Message Received

The robotic voice of our message machine intoned that we had only two minutes and 53 seconds of space remaining. It was time to review and delete, but this would not be simple, for our machine is the repository of treasured voices now lost to us. Among blithe reminders of appointments, easy to trash, are what were once mundane check-ins, now rendered poignant and precious. In the fourth saved message, Mom is characteristically chipper as she ends with, “We’ll chat tomorrow!” How I wish that could be. I tear up every time I re-play it.  

 

Fourteenth in the queue, Dave’s brother’s voice is strong as he sings a line from “On the Road Again” and then swings into the birthday song with Deb, recorded as they drove to our house last April to drop off my gift. It seems ages since Steve’s voice was that exuberant and robust, but it was barely seven months ago.  

 

Given that Ma was 95, we knew to hold onto several taped birthday songs, although Dave used to chafe with annoyance at the childish endearment when his mother warbled, “Happy Birthday, my sweet baby.”   We also saved the love she wished our way on Valentine’s Day, which now seems a portent as she continues to send her love from the Other Side in the form of a heart. 

 

The first one appeared the day after she died. I’d taken my morning shower, toweled off while standing on the navy blue bath mat, and stepped aside to pick it up and replace it on its rack. And there it was: a heart in the damp imprint on the mat.  It wasn’t sort-of-a-heart; it was a perfect heart. And after I took a picture, I tried to replicate it, standing this way and that, heels together, heels apart, but I couldn’t readily re-create that precise Valentine shape. 

 

“Love you too, Ma,” I said.

A week later, Dave and I were awash in a welter of bins and boxes as we worked to empty Ma’s small apartment within the available two-week window. Like me, Ma was a fan of both Christmas and teddy bears. She had a lot of teddy bears, and I was guilty of giving her many of those that filled the bins in her storage area and occupied her windowsills, deacon’s bench, and shelves. 

 

I’d emptied one large bin marked “CHRISTMAS,” stuffing black garbage bags destined for Goodwill with assorted angels, Santas, and yes, teddy bears. I left a mid-sized fake fir tree by her front door to carry out on its own as it would take up too much room in a bag or box.  I passed by the tree numerous times over the course of a week as I went back and forth from the apartment with loads for the dumpster or my car.  

 

In the final days, I took a picture of the tree and sent it to Casey along with the text, “Want it?” 

 

“Sure!” she responded, so I took the tree to my car and wedged it in the back seat.  But wait. What was that? A bit of red I’d not noticed before nestled within the branches. Ignoring the prickle of simulated pine needles, I worked my fingers between the limbs and extricated a tiny teddy bear in red pajamas with a miniscule heart pendant at his throat. Some might say I’d just missed it all the times I’d passed, and maybe that’s true, but the tug in my chest let me know it was from her. “Love you too, Ma,” I whispered. 

When someone passes to the Other Side, we yearn to know they’re okay. When my parents died, I wanted them to find each other in some glorious Beyond, but when their deaths were fresh, I wanted to know they were still around; that they were here with me.  My father, in particular, was true to character in sending clear communications, and when Steve left us in September, we were on alert, looking for signs, not ready to let him go. 

 

Last summer, Steve gave us a Rose of Sharon sapling, offspring of the abundant bush at his home. It remained in a pot by our back door through fall and winter; we never got around to planting it.  Finally, in late spring, Dave transferred it to the ground.  It lived, but seemed stagnant, neither growing nor sprouting leaves. The day Steve died, Dave came to me wide-eyed. “Come look!” he said. He led me to the edge of the yard and pointed. On its spindly trunk, the plant had sent forth, finally, one lone blossom. “It’s the Rose of Steve,” said Dave. And so we will always call it. 

 

Deb, Steve’s wife, also searches for signs. Over the past month, a fox has been a regular visitor, lingering beneath the bird feeders, stalking squirrels, and trotting across the lawn between Steve and Deb’s house and their barn. “I call him ‘Sly’,” said Deb. Sly was Steve’s nickname in college, as fitting for a handsome red fox as it was for that handsome young man.

 

Dave’s bathroom looks out over our backyard. It was late September and the leaves had just begun to fall.  “Check it out,” Dave called to me as he stared out the window after his shower. I followed his gaze and saw a heart in the middle of the yard. I felt that tug in my chest and knew Dave felt it too. It was a leaf, but our recognition let us know it was from Ma.     

 

Be it a text, letter, phone call, or … a leaf, rose, bear, fox, or damp imprint, a message sent is as commonplace as the means chosen until the receiving heart tugs in answer.

 

Love you too, Steve and Ma.