Visits from Beyond. Séanceal communications with the departed. Pennies from heaven.
Silly.
How comforting to the deluded it must be to believe that the loved one, wrapped in celestial finery, is “okay” and watching over, that the intangible thing of love remains requited. How filled the grieving heart must be to see that favorite pet reappear once more as a companionable shape in the clouds. How relieved the heartbroken must be to complete what is thought necessary to release the poor soul trapped in some halfway place on the way to eternal rest.
Foolish. Wishful thinking. My faith resides in facts, in reality, in science.
Still, keep one’s mind open. I find agreement with the words of the remarkable polymath, J.B.S. Haldane, “It is my supposition that the Universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine.”
Queerer than we can imagine. Beyond imagination. Wishful thinking is imagination without effort and it is so easy to fall into its trap.
* * *
My mom had survived lung cancer ten years earlier but her lungs were damaged beyond repair as her overall condition deteriorated. In January 2009 Gretchen and I stopped at her Worcester home to say goodbye as we drove on from our Manchester, New Hampshire home to winter in Florida. Short of breath, using supplemental oxygen continuously, stooped and slow moving, my mom’s decline frightened me. I hoped I would see her again when we returned in late March.
For twenty years I had travelled to my folks’ Massachusetts home in spring and autumn to spend the day helping my mom in the very labor-intensive task of making her legendary – at least in our extended family – gefilte fish. For the last ten years the day included an extra hour – each way – drive with my mom to a kosher market in Connecticut to get the required fish no longer available locally. She had been 69 years old when I judged her too old to be making her special dish alone. At age 86, when she had finally found the fish’s preparation too difficult even with my help, she still enjoyed a twice-yearly trip to the Connecticut market.
When we returned north at the end of March, 2009, my mom was even worse. There, on a sofa, her head down, her legs so grossly edematous that lymphatic fluid sometimes leaked through her skin, sat my mom. She struggled to stand when I arrived unannounced, a bright smile replacing the dull mask on her face. After hugs, kisses, handholding and expressions of happiness from each of us I asked her if she wanted to make our spring trip to the market.
“Of course!”
Two days later I picked up my now 88 year old mom. Our time together on the drive to Connecticut was sweet. Unspoken was the understanding that this could be our final trip. Spoken were memories and some stories I had never heard. I asked her if she were afraid of death. She was not. I asked her if she thought she would go to heaven.
“I don’t know where I’m going but I know it will be with your father.” He had died the year before.
Two months later my brother called to report our mom had become acutely ill and was en route to the local ER. I quickly gathered what I needed and left for Worcester, stopping at a local gasoline station to fill my tank. I pulled up to the pump, opened the door and there, on the cement, was a penny. Immediately, before I could manage a single thought, a single idea, a single reaction, my dad was in my mind. A sign that he was with me, with us. A penny from heaven.
Wishful thinking. A random event given supernatural significance. Simple coincidence.
My mom died in June, less than a month later. A few more odd episodes in the next months were likewise examples of wishful thinking. The skeptic that I am recognized how easily one can ascribe significance to chance occurrences, perhaps subconsciously seeking them and attributing meaning to them when none exists.
In early November, 2009, Gretchen and I left New Hampshire for our Florida winter. It was a lovely day, clear and sunny, making for an easy drive. As usual my mind wandered here and there. Nearing Hartford I realized this was the first time I had driven on this road since that sweet trip with my mom half a year before. I said nothing to Gretchen but smiled at the memory and recalled silently the happiness of that time. I continued the reverie as we drove on. Approaching the exit to the market my mom and I had so many times taken I glanced toward it.
There, on the exit ramp, was a truck with a company name in large letters on its side.
HARVEY
My name! Just another and perhaps more dramatic example of wishful thinking. But what was the chance that at that moment, on that day, when I was lost in thought about my mom and our trips, a truck with my name would be at that very spot?
I suppose that is the definition of coincidence.
* * *
Friendship, dear and deep, is a wonderful gift of life. My good fortune includes two irreplaceable lifelong friends.
When I later recounted to Carl the sighting of my name on the truck and the totality of the circumstance his reaction was immediate and straightforward. There was nothing of significance, no greater meaning. He termed it cosmic serendipity.
Carl was a college classmate, smart, stubborn, hardworking, fun-loving. He was given to excess and at times might tend toward the ostentatious; a part of his personality that, rather than off-putting, added to the enjoyment of being with him.
His death, not unexpected, occurred at age 70 in 2016. Our travel to his memorial gathering in December was a challenge; after flying across country we had to drive 200 miles through a sudden and unanticipated blizzard. The hardship of travel was simply accepted; it is what one does to honor the memory of such a friend.
A few days later as we drove our rental car toward the airport, returning home, the memorial concluded, the goodbyes to those he left behind heartfelt, the overcast sky gave way intermittently to bits of sunshine, the drizzle slowing at times but never ceasing. A rainbow appeared, came closer, and suddenly the car was filled with rainbow, sparkling colors inside the car, the windshield ablaze as if one resided within a prism, the color spectrum full. Seconds later all was gone.
A random confluence of moisture and sunlight had occurred at the moment we drove on that particular stretch of highway. A strange coincidence, ostentatiously excessive.
* * *
Uncle Jack, my mom’s older brother, was more than my favorite uncle; he was a member of our household during the years I grew up until I left home for college. He had his own bedroom, shared the bathroom. I saw him daily. We are all unique, of course, but some it seems are more unique, further down the uniqueness bell-shaped curve, than others. Such was Uncle Jack. Odd in a pleasing way.
After I left home my folks downsized and Uncle Jack moved into his single occupancy apartment. He remained a part of family gatherings and it was always good to see him over the years as I became an adult, married, had my own family. The warmth between us was understated and enduring; to me he was more than an uncle and to him I am certain I was more than a nephew.
He died in 2004 at the age of 87. He owned little; I kept an oversized cardigan sweater he rarely wore, my younger brother kept a hat and a couple of other items. I enjoyed wearing that sweater on cold New England mornings as I drank my coffee and read the morning paper.
I wrote an affectionate remembrance of Uncle Jack several years after his death which was eventually available in print and online. The morning after Christmas, 2016, the first day the essay became available my brother, who was visiting for the holiday, and I were in the kitchen. He had just read the essay, enjoyed it and the memories it generated, and we were talking about Uncle Jack.
I noticed a bit of trash on the kitchen floor. I bent to pick it up to throw it away. It was a name tag, the sort that might be sown into clothes. The name on it was Uncle Jack’s. Where had it come from? The sweater I had worn hundreds of times over the years? My brother had brought nothing with him of Uncle Jack’s. Why was it found on the same day my story of Uncle Jack had been published?
An odd coincidence. Odd.
* * *
When I told my remaining irreplaceable friend the story of the rainbow we agreed it was inexplicable and left it at that. What more was there to say?
Dave was a sensitive, kind, and empathetic person but inept when it came to some simple tasks. His friends often did things, unbidden, that seemed to be too much for him; hanging a window blind, setting up his stereo, defrosting his freezer.
A friendship that began at age six had naturally over the years created not merely its own history, stories, memories, but certain traditions, customs that almost became ritual, repeated year after year. For decades I had called Dave on his November birthday to wish him a happy day. He usually tried to do the same for my May birthday but almost always was a day or three early or late. He would call and with excitement in his voice wish me happy birthday, sometimes telling me, “I nailed it this year!”
“No, Dave. Sorry, it was two days ago, but thanks anyway.” Or perhaps, “Thanks, but you’re early. Not until tomorrow.”
Dave’s brother was several years older and so off with his own friends when Dave and I were growing up; I hardly ever saw him. He was already married and living an adult life while Dave and I were still in college. I had spoken with Jim a literal handful of times over the years; the most recent nearly twenty years earlier at the funeral of their father.
In January, 2018, Dave became suddenly and severely ill. From afar, I learned of his illness and intractable comatose state a day before Jim called me. Dave’s doctors had advised Jim the situation was hopeless and that life supportive measures should be withdrawn. Jim knew I was a physician, albeit retired, and asked for guidance. It was a weekend so I suggested he wait until Monday and review the situation; nothing would change, I knew, but my unspoken thought was that waiting a day or two would make any feelings of guilt Jim might feel for pulling the plug less likely.
Dave died the following day thereby relieving Jim of the responsibility of making the decision. At Dave’s funeral Jim and I spoke amiably, said our goodbyes, and I left expecting I would likely never see or speak with him again.
A few months later I unexpectedly received a call from Jim who wondered what specialty of physician he should see for a certain medical question. I gave him my best advice, and we chatted for a few minutes about Dave. He chuckled once about something or other and for just that moment he sounded exactly like Dave; it was if I were listening to my old buddy. The moment passed, I did not remark upon it. After I hung up Gretchen pointed out that it was my birthday and I had been called by Dave’s closest relative. Jim did not know it was my birthday but when it came to the date he had indeed “nailed it!”
* * *
Coincidence. Episodes of wishful thinking. Cosmic serendipity.
Perhaps.
Originally appeared in Quabbin Quills.
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