A MESSAGE FROM STONG WOMEN IN MY FAMILY

This probably happened about 23 years ago, and, obsessed gardener that I am, I was in my little red pick-up truck going out to get some plant material for my garden club, and feeling quite upset – my stomach had been feeling like it had magma in it - because it was a very difficult time for me, and I was extremely stressed. I hadn’t been eating or sleeping well. I was going through a divorce, my sister-in-law was dying of Alzheimer’s, and I had her daughter living with me, supposedly until my separation from my husband was complete, and it was all very complicated.

So I’m driving along on this scenic highway – I always listen to classical music – and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto came on the radio, and suddenly there was a large, human-sized hand that came in through the closed passenger’s side window, and on the hand, showing up one after the other, were the busts, like little statues from the chest up, of first my mother, then her mother, and finally my father’s mother.

And I understood they were saying to me, “We are giving you unconditional love, and now it is your turn to give it back.” Then the hand just disappeared, and I kept driving my little red pick-up truck down the highway.

Had it been what I thought I desperately needed at the time – “Poor you, don’t worry, everything will work out” – it would have been wonderful, but it was the opposite. They were saying, “You have been so lucky to have these people behind you, giving you such strength, that’s it’s your turn to give it back.”

I was very grateful, I didn’t think I deserved it. I’m not as good a person as many other people are. I’d always heard that these kinds of things happen to some people, sometimes, but I never believed that it would happen to me! And it was the perfect time and the perfect place in my life to relieve my anxiety.

I am still very aware of what they have given me. I don’t feel that they are there now, but I know their stories, and my sister says the same thing – that we are lucky that we had such exceptional grandparents and parents.