Signs of Hope
Excerpted from
“Does Grief End? Signs of Hope”
By Monica Novak
When our daughter Miranda was stillborn, the word “hope” took on new meaning for me. Used often to describe the feeling that what you want in the future will happen, hope for me meant knowing that my daughter had not just disappeared into oblivion. Hope meant knowing that she was still with me, now, and that I didn’t have to wait until so-called death to be with her again. I began asking for her to give me a sign that she was indeed with me.
It didn’t take long for the answer to come.
It began in July of 1995. It had only been a month since we’d lost Miranda. Al and I were lying on a blanket in the grass, on a beautiful summer night, with a light breeze and a gorgeous sunset, listening to the band and watching our daughter Alex dance. I was thinking I should be nursing an infant at my breast. And changing her diaper. And dancing with her in my arms.
I was pulled from my longing by a white feathery, silky ball hovering around me. My naturalist friend, Jessica, would later identify it as a seedling from a Cottonwood tree. It looked like the stuff angel wings must be made of. A flying fluff, I called it.
I reached up and watched it dance around my hand. It swirled up and down and around me, never straying too far, ignoring the breeze that begged to carry it away. My heart beat fast with excitement and wonder. It should have been long gone. What’s happening? I asked the universe. Is that you Miranda, telling me you’re here? Or was I losing my mind?
I looked away to watch Alex, expecting the flying fluff to be gone when my eyes returned, but it was still there, dancing playfully. Needing to know her spirit was with me, I had been praying for a sign from Miranda that she was alright. An unlikely means of communication, was this the answer I had been waiting for? After several minutes, it finally drifted up and away, caught in the gentle breeze.
Fourteen years later, I still notice every flying fluff that comes near me or gently floats by. It’s become a special connection I have with my daughter, and although the circumstances are usually nothing remarkable, there have been some times when the appearance or “behavior” of these “signs” have defied the laws of nature.
Read the entire article here: http://opentohope.com/hope/dealing-with-grief/dealing-with-loss/death-of-a-child/does-grief-end-signs-of-hope/
