Are there indeed angels in the architecture? Are there signs from above that only if we let them in, be in a space where we are open to messages, do we see them? Or are these signs merely lost items, coincides, happenstance?
I used to think that if we lived our lives on a certain frequency, then we would attract other events and people of a like frequency. Kind of like water seeking its own level. Or, for example, once you decide to become pregnant, all you become aware of is pregnant women no matter where you turn your gaze. I don’t know when or if I stop believing, but I do know that I, caught up in the daily life of a single, working mother in a urban setting, had little time to dwell on such lofty and high thoughts. Or maybe I stopped smoking such potent pot!?
I have suffered loss lately. I am the last of my birth family living. Friends have died. I attended a wake yesterday of a former co-worker, several years younger than me. Although no contact for several decades, I went to acknowledge her life, hell, my life and the life of her estranged husband, back at a time when we were all young, healthy and fully engaged in life, not yet scarred by terrible events, life’s difficulties and expectations dashed.
Today I in my appointment with my therapist, and spoke of the wake, friends, family issues, often-kept secreted and then exposed in death. Next week is the anniversary of my mother’s death. Both of my parents have been dead longer in my life than they were in my life. As I started my walk back across town from the therapist’s office, I continued thinking about what we leave unsaid to our dear ones, things we can not say, will not say, can not say. How unvoiced needs often turn into anger. How some times we just need to accept the love people give us in the form it takes although it is less than what we want and need. How often we are indeed loved, by the people from whom we feel the most unloved, just in their own way. I thought of leaps of faith that I have made and wonder when and where I will land. I thought of how fortunate I was, whether it was luck, or fear or a guardian angel that kept me from venturing down roads that swallowed others. Thoughts of the letter I left in my brother’s coffin. Thoughts of prayers made. I whispered more prayers. Prayers of acceptance, prayers for understanding, prayers for emotional strength. Prayers for my family. Prayers for my daughter.
I take a few more steps and look down. I see a faint glint in the cracks in the sidewalk. I lean over and pick it up, at first thinking it was an earring. No. It isn’t. It’s a small golden safety pin. With two small (less than a half inch) charms. I turn it over in my hands. The two charms are actually Virgin Mary medals.
So, are they signs? Did I just happen to discover what some one else dropped out of their pocket? Or was it some kind of answer? Some kind of acknowledgement? Some favor from the universe? How do we know when to believe in something bigger than ourselves?
In any event, today I carry the charms in my pocket. Like a totem, a token of the unknown. Or at the very least, a reminder of the randomness of life. Here and then gone.
