I liked the idea that there were no racial or religious divides in this cemetery.  I also was struck by how many young people were buried in this cemetery.  I encountered grave after grave where the deceased was in his or her teens or twenties.  I wondered why so many had died so young.

We then went to a different part of the cemetery where Jonah's grandfather was buried.  It took us a while to find him, mainly because Jonah had told me to look for a fairly new upright stone with an eagle on it.  It turned out the stone was flat rather than upright, dirty, and had no eagle on it.  It also turned out that after having walked around extensively looking for it that the stone was a mere 15 feet right in front of Jonah's truck.

After the cemetery we went over to Jonah's sister's house, where Jonah's great-nephew was celebrating his first year of life.  It seemed apropos to be celebrating his birthday after so many days focused on death.  We visited with Jonah's family and his mom.

Anyway, I miss Mom, and my Day of the Dead experience was educational.