Multi-Layered Spiritual Connection

      Seated in the living room lounge chair last Saturday morning, with my back to the floor-to-ceiling window, I was rereading notes I had made during the summer of 2015, after meeting up with a young person at their request. This individual had never met Michael but learned about the death of our son through a business connection. They contacted me thinking I might be interested to hear about an experience they had had involving Michael, and of course, I was. During our visit, the person described a vivid dream in which Michael had shared an incredible amount of very accurate information.
     The reason I now wanted to refresh my memory about the details the person had relayed to me was because I was planning to stop in at the Orchard Recovery Centre that afternoon. In the dream, Michael had referred to a "cool circle bench in a quiet space on the island" and the individual knew it was a connection to the Orchard. They subsequently found out that names of deceased clients were memorialized there as well. I had never heard of the bench nor the honouring of Orchard participants who had died. Curious to learn more, I had vowed to follow up the next time I visited Bowen Island with a car. Today would be my first visit back to the recovery centre since attending the weekly family education sessions during Michael's six week stay there in the spring of 2010.
     Now, after closing my notebook, my husband, who had been looking out the window while sitting on the sofa across from me said that while I had been reading, a hummingbird had approached my back, hovered behind me for a few moments, just over my shoulder, then flown off.  Simply perfect, because midway through those notes were the words, "Nocturnal hummingbirds much louder, bigger and more playful than usual. One hovered and seemed to stare at him for a while. Like a friend of his. Then flew away."
    After arriving at the Orchard early Saturday afternoon, I spoke to one of the counsellors who had worked with our family and found out that staff had likely added Michael's name to the memorial garden in 2011, but she strongly encouraged me to create a tag of my own. I was led to the outdoor space, then left there to experience it alone. The circle bench, unlike anything I have ever seen, was indeed located in a quiet space, designed with an elongated, low-angled back rest, allowing one's entire body to relax into it. When seated, one's gaze is drawn upwards, beyond the tops of the towering trees, into the sky beyond. A meditative memorial space in the woods. While writing a short message on the thin copper tag I had been handed, I noticed that there were two stuck together and that the pen was actually pressing the message onto both tags. So, as an added bonus, I was able to take one home, with the same engraved wording that now hangs in a majestic cedar.  A gift to remind me of this deeply meaningful, multi-layered experience of connection to Michael's spirit.

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No Ordinary Weekend

     









     A recent sunny Whistler weekend getaway was filled with incredible moments of synchronicity. The only pre-planned part of the trip was doing tarot readings at a mountaintop event, on the Friday evening. My husband and I had decided to make a weekend of it, booking in at the RV park. With so much to offer, the location supported an effortless flow between being active (biking the valley trail, hiking around Lost Lake, walking to the village) and enjoying restful pastimes (impromptu riverside picnic, brunch on a lakeside patio, Scrabble in the shade). 
     Saturday evening, during an after-dinner stroll through the village, I heard my name called and turned to see one of my cousins seated with someone on a nearby restaurant patio. He lives a few hours away, and we had not seen each other for three years. After a round of hugs and getting introduced to his girlfriend, we took them up on their offer to join them for a drink. We discovered that just minutes before we were spotted, a table had been freed up on the patio, and his girlfriend had requested they move out there, instead of remaining at their inside table. They had arrived at the resort earlier that evening and were leaving shortly after noon the next day. Small window of time to run into them. And as it turned out, Sunday morning our paths crossed again - while leaving the farmer's market, we bumped into them just as they were heading over to check it out. Another short conversation and more hugs.
     Sunday afternoon, my husband and I decided to wander down to one of several coffee shops in the area. Being the 7th of the month, I was feeling a little melancholy, with Michael in my thoughts even more than usual. It would be one of the very rare times when I would not be taking flowers to Boal Memorial on this date. My husband had been walking a few steps ahead of me and was waiting on a bench near the cafe. Sitting down beside, I was about to ask him what he'd like to order when I noticed a memorial plaque on the backrest, and reading the inscription, realized it was in honour of a young man who had lived in Whistler, and died just over a year ago, at age twenty-four. Through a mutual friend, I met his mother once, shortly after her son's death, and we had shared our experiences regarding the deaths of our sons, including reference to the metaphysical realm. What were the chances? Of all the seating available in Whistler, this was the ideal place for us to be on this day. 
     After coffee, it was time to head home. En route, we stopped in Squamish to purchase some bike accessories, and as I was leaving that particular aisle, I thought about our friends who live there, a couple we haven't seen for a few months due to his out-of-province work commitments. I fleetingly wondered what the chances were of running into them here in this big box store but promptly dismissed the notion since it was late Sunday afternoon and thought that if they had needed any items here, they would probably have done so earlier in the day. Then seconds later, as I turned the corner, there they were, smack dab in the middle of the store, and they ended up inviting us up to their place for a short visit. They too happen to live with the loss of a twenty-five year old son. Perfect timing.
     An astounding run of closely timed, out-of-the-blue experiences ... the Universe certainly does know how to make a great impression!
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Photo credit: www.whistler.com