Tag: God

Donna M. Crow

At a writing workshop, I was given this prompt:

Write about someone, living or dead, who you would like to have back in your life.

I know this sounds strange but most of the people from my life who have died, are still in my life. That’s not to say I don’t miss going to lunch with Mom or picking up a telephone to ask Dad a question. I miss singing with Sister Alice Rohe and hearing our voices harmonize. For a while, when someone I love dies, I catch myself reaching for the phone to tell them something funny I know they’d appreciate. It takes a while to adjust the reflexes.  It was a real wakeup call after my parents died to realize there was no-one to whom I should report my whereabouts or trip itinerary. I felt untethered, somehow. No matter how old you are when your parents die there is a sense of having been orphaned. That being said, I am grateful to say that I see and feel the love from most of my loved ones on a regular basis.

I know I’m not alone in this but I don’t personally know any other people besides myself who can say (or will admit) they dream of dead people almost every night. I don’t remember when it started. People I know. People I don’t. People I’ve only met a couple of times before they died. My ancestors. Grandparents who were dead before I was born, aunts and uncles who have since passed. My in-laws. And now that I’ve lost over half of my origin family, they too appear on a regular basis. Mom more than Dad. Both appear more often than my two deceased siblings. But each has their purpose in visiting. Some speak. Some don’t. Sometimes it’s a great reunion with hugs and “I’m so glad to see you again.” Most of the time, they don’t touch me physically and our conversation is telepathic. In these dreams, I am not re-living past experience. I am not ruminating over what is lost. I always know I’m talking to a dead person. They reveal hidden truths in my subconscious that will help me in my waking life. And most of the time I wake up grateful.

Some come with messages for the living. Some come to give me support. Some want help to be released from earth’s hold. Some have been patiently waiting for me to let go of them and they come to say goodbye. They reassure me that I’m on the right track, sit with me through a storm or show me where I need to adjust my thinking. Susie wanted me to help her son. Jim thanked me for friendship and prayers. Bill simply smiled and walked beside me for a minute because we’d talked about what it might be like over there and he wanted to let me know he was okay. My father-in-law was afraid of where he might be headed and asked me to help him stay here. My mother-in-law finally told me what she’d been wanting and waiting to say for years about my marriage to her son, my sister brought me a gift as she said goodbye, my sister-in-law apologized, my friend Sister Alice has continued to be a spirit guide who appears as necessary to shore me up. My brother shows up with a grin, no words, and plays pranks. My mother is a guardian for me, my daughter and grandson. She visits the most. My dad watched for a while, but it felt more like he was waiting until I could go with him, because he was afraid to cross over. Now he only appears occasionally as a nod of approval and support, sometimes with a word of wisdom.

My paternal grandmother whom I never met visited only once, with a vision of how her life had been. A life full of babies, hot stoves and hard work. She was a soured woman, hipping a baby while turning fried chicken in a pan. All my uncles and aunts and cousins swarmed in and out of her kitchen. She handed me the baby and I knew it was me. “Here, this is yours. Nobody’s gonna take care of it but you,” she said. A recurring message from the matriarchal women of my ancestry.

My maternal grandmother has been with me since childhood.

There are so many dead people who are prevalent for me that it is hard to choose who I would like more time with on this earth. However, since she’s been with me the longest, I choose, for this prompt, my maternal grandmother, Mayme Powell Broaddus who died when I was six years old. She was my only living grandparent at the time I was born. Looking back, I believe her absence created the greatest void. I longed for grandparents and because I had none, was drawn to old people. Our elderly neighbor, Mr. Hall who could make something out of nothing, who made his own sundial out of a hole drilled into his patio and filled with silver paint, who recycled window screens and coat hangers into fly swatters. He cut a path through the field from his house to ours so us kids could visit him without getting on the highway. We went to see him every day, took him supper and watched out for him like he was family. The old lady, Annie Masters, who went to my dad’s church, called me granny, taught me how to properly scrape corn off the cob for freezing and once I was a teenager admonished me not to accept secondhand scraps when it came to men. “Get a fresh one, first time around the block,” she said, “not been married, no kids.” I loved being around old people. They had the kind of wisdom I needed, even though I didn’t know it yet and rarely took their advice. My first husband was 14 years older than me and provided me a built-in son. I’m not saying I have regrets. Karmically, I was where I was supposed to be. Practically, Annie saw it coming and told me so.

I’m not sure what kind of grandmother Mayme would have been had I known her my whole life. What I remember of her is limited. Braiding my hair before I went to Vacation Bible School, letting me sleep in the bed with her when I got scared, on the only occasion I remember spending the night. But I know what kind of grandmother she has been to me, even deceased. I went to her in my head and heart when I was disappointed in something my mother had done. I asked her to intercede for me when Mom was mad or hurt. I asked her what made Mom act in certain ways. When Mom avoided or denied her true feelings, I knew Granny would tell me the truth. I dreamed her. I conjured her. I felt her climbing into bed and wrapping her arms around me to comfort me when I felt alone in the world. When I had existential questions about my parents’ fundamental values, it was my internal grandmother who refused to fall victim to strict religious views. She was flexible, understanding, loving. She loved to laugh and to travel and have the kind of fun sometimes unbecoming of an older woman during the time in which she was alive. She never let me down.

I always admired that she kept the engagement ring of her first true love even though he was not the man she married. She wore it whenever she was mad at my grandfather. The idea of it upset my father the way it might have upset my grandfather, as a betrayal to marital commitment, so it lived in Mom’s jewelry box. Male insecurity. I coveted that ring, and eventually talked my mother out of it. To me, it stood for the kind of independence I needed in my life. It stood for confidence, defiance. It stood for not letting a man own you. It stood for love of self, something I could not fully muster in early relationships. My husband at that time, knowing the ring’s history, hinted at the same kind of insecurity whenever I wore the ring. Wondered what kind of statement I was making. The gold band is worn thin and should be replenished so I don’t wear it often now for fear of breaking it, but whenever I need to feel close to my grandmother, I get it out, hold it and sometimes put it on for a day. It is as if the ring holds the power of alchemy, the ability to give me strength. I have a wooden cross necklace on a leather string given to me by my friend Sister Alice Rohe on her deathbed. “You’ve got some big decisions to make,” she said, “and I want to be there with you when you do.”  After she died, I didn’t take the necklace off for 3 years. Now, like my grandmother’s ring, I wear the necklace when I need to feel her guidance in my decision making.

Symbols, like rituals, give us comfort and hold whatever power we give them. I know all true power comes from God. And, I thank God daily for allowing me to experience these comforting dreams and symbols. What a grand Master of design!

Granny loved her flowers and there are pictures of her holding various bouquets from her own yard. Mayme’s Flowers. Mom transplanted many of those perennials to her yard which are now in mine. After Granny died Mom visited her grave with those bouquets every year. I am not so diligent. I believe both Granny and Mom are in my yard tending to my flowers so I don’t have to go to the cemetery to see either of them. They are with me. There is another picture of my grandmother on one of her trips to Florida, after my grandfather passed away. It seemed to me, if pictures tell any part of the truth, that she only began living after he was gone, and her children were grown. In this picture, she is sitting atop a bull, meant as a photo op in some tourist town. She is wearing a (cowboy?) hat and waving a pistol like she might be in a rodeo. To me, this picture says it all. Or at least what I want to believe about the free-spirited soul she longed to be. I know it is only a moment in time and not a true depiction of the whole woman. Are photo albums any more than a chronicle of false memories? We set up photos to seem like we’re having the best life when perhaps the children are mad or crying or the parents are fighting. Yet, for a moment, everyone stops and smiles for the camera, or pretends to be in a rodeo. These are the symbols we create to live by, to pass on to the next generation. A false history. Still, I believe I can see her true spirit in this photo like in the one with the flowers. Her spirit is bright and she is one of the many lights that guide my way through the dark night.

I was born into a fundamental doctrine with lots of rules and fear and I have wrestled with the difference between what I know and feel in my heart and what I was taught through traditional religion. I ask God these questions directly and this week as I went to sleep, I asked again, “Am I on the right road? Will you please help me understand? Give me clarity?” I dreamed my own father—a rare visitor these days—came and told me that all roads lead to the same mountain top and that once I reached the top, I could look over the whole range of mountains and see where all were connected as one. Was that my dad? Or did God/Goddess send me a message through the likeness of the one person who instilled so much fear so I could heal an old wound and deepen my trust and faith? Whatever Holy Mystery this is, I’ll take it.