Another Fall and "Signs--Schpines"

Today is Sept. 9. The public schools started last week and for a second year in a row I am supposed to have a son who is starting and he isn't.

The summer wasn't bad really. Doug was home and I loved having him home -- except when I didn't -- which was likely the same time that he didn't like being home as well!

The last half of July and most of August made me realize how brutal Spring was as was early Summer. Spring has Easter -- three days before Jeff died; the anniversary of Jeff's death; the Spring vacation week during which time Jeff died; Mother's day and Jeff's birthday. Plus Spring has lacrosse - lacrosse with Doug playing which is fantastic, but with no Jeff playing as he should be....

Me ...

Since Jeff died, I have continued to jot down the times when I feel like I have seen "signs" of him. The hours after we were told that Jeff had died, I prayed for Jeff to show me signs and make them big. I prayed that prayer over and over during the days immediately after his death and I wrote it on the casket that he was buried in -- a casket specially made to be written on.

I have kept a journal of the signs and there have been many. It is funny, but if there had been only one or two of them I would have thought that it was just a coincidence. Even if there had been a dozen of them over a time, I would have thought the same thing. But there have been many more. And for this alone, I know that Jeff is watching over me and it is his way of saying hi, mom!

But sometimes I don't know.

Several weeks ago, I was feeling awful. I had just found out that I might go back to court -- which is not something that I am looking forward to. I was continuing to feel financially poorly. I am in a spot financially that I have never ever dreamed that I would be in -- but who plans financially for a divorce and losing your job 4 times?? Who plans on long spells of unemployment and opportunities which lie outside the geographical area in which you can live?? In any case, I went to bed this particular night, really feeling like I had hit rock bottom. All that and 2 grant funded jobs as well whose life span would soon be coming to an end.

As I was laying in bed, I thought about the fact that in reality, given my life insurance policy which is a nice amount, that I was in better shape financially dead than alive. Now I didn't want to kill myself, mind you, but I was just remembering this fact. That and the fact that it had been quite some time since I had seen a sign from Jeff. As I lay awake, my mind drifted to the issue of Jeff's signs and I thought "Yeh -- where are the signs now? Months after Jeff died, when I could really use them...where are they now?? Signs...spines...schpines. Didn't mean I thing really...just something in my head..."

The next morning I woke up and felt a tad better -- just a tad...that is I wasn't focused on the my value died vs. alive although i was still thinking about "signs-schpines...likely all in my head."

I went to the Medical Society for my first job. Around 1:00 p.m. I left there to go to my second job a few miles away from there. I was cruising down Monroe Avenue -- a somewhat busy street during the day but nothing like Chicago busy. Monroe Avenue is a four lane street, with two lanes going in each direction. I was cruising in the right hand lane with a car up ahead standing in the intersection in the left hand lane, waiting to make a left hand turn. I went to go by her and just as I began to pass her - the nose of my car barely sticky out -- I see a car (who was coming from the opposite direction so I learned) turning directly into the car door on the drivers side -- that is -- MY OWN CAR DOOR. We both screeched to a stop. And when we came to a complete stop we were about one foot apart from hitting one another.

I was petrified. My heart felt like it had stopped beating. I looked up at the vehicle which was an SUV...paused...and just shock my head in amazement. The other driver looked to be in his 20s perhaps. Looked at me...and I am sure he was thinking the same thing I was ...Two more seconds and we would have hit -- hard -- and it would not have been pretty.

I was sufficiently shaken from the experience as to reach the parking lot of my second job and just start crying. I went up to work -- went into my office and continued to shake and cry. I have never been that close to a serious car accident.

I told several people at work about the experience because I was so shaken. It took me about an hour before I remembered what I had been thinking about the night before and even the morning of this "way too near" miss.

And I didn't think "signs -- schpines" anymore.