I’m not sure the cause, and I’m not sure it matters enough to figure out the why, but I have been feeling extremely connected to A lately.  As if he has been trying to communicate with me more over the past few weeks.

I often see signs or hear messages from him through signs I see or music I’m listening to, but the further I move from his passing, the more sporadic they have become.  They are no less meaningful when they appear, but they don’t occur with the regularity they did at the beginning of my grief journey.

On one drive home last week, I broke down in a way I hadn’t done in months when the Amazon music radio station I was listening to on my phone just played song after song after song that hit me straight in the heart.  As I was driving, a song would begin that had some sort of personal meaning, or lyrics that spoke to me.

Understand this isn’t my music, but just a random station, and each time a new song started and blindsided me, I would say “Alexa… next!”  Then the next song would begin and sucker punch me again.  I’m not sure how many songs Alexa and I went through on that drive, but by the time I pulled off the highway exit toward home, I was having trouble seeing the road through my tears.

It made me want to open my heart wide and receive the message.  And if you know me at all, you know I had to read and research and reflect.  Forget “readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic”, these are my 3 R’s.

Someone had gifted me a book in the past few months titled “Signs from the Afterlife” by Lyn Ragan and it had been sitting on my bureau with several other unread books.  I plucked it from the pile and put it in my car.  When I got to work early one morning, I sat and flipped through it.  I read the first chapter, then randomly flipped through with my eyes closed, and read whichever page I had opened to.

Interestingly, I always landed on the first page of a chapter, and the very first chapter I read this way was titled “Music From the Other Side” and it details how our loved ones can give us the gift of song through “manipulating our electronic impulses” to remember a song, or hear it in the world around us.  I have been saying for a very long time that A has spoken to me through the radio, and I have had so many instances that prove this to me.

Other signs from the afterlife, according to the book include rainbows, heart, numbers, and dragonflies, that have the ability to “race through time and portals into other worlds”. I have a long history with dragonflies, as well; A and I would find literally dozens of them on the long walks we used to take.  I have many dragonfly photos (below are just a few), including a few with smiling dragonflies – yes, there is such a thing.  There even exists a video where a dragonfly landed on my hand and sat there for several minutes while I talked to him (looking and sounding very much like a lunatic, I know).  The point is, dragonflies have always been drawn to me and I to them.

No sooner did I step out of my car that morning, than I immediately saw a dragonfly.  A red one.  The book details how colors of the dragonflies (and butterflies) hold significance, and according to this, red represents the root chakra, stating that red is the energy of love.  This was clearly a sign, as was the song Remember When by Alan Jackson that I heard three times in as many days, which includes the lyrics “Remember when I was young and so were you, and time stood still and love was all we knew”.  I remember.

I have been reading that book, as well as another one by Mike Dooley who wrote “The Top Ten Things Dead People Want to Tell You” (which incidentally was given to me by the author himself with the inscription that reads, in part, “[p]lease know that you are loved and that your husband is ‘alive and in love’ with you always.”).  I’m not certain exactly what sign I’m searching for, but I feel as though I’ll know it when I receive it.  It’s as if it’s right there on the periphery of my awareness, and much like catching a butterfly, I must be still to receive it.

Fast forward to this morning, when I was sitting at the computer doing schoolwork (or more accurately not doing it.  Some of the coursework for my Masters is boring and tedious and I will procrastinate.).  I thought “I need to see a sign.  Show me something today.”  When I opened the blinds, I immediately saw a red dragonfly.  Then another.  And another.  Until there were probably a dozen or more zipping back and forth across the yard, some close enough to the window to cast a shadow beneath it.

S and I have been having more conversations lately about our future, all the while slowly integrating our lives.  Some are small gestures of togetherness, while others are clearly the typical merging of couples who mean to stay a couple long-term.  On one level, it makes me a bit anxious, but on a deeper level, it brings me a sense of security and rightness.

A’s insistence in getting a message to me now is probably to be expected.  He may simply want to remind me that he still loves me.  Or to reassure me that I am where I am meant to be.  Or perhaps he has something deeper for me to understand.  No matter the message, I’m listening.  And watching.  And opening my heart.  Because I need to know.

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