Hello from the Other Side
I’ve spent a lot of time listening this past year. Listening on my walks for the sudden babbling fountain in the shape of a turtle. Listening for the high-pitched chirp of a cardinal outside my window. It lasers me in, sharpens my senses.
Know what else real listening does? (The kind without earbuds or fifteen open browser windows or endless scrolling, I mean.)
It creates a whole lot of space for whatever needs to come through.
One of the best parts about sharing these stories with you is listening to how one element may resonate with someone else. The signs, the meaning, the after-life communication–it’s kept me rooted so I can keep growing and moving, too. I’ve shared some of these “sign” stories with others this past year. Often, some form of this response comes: I wish I got a sign from (insert loved one here), too.
The truth is, I entered anticipatory grief years before Ferg actually crossed over. In my proud witchy, woo-woo way, I’ve long believed in signs from the other side. So I guess you could say, I had a little training, an open ear before I knew I needed it most. But the door to that openness and willingness can be thrust open at any time, if you allow it.
I shared the story from part one with a dear friend the day I received that frame with a happy Ferg face smiling back. On the other end of that phone, she said, “Okay, I wasn’t gonna tell you what I’m sending. But it’s a book about signs. Except ... I mean ... sounds like you could have written this book!” Flattered. Also: holy intrigue.
After deploying overseas for work and entering one last pack-and-move shuffle to my new, real apartment, I finally had an address to claim as my own where that package from my friend arrived on the exact three-month anniversary of Ferg’s crossing (because yes, it becomes second nature to keep track of time passing like that!). That book, Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe by Laura Lynne Jackson, is the piece I credit for siphoning much of the stagnant ache and transforming it into focus, into movement, into a conversation. It’s the book I’ve gifted most often this year, and the doorway I needed to feel validated and less alone in flexing the muscle of intuition. It, quite simply, affirmed the power of a life continued.
Story after true story sang me to peace. I ate up the guidance of how to co-create your own “sign” language, recognizing I was (shocker) already doing it. Mostly, just by listening and focusing. After all, a conversation without listening is just a jumble of noise.
Here’s a glimpse of what keeping ears, eyes and hearts open can look like:
Late April, 2022 I pull Ferg’s fuzzy bed out on the patio so he can lie on his side to watch the birds. Sniff the fresh air. In the stillness with nowhere else to go, my eyes fixate on something other than Ferg, for once. What are those white blooms? I pluck a flower from the tree right above his head and bring it closer for a look. Four petals, each with faint grooves that curve at the end, kind of like a little heart shape. Maybe, just maybe… of course. They match the size and shape of his own creamy vanilla ears. I scan the tree with my new nifty app, retrieving an encyclopedia of plant information within seconds of snapping a photo. Common name: flowering dogwood. Well, wouldn’t you know it. I rename it, making myself chuckle out loud as I usually do at my own jokes: Flowering Fergwood.
I take stock of our space an hour before the veterinarian arrives, pulling together elements to form some kind of makeshift ritual as I prepare to say goodbye. With so much of my stuff in storage, I am left looking to nature and what we already have to mark Ferg’s transitional passage during this transition of homes for me, too.
I pluck two of the fullest blooms from that dogwood and place them on his little adorned body, adjacent to the customized handkerchief tied around his neck. My boy goes out in style enveloped in my arms.
May
Life demands commencing. I pick up the apartment search, entering the D.C. housing edition of the Hunger Games, eventually snagging a perfect little place thanks to a synchronistic, last-minute dropout. It’s the backyard space that sells it. A pebble stone pathway dappled in light from a towering, protective tree. Its branches fan out like a pair of long, graceful hands over my bedroom window. It’s so comforting, so nurturing, I’ve got to know what this thing is.
Out comes the app.
Common name: Tree of Heaven. It stands only a few trees away from a flowering dogwood.
July
I take a break from unpacking one day and walk to D.C.'s Botanic Gardens, the respite Dad and I stumbled upon the day after letting Ferg go. We were mesmerized there, enthralled. Soothed by the twisty chlorophyll jungle swimming around us.
I’m thinking of my baby the whole way there. I think of him as I notice the cute Free Little Library huts dotting the streets of Capitol Hill. Until something says, stop at this one.
In the back is a bright blue spine that catches my eye called Hello from Heaven! A book on after-death communication. I turn around to see a fellow walking with a white terrier strapped in a carrier to his back, eerily similar to Ferg's. Hi back, baby.
Around this time, I’m drawn to creatures more than ever. To wildlife rehab and sanctuaries and rescues and conservation. Preservation. Maybe it’s because I need something to “fill the hole.” Something to resemble the ache. It’s more than this feeling of missing being a mom. I miss caring for something so it can continue to grow and evolve, taking on a life of its own. I recognize this concept, having read it in books, put it into practice in ways before. It’s the notion, so eloquently put by writer Susan Cain, that the place you suffer is the place you care. That’s what it means to yearn.
August I sit at Dad’s birthday table finishing dessert when he looks over at me and says, did I tell you what we’re planting out front? I assume some ferns, maybe a pine in the thick of this landscape overhaul project. He leans in and whispers: thought we’d plant Ferg a dogwood tree.
Big, fat tears plump beneath my rims before squeezing their way out. I swallow past the knot in my throat, knowing that’s where Ferg’s body will rest.
November
I find myself crossing the street to say hi to every dog, crouching down to give ear noogies. I am that neighborhood dog creeper and I don’t even care. I toggle back and forth, imagining one of my own in the house. But it doesn’t feel right. So I keep stroking the fur of other pups and realize, this is pretty damn fulfilling, isn’t it? To be near and help and show them some big love. Soon, I’m walking a few regularly. Maybe, I think, I’ll eventually get to walk a westie.
In the meantime, we welcome dozens of cold-stunned sea turtles to the aquarium. I roll up my sleeves and get to work feeding and scooping and holding and caring.
April 2023
And then, this month of all months. I take a sip of warm coffee before pulling on my sweats, clasping the leash on the harness. Wanna go for a WALK, Mac? A sturdy white pup hops from his window-peering perch on the couch to meet me on the floor. He’s a gorgeous, big boy: The vet likes to say he’s stocky, his mama says. I know. I know so well, because Ferg gave me a twin westie pal to watch over this anniversary month while keeping his token watch over me.
I round the corner with a prancing Mac and nearly miss it – SO nearly miss it. I’ve passed this spot countless times this week. But today, this day, is when I see those familiar flowers in bloom for the very first time this spring. A dogwood tree arching its arms over this westie and me.
A hundred little ears dangle from the yawning branches. That Ferg. He’s always listening. He’s listening as I dine under the dogwoods in the backyard, sharing meals and memories with friends.
He’s listening as our sea turtles glide back into their ocean home roaring with life: exactly one year to the day after he sailed off to his own.
Listening, holding, signaling, waving, co-creating in this ample space to come through.
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