I know I am not alone in looking for signs...
all the small ways in which we feel the presence of our loved ones who are gone.
Butterflies and Dragonflies and Rainbows.....The whiff of a certain smell....The refrain of a favorite song at just the right time.
When my father died...we said he left us pennies...face up of course.
When my mother passed...we said it was she who caused the lights to flicker...and it always seemed to happen when my sons were visiting with or without their families.
If I am open to those ideas....it is not rainbows or dragonflies....though a cardinal at the right time reminds me of the pair that nested for several years in a Rose of Sharon bush outside our window...and I see David and me in that brilliant bird.
Mostly it is the little battery operated lights that, though dim, refuse to go out
The royal blue cars on the highway
The orange on his altar that does not spoil
The tingle of a 'kiss' on my temple
The perfectly timed email with just the right message...from a poetess who only sends her newsletter maybe three times a year
Or.....the single sunflower seed that seems to have come from thin air, found next to the dining room table a week ago.
To be clear....I do not have bird feeders that I fill.
Nor many guests walking through who might have dropped it from their pockets
Yet there it was
A single seed
I could ignore it.....
Or explain it away
Or see many messages in it's oddly timed appearance
Instead...
I will plant it
and take it as a sign of brighter days to come.