Have you heard of this John Edward guy? I think I saw him on Oprah a million years ago, but lately he's been on my mind.
I've stopped worrying so much about the snow thanks to some serious happy pep-talks from my new New England friends (thanks gals!), so that leaves my brain some room to let the grief back in. Some day my mind will be a tranquil sea of bliss, but not today.
R and I were driving to Turkey Day dinner, and there was a traffic slow down. As we drove closer, we saw the reason: On the side of the road was a giant semi truck flipped on its side with a mountain of dirt plowed against the grill. I think it must have been the first road-side accident I'd seen since I viewed the online newspaper photos of my dad's smashed blue truck. I could feel my throat doing that achey thing.
I took a few deep breaths and let it go.
During turkey dinner my sister-in-law just happened to tell us about her trip to see John Edward talk to ghosts. He doesn't call them ghosts; he calls them people on the other side. I started thinking that maybe I'd like to go see this guy. I told my friend Frog Mama about it yesterday, and she said she absolutely believes Edward is for real, and she knows about this stuff. I guess there's no guarantee that Edward will feel a vibe from anyone I know on the other side, but my dad always was the loudest person in the room.
Frog Mama also said I need to ask my dad to help me get myself to an Edward show. I said I didn't know if my dad would be able to help with that because he never was very responsible. She said, "He is now."
I had never considered the possibility that crossing over would turn a person into his or her best self. That sure would make our relationship less challenging.
Ok, so there's all that stuff coming up for me, and then last night as I was googling around about talking to dead people, I decided to google my dad's name. I do this every so often just to see what's what. The thing is, I must usually google my dad's full name because this time I found something I'd never seen before. It was an ancestry site, and on it were at least ten posts that my dad had written eight years ago. I know the posts were his because he used his real name, and he was posting about our family.
Crazy. I felt like my dad was still alive and sending me letters through cyberspace. You know in The Series of Unfortunate Events when the kids go back to their fire-ravaged home and find a letter from their parents that arrived after they died, and the letter was there all the time, and the kids never knew: that's how I felt.
Plus, the letters contained information about my family that I'd never heard: My papa had a baby brother who died of SIDS; my nana's brother, whom I knew had died when I was a baby, had a wife and a whole gaggle of kids in Texas, and they're still around. My great grandfather had two brothers, one named Mack. I really like the name Mack.
The best part, though, is the idea of my dad researching his ancestry. I love that he was trying to re-connect with his long-lost cousins. It's such a normal, hopeful thing to do. I'm taking it as a sign.
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