Coincidences are spiritual puns.
G. K. Chesterton
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 recognize an enhancement in the spirit of Roma. He was more than he had hap before. How could I be almost joyful at such a time of excruciating loss? Do others feel this consciousness of their loved one who has passed? As enhanced?
My sister, Weegie, only 18 months older than me, must have also been feeling this consciousness of Roma in the hours after his fall. 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 recently 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 “got” 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 and 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.
Now, Weegie was grieving with me from North Carolina. Our Godly mother had died 14 months earlier. Weegie had been Mother’s main caregiver during her final months since she lived close by. That loss was still fresh for us. How I missed my mother’s love, support, comfort, and prayers at this most horrendous time of my life.
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 told by a good storyteller! How I needed a good story.
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 God take the boy who was so loved by everyone he met? Then she recalled our most recent loss. “Is Roma with you now, Mom?
Let me make it clear, we do not “speak to the dead.” Our prayers to God were for strength and healing peace. We understand that only God can hear and answer our prayers. He knows how to comfort us. And He did.
“Mom, do you have him? 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 filled with her ashes. “Okay, I guess he’s with you.” She picked up the candle and twisted it to the off position and felt comforted. Later, she went back through, and the light was on again. “Mom, are you trying to tell me 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. It’s more like it jumped.”
“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 casual comment made by a friend when I told her about Roma screwing in a light bulb on a wall of lights that spelled out “Jesus is Life” at Passion City Church in July 2014. She 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 become a sacred echo for me, one of many.
Thinking of Roma being in Heaven, safe with Jesus, gave me real peace. He wasn’t “gone,” he was just somewhere else. Waiting. And probably not patiently. He was more than he had been before. My mind was confused with the fog of grief, but I was sure Roma continued in an enhanced manner. He was there, and I was here, but the separation is a temporary condition.
I’m hoping Heaven involves getting answers to all the mysteries that puzzle me, mysteries of a universe and a God far too big for me to wrap my human brain around. One day I might have eyes to see. But at that time, even in those early days of searing grief, I was confident that God is still on the throne. His love for me was so palpable. Many more stories of other friends’ recognition of God’s goodness in our grief would come to us. It was like God was giving me a glimpse through the thin veil of death. And my previous notion of “death” would forever be changed.
Consider it all JOY 