Tonight after I returned home from a shift of food deliveries, I noticed an “ugly” Christmas sweater Jeep (my late husband) used to wear for the holidays, draped over the back of my office chair. I immediately thought Ian had put it on there while doing some laundry or reorganizing, and asked him. He didn’t know what I was talking about, so I pointed at the chair. The front of the sweater was perfectly centered on the back of the chair, fabric smoothed as if laid out to wear for the evening. “No,” he replied. “Wasn’t me.”
“It’s Jeep,” I said. “He wanted me to know he was here.” I asked Ian if his abilities were “on”, and if he could see him. His talent was closed for the evening, but he opened for me and did a quick scan. Jeep wasn’t here anymore. Last week when they talked during one of his visits, Jeep had said that he was watching over us. So, since I can’t see Jeep with my own eyes like my husband does, Jeep has been manifesting by moving objects which were personal to him. This sweater matched his personality in life: the use of a sly, intelligent and irreverent sense of humor in almost everything he did. Most jokes Jeep would spring on me when he was alive would go right over my head; it wasn’t until a couple of years later when I had that sudden realization, “Now, I get it!”, in a forehead-smacking moment which would elicit laughter at the memory.
About two nights ago, as Ian was turning on elephant-themed lamps atop bookshelves in my studio (which Jeep gifted me the year before he died), a music box next to one of the lamp bases opened and the tingle of a melody played. In this box is an autograph from Ella Fitzgerald, a jazz legend Jeep and I loved. He had seen her perform live at a night club back in the early 1980’s. Ella signed a portion of the drink menu he tore off as she greeted them at their table in between sets. Jeep cherished this autograph, and kept it folded in this music box. Ian picked up the paper and looked at it, not sure of what it was until I clarified (I had spoken of the autograph many times throughout our marriage, and showed it to him once a while back). On this evening, I again knew it was Jeep sending me a signal. He was saying ,“I’m here.”
I like that. Is very comforting. I mentioned to Ian that we have a very different take on life and death than most people will ever experience. I have been able to achieve closure, and still know through interactive communication via movement of objects, the lighting of sage and other gestures, that Jeep is still looking out for me and checking in. In death, he is finishing things he didn’t want to leave undone, and Ian and I are a part of that. Plus, our home is a safe and comfortable place for him, where he can rest and recuperate before doing what he needs to do. He is, in the truest sense of the world, our angel.