The Universe Speaks in Your Language
There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with grief that you never understand until you’re thrown into the middle of it.
It's not just the missing of your loved one that rips you to shreds, but it’s also realizing that everyone else seems to be perfectly fine. Laughing. Making plans. Carrying on. And you feel like you can barely pull yourself up off the floor, wondering what is wrong with you, and why you can't get yourself together and join them.
When my mom passed away in March of 2007, I was 37 years old. My kids were 10 and 12. None of the people closest to me had lost a parent yet. None of them had walked that road. So, while they showed up with good intentions, they simply didn't have the map for where I was.
I felt completely alone.
I tried to be social. I'd go out, put on my smile, and spend the whole time feeling like I was performing. Most nights I just stayed home. What made the grief glaring to me was how far off I was from my positive, happy, sunshine personality. Even worse, I had no idea how to navigate back to normal or how long it would take.
It turned out, I wasn't as alone as I felt
The First Hello
About a month after my mom passed, I was struggling. Really struggling. One morning, on the first spring-like day after the Iowa winter, I opened my front door to let in some warm light and fresh air.
That's when I heard it.
Wind chimes. Coming from across the street.
We had lived in that house for two years. I had never heard those wind chimes before. The second the sound reached me; I was eight years old again, sitting in my mom's little farmhouse with the front door open, her wind chimes clanking on the porch. I used to hate that sound. Too metallic. Too constant.
But standing in my doorway that morning, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
I let the clanking sound wash over me and smiled. It felt like a loving hug. Like she was saying, Hello, I'm still here. Suddenly, my heart didn’t feel as heavy.
Only You Would Know
Here's what I've learned about signs. They aren't generic. They aren't one-size-fits-all. They are built from the details of your own life, and only you would recognize them for what they are.
I had told a close friend about hearing the wind chimes and how it reminded me of my mom. For my next birthday, she gifted me the most beautiful set of wind chimes I had ever seen. Long, metal tubes with a deep, resonant sound. She said she had been told that when you hear wind chimes, someone in heaven is thinking of you. I loved that. I told everyone about my mom saying hello through wind chimes.
Then one Christmas, my mother-in-law at the time did something spontaneous and a little silly. She decided to grab something from her around her house to give each of us as a gift, with some funny story attached. However, when it came to my gift, she disappeared into the dark on a 4-wheeler. When she came back, she was holding something behind her back and apologizing. She said she couldn't see in the dark and just grabbed the first one she touched. She had ridden over to her sister's and taken one of her many wind chimes from the eaves of her house.
When she revealed it from behind her back, I immediately burst into tears.
They were made of ceramic bells.
She didn't understand why I was crying and didn't want me to be upset. I told her they weren’t sad tears and that my mom had guided her to those wind chimes. I explained when I was a little girl, I had asked my mom what I could collect so people would always know what to give me as a gift. My mom suggested bells, and I collected them for years.
My mother-in-law felt around in the dark for meaningful wind chimes and came back with a collection of bells.
There is simply no way to explain that as anything other than a hello from my mom.
Once You See It, You Can't Unsee It
That's the thing about signs. Once you receive the first one and let yourself believe it, you start noticing them everywhere. A song. A license plate. A billboard. A feather. A coin. Not because you're imagining things, but because you welcome them.
My mom also sends me blue jays. Don't ask me why I thought if she was going to send me a sign from a bird, it would be that and not a cardinal. The same day I had that thought, one let out a loud shrill sound. When I turned towards the sound, the blue jay landed right next to a cardinal in a tree in my front yard. A friend told me blue jays and cardinals don't even like each other, so it was crazy they would be on the same branch. I laughed out loud. That sounded exactly like my parents.
I find dimes in the strangest places and know those are from my dad.
And lately, on my morning walks through my apartment complex, I hear wind chimes like I did on my walks in Iowa shortly after my mom passed. Not always. Not even most of the time. With over 250 units and every patio and balcony a chance, you'd think I'd hear them a lot more. But I don't.
The sound catches me completely off guard. Yet, every single time, it warms my heart, because I know exactly who is making her presence known.
Love Doesn't End. It Keeps Going.
This week I am heading to Tulsa, Oklahoma to spend Easter with my family. My four-year-old grandson will run at me full speed, the way he does, with that head of red hair.
Red hair, like mine. Like my mom's.
For the first time, I will hold my newborn granddaughter. She was given my middle name as her middle name. The middle name my mom chose for me.
She never met my grandchildren. She never saw my children fully grown. There is grief in that which doesn't ever completely go away, and I have made my peace with carrying it.
However, I also know a part of my mom is that red hair. A part of her is that middle name. She is in the wind chimes that ring on a still morning when I need a reminder that I am loved and I am not alone.
My sweet mother lives on, just in a different way. Her love keeps going. All these years later, it still arrives in ways I never could have predicted.
If you are in a season of grief right now, or if you have ever felt like the world moved on without you, I want you to know you are not alone. The universe speaks to you in a language built specifically from the details of your own life. The sounds, the symbols, the moments that grab your attention.
Those are not coincidences.
Those are for you.
Stay open. The love that shaped you doesn't end. It just learns new ways to find you.
Are you open to receiving signs? What are the signs you have noticed?