Proof

I’m proof that there is more to us than blood, tissue and bone.  There is a spiritual organism that lives in each of us, and right now mine is mourning.

Today, May 1, 2013, is Ryan and My 20^th Wedding anniversary.

Physically…mentally…with my swelly brain, I know that today is the same as every other day.  I will work.  I will take care of my children.  The sun will rise and it will set.  I’m a level person for sure.  Why would this one day put me in a tail spin?  Ryan has been gone for 8 months now.  Exactly 8 months tomorrow, actually.  Why would this week be any harder?
 

But there is something deeper inside me that is falling apart.  Something my brain can’t put to rest.  I’m fragile this week.  And it is clear that this tantrum my spirit is having is completely out of my mortal hands.

This past week especially has brought many sleepless nights.  Two nights ago was the worst.  It was 2am.  I was wide awake, and my spirit directed me to start searching.  I felt like a puppet as my legs and arms moved away from the bed without rhyme or reason.   I simply knew I must “look.”

I searched through drawers.  Nothing.  What was I looking for?  I didn’t know…but innately I did know that what I needed to find wasn’t there.

Then I moved to the closet.  One by one, I opened boxes.  One by one I searched through file after file.  My eyes looked at the clock.  My body said, “Meri!  Go to bed!”  But my spirit said, “Keep going.”  So I continued on. Within the silence of the night I felt an eerie serenity.  Within the pounding of my heart I felt an unfailing purpose.  I finally got to a pile of papers that I had set aside for shredding.  I went through the pile carefully, methodically.  Looking.  I knew I must look.  And as I lifted the last piece of paper off the floor…I saw it.

A picture of Ryan and me shortly after my 20^th birthday.  Shortly before our wedding day.

There it was, wedged between the floorboard and the back of the filing cabinet.

And in an instant my body was released from its search, immediately free to go back to bed.  I laid in bed staring at the picture, feeling my inner spiritual organism long for its other half.  It wept for her companion.  It sang with love for the faces on the picture staring back at her.  The memory of that rainy day...the laughter as they walked in the door, and the quick smile for the Polaroid Camera my mother held in her hand...it was all crystal clear.

But that’s the end of the story.

The beginning of the story started a week ago when I found this picture of Ryan and I on the garage floor. How it got there, I have no idea.  But it was right by my foot as I stepped out of the car one night.

This picture is from our honeymoon.  20 years ago today.  I can’t stop staring at it.

I put this picture on facebook and got comment after comment that Ryan had left it there for me.

That night I prayed to know if this was true…or simply a wild fantasy I wished to be so.

A couple days later the answer to my prayer came in the form of a facebook message sent from another D Mom.  A D Mom who lives across the country from me.  A D Mom I barely know, but summoned the courage to tell me she had a vivid dream, and a strong prompting at church the next day to share the dream with me.

All she could tell me was she knew without a shadow of a doubt that “Ryan left that picture for me.”  She knew she needed to tell me that.

I won’t go into detail…but she isn’t the first person to have a vivid dream and then share it with me about Ryan.  Each person knew there was a chance I would think they were crazy, but fought off the worry to share with me anyway.  Each person’s story has been an answer to a specific prayer.

I don’t have all the answers about the afterlife, but I know that Ryan is still around.  I know I was supposed to find these pictures, and the message is very clear to me…or to my spirit anyway.  He’s telling me we’ll be together again…in our prime.  Cured from the worries, and disease of the world.

Until then, my body will remain a slave to the mourning of my spirit.  And even though I don’t understand why I cry sometimes, I will embrace it.  Because I know our love is deeper than this mortal state.

Our love lives on.

Ryan and I never said goodbye on the phone.  In the beginning of our marriage we would say, “I love you.”  But within a few years it simply morphed into, “Love.”

Happy 20^th Anniversary, my love.

Until we meet again...  “Love.”