Nobody Knows: The doorbell sometimes rings at three in the morning, she said. She gets up, goes to the front door, opens it…and no one is there. She thinks she’s going crazy, but she is not the only one who hears it…so does her husband. It doesn’t happen every night, but at least three times a week.
But, someone is ringing the door bell. And with tears streaming down both cheeks, she can’t help but wonder if it’s her son, Colin.
Colin was murdered some months ago, by a violent gunshot wound in downtown St. Louis. Colin was the youngest of her three boys, and by her accounts, he was the most happiest. He was in his early twenties, still lived with his parents, and he used to come home, usually at three in the morning, and then ring the doorbell. Mom would then get up and let him in. Every weekend this was a ritual.
The last thing she said to him on the day that he died was: “I hate you!” Sure---she was just hurt about something he said: he was bugging her about something simple…but the tears stream down her guilt-ridden face as she tells me of her remorse. She can’t help but wonder if Colin is trying to contact her, trying to come home…
********
On another day, somewhere in New York, a young woman kept finding pennies. She was still grieving from her father’s passing, and one of the things that she and her father did while growing up was collect pennies. Not just any pennies, but wheat pennies…ones minted before 1958. At his funeral, she found one on the steps of the church before she entered. The date on it was the year that he was born. As the year went on, she found pennies it seemed everywhere, and at the least expected times, and they all, by an uncanny coincidence, had the years of each various family member’s births. She found everyone in the family, except hers.
Then, on the anniversary of her father’s death, exactly a year later, as she was walking to church, she saw a penny lying in the middle of traffic—in New York City. Getting to it would be a bit dangerous, and risky, but she knew she had to get it. So she did.
And then she looked, and you guessed it---the date had the year she was born, her collection now complete.
What are the odds?
*******
I have had this strange phenomenon happen so many times in my life, I can’t keep up with it.
For instance, after my father died, my son was in tremendous grief because my dad was basically his first father because his
real father had abandoned us. He was only seven, but really loved reptiles. I must have spent a small fortune on crickets for the various lizards, and frogs he kept in fish tanks beside his bed.
About a week after my father’s passing, the whole family was going out the garage door, and there “he” was. A turtle had walked out of nowhere, up a long concrete driveway, in the middle of a neighborhood, right up to my son---and looked up. We all stood there in total amazement, watching him make the long trek up the hot concrete, right up to the front of my son’s sneakers. Turtles are so rare in our neighborhood; you would have thought it was an elephant walking up to greet us.
And you’re going laugh, but that turtle looked just like my dad before he died. He stayed with my son, and became his most beloved pet for over fifteen years.
Now---I have never,
ever, seen another box turtle in my neighborhood, in all my years, nor will I. The nearest woods are miles away.
******
And…I
swear my mother sends me “messages” through the radio, go ahead---laugh. My mother had a few favorite songs, and these songs are
really old. They are so old that if any station manager happened to hear them being played, the Disc jockey would be fired the next day.
Right after she died, I was cleaning the kitchen and heard her favorite song. The one she and my father called 'their' song…” I’ll be loving you always….”
Okay…one time. But then it seems, whenever I’m missing her, if I am listening to the radio, I will hear a song that would mimic her…with words she had said to me many times in conversations, words of encouragement…almost like she is answering my questions in my mind at that
exact moment…in song.
The other night I heard the song “Goody-Goody.” (You don’t want to know) Michael Savage played it. My mother used to say that was her favorite song. It’s a happy song. I was happy at the moment…it may sound weird, but yes…I was thinking of her.
What are the odds?
But, I am a musician; mom knows how to get to me…right?
******
Then there is my friend and mentor, the stupendously funny, Doug Powers.
As some of you know, Doug Powers had once told the
story about his beloved daughter, Molly, who had been taken away from her family at the tender age of four, from a rare disease.
Hanging on a door, inside their home is a print made by Molly, and sometimes, it just falls off. Nothing else falls---just that.
Doug, probably feels in his heart that it’s his young daughter…saying “Hi Daddy.”
So, what am I getting at here?
********
Nobody Knows if there is such a thing as a soul. But I’m convinced that the biggest proof of GOD and the existence of souls, are these events which happen to millions of people all over the earth...sent by our loved ones to help us in our grief. They usually communicate to us in the language of our favorite things.
Psychologists will argue these are just illusions by grief-stricken people putting meaning into events that are meaningless.
What bull.
Mathematically speaking, a doorbell doesn’t ring by itself, pennies with the exact birthdates of family members don’t just appear conveniently in front of you, turtles don’t just walk up to grieving kids in the middle of suburbia, a handful of perfect songs, out of the
millions of songs recorded, don’t just appear by coincidence.
And a print made by someone you love doesn’t just fall off a wall more than once, unless there is an earthquake, or
somebody pushed it.
Nobody Knows exactly where the soul goes after death, but I have suspicions that since man began, this phenomena of souls communicating with their loved ones, in ways that only they would understand, is the reason so many people from throughout man’s history, believe in some sort of God.
And if God can spread pennies all over path of a young grieving penny-collecting daughter, place a turtle at the feet of a young reptile-loving child at a precise moment, send songs of healing to a grieving music-loving daughter, drop a beloved print to grieving parents, and then continue to ring a doorbell in the middle of the night to let a mother know that her son
forgives her, and loves her…
Then a resurrection of a great man, in order to give people hope, and healing… would not exactly be too tough--- would it now?
As the song goes...”
I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”
It’s pretty simple. We get messages all the time. All we have to do is open our eyes, our ears, and our minds.
And answer the goddamn doorbell!
You never know what you might find.
