I talk to my dad almost everyday. That may not seem out of the ordinary, except that my dad died tragically almost a year and a half ago. Because of my spiritual upbringing, I believe we’re all connected in some form, whether in a physical or spiritual sense, and I believe that even while walking with God, my dad can still hear me. I just didn’t realize he might be able to respond….

Although I grieved, cried, cursed, then forgave, the person who caused the accident that shortly after took his life, I thought I was doing OK. I thought I was adjusting, accepting and learning to live without the first man in my life. It wasn’t until almost a year after his death, that I realized what an emotional fog I had been in. It was at that point, I realized I hadn’t been OK, I had been totally, completely, numb. I had been a ghost floating through the previous year and I was coming out of the fog. That’s when I began having one-sided conversations with my dad.

I would tell dad about my day, what was going on in life, how I’d lost one of my favorite earrings, how much I missed him, told him stories about family members, that I wished we could talk.

One fall night, after my husband had moved west and I was still in the south selling our home, I was sitting in the family room reading when the ceiling fan turned on at top speed. Since the control was on the wall across the room, there was no way it could have turned on. However, the fan remote in the outside screened porch worked on the same radio frequency, and many times if you turned on the fan outside, the inside fan would go on. I completely PANICKED thinking somebody was outside the house. I flipped on all the outside lights. I saw nobody, but couldn’t tell if the outdoor fan was on, or if somebody was in the porch. I was freaking.

It took me a good 15 minutes to muster enough courage to step outside into the dark night to determine if somebody was in the screened porch. Nobody was in the porch and the fan was not moving. After calming down and triple checking the locks and security, I headed for bed, muttering as I went “Dad, if that was you, you need to find a better way to let me know you’re here. I just about had a heart attack.”

Several days later, I was sitting reading, and the light of the same fan turned on. Since it was daylight, I walked outside to the porch. The fan was not on, and neither was the light. I inspected the remote, took the batteries out and put them back in. I had no explanation. I walked back in the house and said “OK, dad, at least this was in the daytime and not quite as startling as the fan, but there’s an inspector coming in the next several days and I don’t want him thinking there are electrical problems. So please, no more electrical stuff. Still love ya, though!”

Three or four days later I had gotten out of the shower and hopped from the mat to the rug to finish drying off.  Something caught my eye in my peripheral vision. I looked at the water-soaked spot on the rug where I had just been standing, and there was the favorite earring that had been gone for a year. “Oh, my gosh!” I said. “Now that’s a GREAT way to let me know you’re there!”

As we were moving west, I told my husband one of my concerns was that dad wouldn’t know where we were. When we got to our new house, I continued my conversations with dad. I told him how excited we were that that there was going to be a new baby in the family and to please keep an eye on them to make sure everything goes well.

Several days ago, as I was walking to feed the dog, I told him about a high school friend who posted pictures of the the neighborhood movie theater we all used to go to. I laughed as I reminisced out loud about how many times year after year, he would talk me to see Mary Poppins at that theater. As I bent over to pick up the dogs water bowl, I noticed a scrap of paper and picked it up to throw it away. That small little scrap said “Poppins.” It said Poppins.

You may think I’m nuts, that dead is dead, all this is a coincidence. I can’t explain it. I can tell you my heart is open, my faith in intact, and I know love is eternal. When you get right down to it, it’s love that endures, gives us hope, nourishes our soul, adds meaning to our lives. It’s good to know it endures on both sides of the fence.