Lessons in faith.

The day after my father's funeral, my husband and I were driving home - we were almost there, and we turned the corner on a road that my husband has driven on a thousand times before, when we saw a Kingfisher (bird) sitting on the bridge.  We looked at each other and said "was that a Kingfisher?".  He had never seen one in the 40+ years he has lived in Indiana.  I thought it strange, and I mentioned it to my mother.  She said that my father used to talk of his love of watching the Kingfishers near the pond where he grew up.

Still, my rational mind was thinking that of course there was a Kingfisher, there is a river right where he was sitting, and that is where Kingfisher's hang out!  Then I thought that I would believe it if the Kingfisher actually showed up at our house where I could see it.

About a year later my husband and I were walking near the retention pond near our house (it is only about 100 ft from our house) when we heard some chattering up in the trees.  We looked up, and there was a gigantic Kingfisher!  It then immediately flew away and we haven't seen it since.  So I figure showing up about 100 ft from our house, should be close enough for me to believe.

I had other encounters too, that I thought were signs from him.  I have always loved toads.  I have fond memories of being a child, and catching them at my childhood home.  We had really big toads, and they would live in the moist area of the window wells of the house.  Years later, in 2009, I was visiting my parents, and planting some flowers in their front garden.  Before I had even arrived at their house, I had been thinking about those childhood happy toad memories and was hoping I would see one.  Well, with all the digging I was doing, one just popped right up as if to say Hello!  I was even able to run into the house and get my camera, and it was still sitting there as if to be waiting for me to "document" his presence.  It was SO great to see that toad, and I felt like all would be well after seeing him (I was going through a divorce at the time).

That whole visit with my parents was great.  I felt such peace there.  I was even taking pictures of some flowers in the backyard, looking through the lens of my 35mm camera, when a beautiful butterfly appeared in my field of vision, and I was able to take many pictures of it.  It just sat there, as if posing like a model.  I left for home feeling very happy, and I was almost home when I got in a car accident that I was lucky to have survived.  I remember thinking as my car was spinning out, going 70 mph on a busy highway with semi trucks right next to me, that "I had had a good life" and I just kind of "let it go" and wondered how I would end up.  Fortunately I didn't have a scratch, no one else got hurt, but my car that I had just paid off was totaled!

But I digress.  So forward to the present, when I was on my honeymoon in Ontario in September 2013, we were walking along a beautiful path in the forest, when we saw a pretty blue butterfly sunning itself on a rock.  My husband said, "hey maybe that is a sign from your Dad".  My rational mind was thinking "it's just a butterfly!  they show up all the time! Now, if I see a toad, THEN I will believe it is my Dad".  And guess what.... a few minutes later my husband shouted "there's a toad hopping across the path!".  And there sure was!!  We tried to catch it, but it hopped into the woods.  But I did get a picture.

After all these signs, my mind STILL tries to rationalize them.  I just want to "see" my Dad with my own eyes.  I don't like all these - what could be - "subtle" signs that we get.  Because to me, they could just as well be coincidences.  I wish we could "see" something more concrete, more tangible.

Perhaps someone is trying to teach me about having faith.  Perhaps faith is what we really need to get through this life on earth - with our limited five senses, our bodies can only see, taste, hear, smell, and touch so many things but not ALL things.  Perhaps we are like the fish that live in the sea, who can only imagine what their reality actually is, because it is all that they can see, nothing else.  They don't know of the vast world that exists around them.  Perhaps, there is a vast unseen world around us too.