Highly Extraordinary Events

He laughed at the idea of little miracles,

until he learned to accept them

Shortly after our dad died in 2005, my mother started seeing things. Not imagining apparitions but interpreting happenstance as miraculous. Frequently it was the rainbows.

Mom has little dangling glass crystals hanging in various windows which inevitably disperse sunshine, creating many dancing multicolored points of light in her house. If the optical phenomenon happens to hit a photo or a certain object, she is convinced dad is sending a message from the great beyond.

“Definitely a miracle, mom,” we usually say, “light would NEVER do that naturally.”

We giggle lightly, chuckle inwardly or guffaw together, not polite I admit but you have to be there AND be related, you’d understand. Especially since she sees the divine in other events; a broken wafer, an incidental thought, a sudden storm. We’ve have come to expect, accept, and even encourage her peculiar perceptions. But not believe in them.

Recently mom had serious heart surgery. “Serious” because I believe all medical heart manipulations are precarious. Not only did I get to watch her recovery at the hospital but I got to spend a lot of time with her at her house. Frankly, she not only needed our help but we were frightened at the idea of an 85 year old heart patient living alone and doing the right thing when it came to meds, frequent healthy eating and sporadic home care visits. Along with my saintly sister, nurse B and my bro-in-law, I became a care giver. We watched her travel from death’s door through a walk in the park to supervised self care.

In between meal planning and prep, med dispersion and light housekeeping I would wander around the house cleaning drawers cabinets and closets, grouping years of mementos and thinking. One frequent subject of thought was my mom’s speedy recovery. I had read and listened to many reports about how quickly people bounced back from having their chests spread opened, their veins ripped out of the legs and patched onto their heart, even having a pig’s heart valve sacrificed and transplanted onto a human. It’s another thing to witness the change in someone you love. It is extra-ordinary.

As I wandered and wondered I would often see little points of springtime sunlight refracted into small spectrums. I started to imagine my father telling me that he would take care of things, that everything was going to be OK. I took comfort. I began to rely on these other worldly reassurances. I started to think of the comforting spots of color as hugs from my dead father, as teeny miracles. It became a way of understanding my mother.

So maybe she takes comfort thinking my dad is still with her sometimes. So she truly believes he’s silently com

municating with her, continuing to take care of her, to watch out for her.

So what? 

And who’s to say he isn’t.

Miracles happen.

- - - David