Grant???

Is that you Grant?? No joke, I saw this on my daily walk.  I stopped dead in my tracks.  It was right in front of me. One day it was here on this very same street I pass day after day.  On a particularly lonely day walking along, I was thinking about who knows what. 

I was probably feeling a little sorry for myself. I looked up from the sidewalk and straight at this tree. Right there, I could see this image of what I can only say was Grant’s face at that moment.  

I’d probably passed this very tree hundreds of times and only now, there it was.  Has that always been there? How did it form?  Was it always there and I just now noticed it?  Did it appear? And if so, is it from Grant, and is it for me?  A silly little reminder?  

What the heck? Well, no matter how it got there, to my eyes, it looks like Grant.  Even in this picture I took from what my eyes saw in that moment, it looks like Grant to me.  This is definitely a sign.  It looked so much like Grant’s face (in the form of tree art).

As I looked at it in person, even more so than this picture here portrays, I see him in the picture, still.   The look on what I see could be his face, I recognize the shape his eyes would take. The look is when he was just about to get into mischief.

It was the kind that he would anticipate a good reaction from his audience as a result.   I smiled as I remembered that face on him.  I felt a bit dumbfounded to be reminded of that particular face I loved so much and to find it formed on this tree branch. 

I stood there for a long time before I started my walk back up.  When I finally started walking, I felt my mind spinning at the possible meanings.  A memory came back to me.  A few years before Grant died, we were casually talking about the things of life and death.  

He said then, “if I die before you, I'll figure out a way to come back and give you a message.”  I responded that if there was a way, don’t you think after all these years of people dying, that someone would have figured it out by now?  

That if it were possible, it would have happened.  There really must be some kind of rules, guidelines, ethics and boundaries in place that would prevent that from happening. He responded with, “probably, but there’s got to be a hack and I’d figure it out.”  

I remember laughing and thinking, yeah, you probably would.  Would it be like the ways we generally think the dead try to communicate with us?  The vase mysteriously falls and breaks when no one is by it? The cat suddenly jumps and howls in a certain spot.

As if someone is there, the door that creaks open and closed when no one is walking through? the sound of footsteps on a floor when no one is home?  Most of these things, I can see a reason why it’s happening.  

Like the kids were shooting darts and one got stuck behind the vase and set it off balance and it eventually fell.  The door is reacting to a new kind of air pressure in the house, or the cat is sick, or saw a mouse. 

When I have experiences like this, upon investigation, they are really just an adjustment of the house like after a windstorm and so on.  Besides, if those really were some sign from the other side, how would you know who they are from? And what is the meaning?

If it even was a communication?  I mean, I wouldn’t consider that a message to me from a dead loved one even if it really was.  How do you even decipher a meaning from it?  I told Grant then, all those years ago; that if it were something like that, it doesn’t count, because you just don’t know.

To that he responded, that his message would unquestionably be from him.  I would know it.  I smiled again and said, “Yeah, you would make sure of that.”  We laughed and never thought about that conversation again.

At least I didn’t again until he was actually dead. Then I just could hope that what he had actually said to me in life, would be something he could follow through on. Now we both actually had the chance to see if this would be possible. 

I waited, and hoped and watched.  Then here was this.  Was it?  I still can’t say I know for sure, but it certainly communicates to me and speaks of Grant.  Yet, I also know it can be explained away by the growth patterns of a tree. 

Or my own perception of what I see from those growth patterns.  Yet, from that perception, that is mine, I see an image. In a tree I’ve passed many times and suddenly this is visible to me where it was not many times before.  

I lost this person who it reminds me of.  I see it and it reminds me of him and a look he once had.  It seems that if there was a “death hack” to communicate something from Grant to me in a way I would get it and know it was from him; this could meet that criteria. 

Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying that there are two ways to see the world; one as though nothing is a miracle, the other as if everything is.  I don’t know if Einstein actually said this.  If he did; I like the idea of looking at everything as a miracle. To me, it is! 

I see how everything can be miraculous. I can also see how it could just be. I can ignore the beauty of its existence in exchange for expecting it to be there. I can ignore it all and feel entitled to the world around me.  I don’t. 

I don’t feel entitled to everything in this world that supports me just because it’s there.  The air I breathe, the sunshine that feeds me. The sunshine that lights the world to keep it functioning.  All the life and abundance that comes from things in the world that work as they do.  

I do expect them to because they do.  And, as I stop to appreciate all of it as a gift, not just something I deserve; I feel the joy of the miraculous. So this, it feels like a miracle.  I choose to believe it was for me, from Grant. 

That it is just a little joke that he “death hacked” his way to me. I like that story and it makes me smile.  The other story I could tell myself is that it’s a weird shape on a tree and it kinda looks like a face, but that’s a weird thought too.

I could then go on with life and not think about another thing, but that is boring.  It doesn’t seem miraculous at all nor does it make me smile.  The thought of living as if nothing is miraculous seems dismal to me.  

I prefer the beauty of a miracle. I prefer that every breath I take is a miracle.  What if every tear I cry is a miracle.  And if I can believe that every moment I hurt because I miss Grant is a miracle.  And every reminder I have that I am loved by those here is a miracle.

 And if a reminder that I am loved by those who have passed on is a miracle.  Then when I see this, I see a miracle.  Just as much as I continue to breathe in every moment of this life that is so miraculous.