Going Bananas

 

When I remember Rob, I remember bananas. 

I wouldn’t have to "remember" them if I liked them because they’d still be right here in front of me. But I can't stand bananas, not unless they’re all mashed up and formed into a loaf of bread. They were Rob’s favorite food. He loved bananas, and I made sure he didn’t run out of the curvy, yellow fruit. He ate them first thing in the morning, grabbed them for snacks, and loved them on peanut butter sandwiches. His potassium level must have been sky high. He was so healthy in so many ways. If only bananas had superpowers. He'd still be here.

After I lost him, the first hurdle I had to face in finding my life again was waiting for me inside the grocery store. I didn’t know what I was in for. I was sick for so long, too, with the virus and its aftermath, that when I finally had the strength to get in my truck and go for a drive, I went to the store. To find independence. To reclaim some small part of my old life. To pick up some food.

But the produce aisle was right inside those heavy, automatic doors. I walked right up to the display where spotless, yellow bananas were piled as high as I’d ever seen them, and suddenly I was in tears, standing in the middle of Basha’s, fully realizing the way my life had disappeared. There they perched, acting innocent, like it wasn’t their fault I’d nearly grabbed a bunch of them to take home to Rob.

I’ll never buy bananas again because Rob will never be here again to eat them.

It was a replay by the coffee aisle. Passing the cereal aisle. In the cold beer section and the wine displays. Suddenly, I was trapped inside a mine field of sorrow as everything I ever bought for Rob to enjoy blocked my way of escape. Everywhere, on every aisle, were all the things I’ll never buy again because he’s not here to look pleased and hug me for bringing home those little things that told him he was always on my mind. All the painful reminders that those days are over—they're on sale everywhere at Basha's. Especially bright yellow bananas.

Why are those things even allowed out in public?

I didn’t know a trip to the grocery store could be so traumatic, but when half your heart goes suddenly missing, the most unexpected things catch you off-guard. Still, I couldn't avoid this forever. After all, a girl has to eat. I had two choices: spend every penny of our retirement money on takeout and Door Dash, or conquer the bananas.

I haven't given up eating. Or shopping. I forced myself to keep going back until it got easier. Until I made it through without blowing my nose on aisle two and three and five and seven and eight and fourteen and nineteen and twenty-three. I’m pretty good at it now. Shopping for one. Averting my eyes when I pass yellow fruit. Giving a cold shoulder to the coffee displays. Staying away from the wine bottles he so loved to browse. I’m boycotting all of them. I wouldn't give them the time of day even if they bribed me with chocolate. I have one test now before something lands in my shopping cart—if it makes me cry, I walk on by. Onions aren't the only thing at Basha's with a bad reputation.

There is one exception to the ‘cry test.’ The Kleenex aisle. I never skip that one when I go shopping. Actually, I’m thinking of taking out stock in the company. I deserve some kind of reimbursement for the way I’ve kept them in business lately. And because bananas are everywhere, just waiting to trip me up, I’m counting on Kleenex to have my back.

Bananas. Those slippery little devils with their evil, upturned grins. I've never liked bananas, but I'm wise to them now.

I can run, but they won't hide.

With thanks to Peter Tully for his imaginative photo seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link: Bananas | Bananas and a water splash, so starts my journey o… | Flickr

One Bite At A Time

 

I select the silver package with its navy-blue emblem from a jar filled with thirty others just like this one. Unwrapping it carefully, I bite into the chocolate and the fresh taste of peppermint transports me back in time. Who knew candy had such power? Maybe if I quickly ate the whole bag, I could undo what happened six months ago.

He used to bring me York Peppermint Patties.

I’d find them in the refrigerator waiting for me and knew they were another love note from him. Now I buy them for myself, crying as I eat them. Maybe I should switch to his favorite candy—what was that again? God, I can’t remember what Rob bought from the candy aisle for himself.

This is the fear of grief. That I’ll forget. And if I forget, he’ll disappear. I’m already in charge of his memories, and that’s a big mistake. He was the one with the filing cabinet memory, not me. He knew the number name of every road we ever traveled on. Excuse me while I yawn again. Honestly. If you’re going to give a road a name, make it interesting. Haven’t you ever read Anne of Green Gables?

I’d ask him as we charted a course for our next adventure, “Have we ever been on that road before/in that town before/at that restaurant in that town off that road before?”

“Sure,” he’d say. “Remember? We passed that little gas station on the east side with the bright blue walls and the busted-up parking lot?”

Right. Just like every other little gas station in every other little po-dunk town we ever drove through. I’d swear he was making things up and even say that out loud—right up until the moment when we drove down that numbered highway and passed that ramshackle gas station he remembered as clearly as his own name.

His own name. Robert L. McLeod III. I don’t want it to be forgotten. Not ever. I tried to get the bank to say I could sign the checks on the account that only belongs to me now as “Mrs. Robert L. McLeod,” to keep his name alive. To keep my connection with him alive. They wouldn’t let me. Now I just have boring checks bearing only my name that flash in neon the admission, “Widow.”

That’s not a name I ever wanted for myself. I just wanted to be Rob’s wife.

The remembering of everything we spent forty-four years doing is hard right now. Often, I can’t recall much at all, which scares me to death. Not because I’m afraid I have some as-yet-undiagnosed brain disorder, but because I’m afraid the life that once was, which was my world, will disappear right along with Rob if I can’t let it come close to me. It’s the reason many of us in grief are so torn by it—the pain is impossibly hard but, as time softens it, we will lose more of the one who is already gone from our side. Picture yourself set adrift on a raft, floating farther and farther away from the one you love and the life you shared until it becomes a tiny speck in the distance. That’s the fear.

There’s a great deal about grief I didn’t understand until I found myself here wondering how anyone survives it. The most surprising thing so far, though, is how difficult it is to remember all that I’ve lost with Rob’s death. I can’t sit and bring up the happy memories very much. It’s too painful. This is my brain protecting me from the overwhelming truth that Rob is gone. I suppose that sounds crazy. After all, we just passed the six-month mark. By now, she should realize he’s not coming back, right?

It’s not that simple. I have to learn how to live in the void created by Rob’s absence. Without a home of my own yet. With everything we gathered over half a decade, whatever I kept once I sold our home in Heber, it’s all placed in storage. My life has completely changed. There are mini-losses everywhere, every day. The fact that he’ll never ride in the beautiful new Tahoe I just bought, and most of the time I’ll never ride in the passenger seat. Our dog will never again chase a ball thrown by his master’s amazing arm. We’ll never watch Rob blow out a birthday candle. We’ll never celebrate our golden anniversary together.

All the “nevers” make it difficult to retrieve the “remember when’s” that I alone am in charge of now. But I will. In time. However long I need, in that much time. It’s just another reminder of how little control we actually have in this life. I don’t even know when I’ll be able to laugh freely and remember easily all the beauty of the life I had as Mrs. Robert L. McLeod III.

Still, when I nibble that York Peppermint Patty, it takes me back. Maybe one small bite at a time, I’ll get there.

The Color of You

Orange.

It was never my favorite color. It was yours. You painted your high school bedroom a vibrant version of orange. The little sports car you drove your senior year matched your walls. No wonder fall was your favorite time of year, the way October always bowed in your honor with its piles of pumpkins and seasonal, falling leaves. And every night as brilliant, fiery clouds hide the yawn of a sleepy, setting sun, orange is the color that speaks, “I’ll see you later.”

How on earth did you wind up marrying a girl of blue?

I’m not sure blue and orange even go together. Orange and green are matches—I remind you again of those jack-o-lanterns with their green, garden stems. Yellow and orange are kissin’ cousins, as sunflowers loudly proclaim. Even red and orange enjoy each other’s company, each nodding to the other in feigned humility. “You first.” “No, please, after you.” “Really, I insist.”

Hot hues demand attention. So unlike you. So, tell me again, why was orange always your favorite? And how did you wind up with a blue for your wife?

Was it the love you had for your Florida Gators? Is that the magic combination that gave you permission to love me? They splash orange and blue everywhere they go, who knows why. Real gators are a boring green, and you were never once boring.

I’ve been coloring since you’ve been away. Remember how you always loved coloring and how I never did? I found out it helps my mind relax and let the truth of your departure slowly sink in. Now I’m addicted to the pastime. I’ll bet you thought I’d fill up pages with shades of blue, didn’t you? Sky and turquoise and powder and slate, all the blues a tranquility obsessed girl like me could desire.

Wrong. Well, maybe just a little bit of those. Mostly, though, I fill up the swirly pages of my adult coloring book with bright orange petals, bold red blooms, and happy splashes of yellow. Because I have plenty of blue in my life now, Baby, now that you’re gone.

What I don’t have enough of, is you. 

Dog Is My Co-Pilot

“I’m exhausted, buddy,” I said, as I walked into my room this morning and plopped into a chair. “It takes forever for me to get ready.” Brody looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. I tried again. “It’s hard to be a people,” I told him. “You’re lucky you’re a dog.”

His head tilted in curiosity, he folded his doe brown ears into perky triangles while his dark, obsidian eyes watched me expectantly from the soft cushion where he was lounging. Who knows why. It’s not like I said any of the forbidden words. Ride. Treat. Wanna Go? I know better than that—I spell those out whenever he’s around. I guess he thought if I had something important to say to him, it must mean food or fun was in the forecast.

This is my life. Reduced to conversations with my giant white dog. Not unlike his dad—who’s away on spiritual business—Brody is a man of few words. None, actually. Like I said, a lot like Rob. Still, it’s useful having him around. I entertain myself at his expense, exercising sarcasm, asking him pointless questions, scolding him for chasing cats and skunks.

Yesterday he was in lockdown for the entire day because of that one. Washing my face in the bathroom the night before last, I heard voices in the hall and stuck my head out to investigate.

“Do you smell a skunk?” Katy asked as Dan headed into the laundry room. I did. Weird, since skunks usually wander around outside. This one must have gotten into some serious garlic because his fragrance was wafting through solid walls.

My face went pale. Well, it’s always pale, but I assumed my freckles disappeared into my natural paleness as a terrifying thought popped into my brain. “Brody’s outside,” I told them.

It took all of five seconds to realize he’d introduced himself to something with a bad attitude and stinky breath once we found him. He spent the night locked in the laundry room, suffered the indignity of a serious bath the next morning (thank you, Katy—you’re my hero) along with his pseudo-sibling, Rocky, and dried in isolation for the next twenty hours until he was deemed suitable for polite company.

Maybe that’s why he looked at me like that when I complained about washing my hair, putting on makeup, and gathering all my stuff to go run errands. I don’t know nuthin’ about a dog’s life.

Well, maybe there’s one thing I know—this guy loves to go for a ride. Just open a car door in his general vicinity, and he’s right there in the pilot seat, ready for take-off. Last summer when Rob and I were renting a cabin in Greer, friends from the Valley came up for a few days to hang out. When they got ready to leave, they discovered an extra passenger in their sedan. With the doors left open to load their luggage, Brody escaped down the cabin steps and leaped inside—seventy pounds of fluffy, white energy filled the entire front seat. They coaxed him out of the car, and he ran around to the passenger door, jumped back in, and took his place again behind the wheel.

He’s not a backseat driver. He’s an opportunist.

When we went dog hunting at the pound four years ago, though, one of the things I hoped for was a companion who enjoyed riding in the car the way our first pup, Harmony, did. Our second dog, Sydney, didn’t especially like the open road. Suffering from high blood pressure and anxiety, she practically broke out in hives any time a car even showed up in the driveway. Taking her to required appointments like the vet or the groomer sent her into a tizzy, drooling all over the seat and staring nervously out the windows. That’s how some people act when they ride with me, too, come to think of it. In her case, though, she did that no matter who sat behind the wheel of the car.

So, we lucked out when we chose Brody. It was a gamble whether he’d turn out like Harmony or Sydney. It’s not like you can interview a dog about his likes and dislikes and peculiar habits when you decide to adopt him, you know.

“So, White Dog, do you enjoy car rides? Long walks on the beach? Pina coladas and gettin’ caught in the rain?” He’s so compliant he barked ‘yes’ to every question, especially the one about getting caught in the rain. How do you trust a dog who can’t say no?

He misses Rob, though. I can tell. We both do. Rob played outside with him every day, throwing a ball with that great arm of his. Taking him on long bike rides. Teaching Brody to catch lizards. You should have seen that one. Hunkered down beside the dog, with his hands on each side of his head, Rob directed Brody’s gaze to our back wall where the lizards liked to sunbathe. Once they had radar lock, Brody went into stealth mode, tiptoeing like a cat as he stalked the wild, rabid lizard and then launched himself at the trespasser. He launched himself so well, one afternoon, he smacked his nose right into the wall. After that, he was a lot more . . . prudent.

There are plenty of things for Brody to chase here where we live at the Brady Funny Farm now, or as I like to call it, the Brady Rehabilitative Ranch. So, I don’t need to point out anything to my crazy mutt except that skunks are a stupid thing to stalk. And I have a terrible throwing arm, so my poor dog has no tennis balls to chase after, either.

What I do have, though, is a truck. And the love of long drives. And that secret, dangerous question, “Wanna go for a ride?” He always knows when I’m about to ask, taking his best sitting position, tail wagging behind him like it’s sweeping the ground for landmines. As soon as he hears those magic words, he leaps off the ground like Tigger—no kidding—straight up onto the backseat of my Tahoe, settles himself in on the floorboard, launches his shoulders and front paws up on the console, and the next thing you know, two blonde heads are side by side in the front seat, charting another course across the desert.

We escaped together again tonight after dinner. A few miles down the road, we pulled into a Starbucks drive-thru and he slid off the console, climbed up on the backseat, and pressed his nose against the side window until I rolled it down. He knew what was coming. A Puppaccino—Starbucks’ version of a whipped cream-filled paper cup just for canine passengers.

Don’t judge me.

I held it for him while he licked it clean and we were back on the road again, heading nowhere in particular for a while. Mostly because I get lost in the dark and have to turn around a lot, but that’s not really important. Eventually, we decided we’d had enough fun and it was time to go home. There’s a lot of road construction near our street, so I turned a mile early hoping to avoid it. But I forgot that Ocotillo Road doesn’t go through to the east from Val Vista until it was too late. Making a u-turn, I glared at my companion who clearly didn’t understand how he’d let me down.

“Why’d you let me turn that way, Brody? Geez, you’re the worst navigator ever.” He responded the way he always does and licked my face.

Well, I thought, when you put it that way, I guess it’s not the end of the world. I spun around in the world’s best turning radius truck, and we headed for all the flashing beacons in the narrowed two-mile stretch of Chandler Heights Road that led back to the farm.

We’ll probably run away from home again tomorrow night or the next. I know Brody will never turn me down when I ask nicely.

All I have to worry about is whether he plans to drive and make me the navigator. No matter what he thinks, he's only licensed to be a dog. And besides, he's no good at making u-turns.

If he was, he'd have never been caught by that skunk.

Unwelcome Mat

I heard God call me to sit with Him today. I knew I needed it. My counselor reminds me frequently to go there when I’m weary and need renewal. It’s so hard for me to do, though. Whether it’s my nervous system that’s still so out of whack after all the trauma and grieving, or if I’m upset with Him and can’t listen. Maybe the reason it’s so hard to do is because I’m afraid I’ll be in trouble with Him. But today, I did. Eula, Daughter of the King. I sat with Him and I told Him all my hesitations.

When I am still, all the confusion and pain runs through my mind. While I wait to hear from God, I fear I’ll be clobbered by righteous correction for not being a perfect person. It’s a long way from what I know to be true of my identity in Christ, but everything in my life is topsy turvy right now, and I don’t know much of anything for sure anymore, now that I’ve lost Rob, my whole world.

So, I sat in my chair. Forced myself to stay there. Crying. Telling Him all of this and more. When I ran out of steam, I sensed God tell me, “I see you. I hear you. I’m holding you. I’m carrying you.” Soon, there was an image in my mind of a bird with a broken wing. Unable to fly on its own. Carried gently by someone stronger. Always with the birds. That’s what I gravitate to, though I’ve never known why. So does Katy right now. The hawks. And now feathers. Some say they’re angels’ feathers, reminders that Rob is still with us. Near. Watching. Praying. Helping somehow. It’s not very Baptist, but it seems to be true.

The things I’m learning.

I began to journal. “I am wracked with guilt,” I wrote. Though I sat at his hospital bedside for fourteen hours, ten of them after he was in a morphine-induced coma, I wasn’t there when Rob took his last breath. Experiencing low oxygen and fatigue, four weeks out from my own hospitalization with covid, the combination forced me back to Katy’s mountain cabin. I never saw Rob again. He died with Katy and his sister at his side. When he was gone, Katy made the call to me.

What kind of rotten wife am I that I didn’t put my needs aside to sit with him right up to his very last breath?

“I’m listening,” God said again. No condemnation. No disappointment. No finger pointing. Just acceptance and listening. Nobody knows how to do that like He does. As much as I want Him to say something, it’s a relief to just talk while He listens. Listening like that is a holy skill. Go figure.

I began to wonder. Would it have mattered to Rob in the condition he was in—wanting to go Home, ready to be with Jesus, anxious to be released, already in His Savior’s arms as Katy and I realized when we walked into his room and saw him—would it have mattered to him in his last, sleeping hours, whether I was there beside him or at the cabin avoiding being hospitalized again myself? Heavily sedated, did he need me there at the moment he took his last breath and was finally free of the suffering, released to his dad and brothers and Jesus?

I don’t know.

I talked to Katy about it later and she reminded me that we made the decision for me to leave together, and it was the right one. She also reminded me that Rob was the most pragmatic man we know, and he would have expected me (and her) to do the practical thing when a decision had to be made. When it was made clear that he wanted to go Home, my children and I supported that decision together. When it was obvious that my body needed rest, we made that decision together, too. And when the hospital refused to let more than two family members in his room, we made the decision that Rob’s sister would take my place and wait with Katy (and Lee by phone) until I returned. Rob went Home before I got to return.

I understand now that I didn’t leave because I’m a bad wife. Or because I was afraid. Of course, I was afraid. But I expected to be with him to the end, knowing it would happen once the ventilator was removed. Well into the night, we all waited with him in person and by phone, weeping, praying, and listening to him breathe in peace. I stayed as long as my body could that night, the night he was dying, hours after we gave him what we didn’t want to give him.

We took abuse from the hospital staff who judged our intentions. I answered horrible questions about a funeral home, asked while Rob was still conscious. I signed paperwork with hospice at the foot of his bed because we weren’t allowed to come back to his room if we ever left it. I listened to that terrible chaplain yell at my husband in what she called “prayer.”

There was all the loneliness I felt in isolation in my own hospital room weeks before, separated from him for nine days, and the five weeks afterwards when we held our breaths praying and hoping and begging for him to be healed only to see hope blow up in our faces. The heartache we felt knowing Rob was fighting for his life alone in Show Low. The terror I often experienced, worrying about losing him. The forced separation by the medical industry and government control, the heart stopping updates we received twice a day from Rob’s sister, his advocate, and my own recovery without him beside me. My unacknowledged text messages to him, and his silence because he couldn’t communicate anymore.

Horrible as that whole experience was, none of it was the hardest thing I’ve done during this whole nightmare.

This is.

Mourning him.

Missing him.

Living without him.

All of this that I’m doing every day.

After he died, after he was released from his suffering, ours—and mine—began. The sorrow, confusion, wracking grief, loss, loneliness, isolation. All the paperwork I had to handle for months afterwards while my heart was shattered and my brain was scrambled. The memorial video we worked on for weeks right after we lost him. Packing up our cabin and selling it with our furniture. Bringing everything else down here and putting what was left of our life together in storage. Selling his truck. Trading in the Tahoe we drove back and forth across America together for three hundred thousand miles, and replacing it on my own. The drive I made to and from Florida for his memorial. And the counseling sessions that help me cope with it all.

This is what I’ve done alone, without Rob here beside me. Because he needed to go, he had to go, and I loved him enough to say goodbye.

I sat there in my chair, with God as my witness, and released that tormenting guilt. The five month struggle I've had, so common to those left behind, I’ve decided to leave behind. The truth of how God has carried me through all of this finally connected my mind to my soul. And I knew Rob would be proud that I finally understood it all.

No one, including me, has the right to judge me. Not the old friend who spoke unkindly at Rob’s memorial. Not the staff at that hospital where he died. Not even those who mean well but don’t understand. No one has walked where I’m walking, day after day after grief-filled day. This journey is unique to every person. I’ve realized I have to do this my way.

I have paid an enormous price for loving the way I love Rob. I always will. Because he’ll always be a part of me, even though we’re apart for now.

But today I am giving the left foot of Baptist fellowship to that deceiver, Guilt.

You’re not welcome here anymore. 

My thanks to Sharyn Morrow for the perfect photo seen above. The original can be viewed at this link:
shoegazing, with snow | sharyn morrow | Flickr

Miracles

There have been miracles. Visions. Dreams. Lots of signs sent our way, which has been a little confusing for some of us, being former Baptists and all. Accepting the reality that we are spirit and God is spirit and Rob is spirit and, therefore, we can still recognize communication from beyond the veil, has been more of a faith walk than I expected.

The connections are varied, which is proof in itself that we’re not making it up or imagining things. As brilliant as my kids are and as intelligent as I am, we couldn’t dream any of this up on our own.

For example. Since January, there have been multitudes of hawks overhead. Hawks circling from their nest in trees across the street. Hawks doing flyovers while we—but mostly Katy—drives. She sees them on fence posts, light poles, rooftops, and not just in Arizona. They showed up for her in Florida, too. They’re her link to her daddy. He loved hawks and always pointed them out to us. I don’t know how he could spot them so easily, but his daughter has the same gift. Last week after the funeral was over, Katy knelt at her dad’s grave and called out to me.

“Mom! Look at this!”

Lying on top of the marble slab over Rob’s grave was a single feather. No one placed it there. No one saw it fall from the sky, either. My sister was watching as people came and went around his headstone and told me the slab had only been covered with Rob’s fire department helmet. Later I learned that feathers are often seen as a sign of God’s presence and comfort. "He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart," the psalmist wrote in Psalm 91:4. 

On Easter, Lee witnessed his father’s presence at the back of his church, two months after Rob went to be with Jesus. Standing quietly, unassuming as usual, posture familiar, clothing spot on, hidden by the shadows but entirely recognized by his son, Lee’s father listened while his son finished his message, only to disappear when Lee stopped talking. Lee was in Kentucky when his father took his final breath, and never got to see his dad again before he died. This personal visit was reserved for him.

The week before Easter is a very difficult time for a pastor who just lost his father to prepare four days of sermons reminding people that Christ defeated death. Drained by the effort, my son sank down late one afternoon on the front pew in his church where fading light kept the room in shadows.

“When are you going to show up?!” he demanded of the silent One. Closing his eyes there, they immediately began to burn. Looking for the source of his pain, he saw boomeranged light bouncing off the Emmanuel candle on the alter in front of him. The late afternoon sun, shining through a window high above him on the wall, sent a ray of revelation into the space, ricocheted burning light off the metal ring on the candle and straight into Lee’s weary, closed eyes. Looking at the source, even the wick appeared to be lit, and he realized his question was answered. Emmanuel. God is with us.

Even now, when it feels like He isn’t.

When we decided to save the memorial service for late July in Florida so all the family could attend and Rob’s headstone would be finished, we chose to do a memorial tribute on video, too, for friends and family, particularly those who couldn’t attend the July service. Rob and I didn’t talk about funerals much because we had so much more living to do. But one afternoon a few years ago, he told me about a song he wanted played for his someday funeral. I didn’t want to think about such a terrible thing. I listened to the song and promptly forgot about it.

Until February. Desperately, I tried to remember the name of the one thing Rob had asked for should he pass away before me. I didn’t know the song title, any lyrics, the vocalist, or even the genre. The only thing that stuck with me was the gist of the lyrics—it was a guy singing about the satisfaction he wanted to feel at the end of his life. I asked everyone in the family if they knew of such a song, but no matter how we searched for it, we came up empty handed every time. I cried over my lack of foresight. The one thing Rob had asked for and I couldn’t deliver on it.

A week into the gathering of photos for the video, I woke in the middle of the night and heard a man’s voice clearly say, “When it’s all been said and done.” That was it. Nothing else. I thought it might be a line from the song, though I had idea why it came to me that way. Too drowsy to write it down and too forgetful to remember it, I picked up my phone, dictated it to Siri, and went back to sleep.

I remembered it the following afternoon and told Katy about it. She googled the phrase and got a hit. By the time she’d played the first stanza, I was in tears. It was Rob’s song. And the phrase spoken to me in the night was the song’s complete title—"When It’s All Been Said And Done.”

In the last few months, I have sensed Rob repeatedly in moments of joy as well as fear and pain. Two weeks ago, as I crested the 260 on the Mogollon Rim, our favorite view spread out across the miles of juniper forest below the highway and I felt my heart break again only to realize Rob’s presence was there in the truck with me. I sensed him there for the next hour as I drove the highway to the home we lived in so briefly and sat in our former driveway in sorrow. As I pulled away, Rob’s presence disappeared.

Last week, driving back from his memorial in Florida, I was alone on the final day, exiting I-40 at Holbrook when I realized he was with me again. It’s a strange feeling that I’m unaccustomed to. A spiritual connection, for sure, but it’s like using a spiritual muscle that’s barely been exercised by me before now. It’s not scary, but comforting, and I pay strong attention to it whenever I sense his presence. How could I do anything else, having been one with this man for forty-four years? Of course I know when he’s close by.

But why there on a nothing back road in the high desert instead of in the pines where we tried to make our dreams come true? Because I was headed back into the mountains, back to Heber and Payson and the Mogollon Rim where we raised our kids and anchored our dreams and relished the journey together all those years. Half an hour later, overcome with tears in the middle of a cloudburst on that desolate section of road, I had to pull over and cry out more sorrow. It wasn’t safe to drive—it was only safe to stop. When I got back onto the road, Rob’s presence was gone again.

These are not the miracles we prayed for. The only one we asked for was the one we were denied. Maybe Rob’s prayers were more important than ours as he spent weeks suffering in an ICU in the hospital in Show Low. Maybe his was the one God answered. I don’t know. It’s one more explanation we’ve been denied, and speculation just brings more heartache.

But these glimpses into the heart of God, beyond the veil that blocks my vision. These experiences are gifts of mercy and compassion. It would be simple to explain them away. They’re not very scientific sounding. Birds fly, feathers fall, dreams are full of voices, memories trigger strong feelings. I hesitate even here to tell you about these things.

But if God is our Creator, and Jesus used nature all the time to explain His Father’s kingdom, why shouldn’t I take these evidences of Rob’s presence and God’s comfort as reassurance that, though my world has spun out of control, my Father is still in charge and carries me.

“As an eagle that protects its nest, that flutters over its young, He spread out His wings and took them, He carried them on His pinions.” Deuteronomy 32:11

I still believe in miracles.