More Light bulbs

December , 8, 2015

Continued from Bound for Glory

The bubble of isolation I inhabited the days following Roma’s death created some divine time with God. And maybe even with Roma. I don’t know the protocol in Heaven. 

The silence I had initially felt in a world absent Roma was gradually filled with a different awareness of him. It is hard to describe, but I  could almost recognized an enhancement in the spirit of Roma. He was more than he had been before. How could I be almost joyful at such time of excruciating loss? Do others feel this consciousness of their loved one who has passed? As enhanced?

My sister, Weegie (a nickname  given her at birth by our grandmother) must have also been feeling this consciousness of Roma. Weegie and Roma had “clicked” before they spoke the  same verbal language. 

When Kellie graduated from high school in 2002, a month after we brought Roma home, Weegie drove our mother and stepfather from North Carolina to attend her graduation ceremony in Maryland.  The North Carolina relatives were eager to meet their new family member newly imported from Russia. Weegie is a fun aunt and the tease of the family. Once she sized Roma up as tough enough for her playful style of teasing, she showed her new nephew no mercy. She made funny faces at the non-English speaker,  which delighted the witty boy. He understood our weird humor, which was no different from his own. (Another Fingerprint of God on our adoption match.)

After some playful banter between the two new relatives, Roma stood up straight, suddenly he was “all business.” He threw his finger in her direction, pointing at her for a moment, then pivoted his little pointer back toward his temple, and in a dramatic gesture, circled it quickly, round and round. Yes, the universal sign for crazy! Roma understood his new aunt.

Weegie was grieving with me from North Carolina. Our Godly mother had died fourteen months earlier. Weegie had been her main caregiver in her last years. Here, too soon, we found ourselves grieving again.

Tuesday morning, December 8, Weegie called, and began without delay, “Well, let me tell you what happened at my house this morning.” The tone of her voice made me anticipate a good story by good storyteller! Weegie described how she had walked through her house, wringing her hands, asking God why. Why now, when Roma was doing so well?  Why, after calling us to adopt him, would He take this special boy who caused a ripple in the life of everyone he met. Then Weegie elicited Mother’s help in getting answers. 

“Mom, is Roma with you? Is he okay?” she repeated.  Walking through her rarely used living room, newly decorated for Christmas, she noticed a battery operated candle was lit. The candle was on the shelf above Mother’s urn. “Okay, I guess you have him.”

She twisted the candle to the off position, and felt comforted. Later, she went back through, and the light was on again.  “Mom, are you trying to tell him he’s okay?” Then she heard a noise on the other side of  the room.  An elf had fallen off the shelf. Then she corrected her words as she relayed her story. “No, it didn’t fall. It couldn’t have fallen.”

“Okay Roma, I guess you’re alright,'” she picked up the smiley elf, noticing a remembrance to smiley Roma.  Weegie finished her story, “I will never forget that experience.”

Her story reminded me of a post from February, 2015, The Applause of Heaven and further back, Light Bulb Power, from August 14, 2014. The “light-bulb” image came from a casual comment made by a friend who said, “that’s what you can hang on to, the idea of the light bulb going on.” Wise words from a wise and Godly friend. So “Light Bulb” has became a Sacred Echo, one of many. 

I’m hoping Heaven involves getting answers to all the mysteries that have me puzzled by a world and a God too big for me to wrap my little ant-brain around. One day I might have EYES to SEE.

Now, THAT sounds like Heaven to me.

Continue with Heaven-sent visions. Vision One