My Dad and Proof there is Life after Life ~ This is definitely a must read for any non-believers out there! Click here if you missed it or need a refresher so that this update will make sense to you. If you recall, when I last wrote about my Dad, he was leaving us dollars and I was about to head on a trip to meet my "Sand dollar" girlfriend in Arizona. Remember after Dad died she texted me that she found whole sand dollars on our favorite beach in California. I knew Dad was saying hi thru her too and that sand dollars are as much of a dollar than anything- he is clever. Well it has been a year since Dad has passed at 2:22 pm on March 13th, 2019, and a few weeks shy of my trip to AZ last year. I was in a funk after Dad died, for no real reason, it is just how grief showed up for me. Even doing what I do for a living, I am still human and I still grieve loss like everyone else. I was happy to see my girlfriend, yet really didn't feel much like leaving home. A couple of days before the trip, Dad had been gone about 3 weeks maybe, I woke up early in my bedroom. It was early, the room had not started to grow lighter from morning yet, but I cold make out everything in the room. It was quiet. I could hear my husband breathing and I just lay there, be aware, awake, really just being. I was startled to notice the ceiling fan moving in a counterclockwise eerily slow rotation. We don't sleep with the fan on. The AC nor the heat was on. Nothing was blowing in the room. (Take note, dead people like fans- hee hee) I almost started laughing out loud when I realized that it was my Dad! Years ago when I was 12 Mom and Dad bought this old Victorian home built in 1940. They completely restored it and eventually added ceiling fans to all of our rooms. Now I was used to weird things happening to me and around me so I wasn't surprised when the fan started a nightly squeak at 3:30 am. Inevitably it would wake me up and I would groan, not again. It's not ironic that I was sleeping in the room of the old owner and builder of the home who died in the house in his 90s, and all I could think at the time was that he was trying to say hello. Years go by, I move to Florida, start my career and am beginning to thrive. I come home for a holiday or something or another and after the first night of sleeping in my old room, the next morning Mom and Dad asked how I slept. I said that I slept GREAT except the fan woke me up at 3:30 again. They both looked shocked and at the same time said, "NO WAY!" Dad then said, "That's impossible. We put in a new fan before you got here. There is no way it can squeak." He told me they had been running it all day to test - but sure enough... the fan became a story for us. Since then he has only moved the fan one other time in my current house. It doesn't make a noise, just slowly rotates and it always stops shortly after I notice it. So that first morning with the fan, before my trip, I knew Dad was telling me to go and have a good time. The morning of my trip I wake up early. I have plenty of time to piddle around and decided to change my passwords on my computer to various sites. I do that often. So I go to my bank site and type in a new login name and then I asked my Dad what would be a good password. I heard him say "Golden. Use the word gold or golden in it. That's how you are and that's what you want in your bank account!" I laughed thinking about it for a second and then chose something else that I thought was clever. I moved on to other things. Later that day I am sitting in the Dallas airport waiting to board for Scottsdale, Arizona. Lots of folks were traveling, all flights were sold out. I sat patiently and enjoyed people watching. There was a very large man sitting several seats away from me. He had a cane propped up against the seat next to him. He looked over and asked me what kind of stone was my ring made from. I told him it is Carnelian, from the agate family. He said, "well I don't believe I have heard of that one." I said, "oh it's great for strength, personal power, confidence and creativity." and he said, "oh you believe in that stuff do ya?" I laughed and said yes. Told him I used to own a crystal shop and we sold tons of stones for their properties. He laughed and said he was a geologist so he only looked at the mineral content, hardness, where it's from, etc. And I thought how fantastic I meet a geologist and we proceeded to talk about all kinds of stones. As we are speaking, his wife joins him and rolls her eyes in a joking way- he is talking about stones again. I told her I owned a shop once and she said "Oh Boy!" The airlines were beginning to call for early boarding. He was clearly getting ready to get up and board early due to his need for assistance when he asked me if I had even seen Pyrite in the nugget forms. I did as we sold them. For those of you who don't know, Pyrite is better known as "Fool's Gold." He then said, "Well now, have you even seen a Golden Sand Dollar?" I sat there in disbelief with what just came out of his mouth. Golden? Sand Dollar? Dad? OMG my Dad is right here, a part of this conversation! I replied to the man I had never even heard of it! He said the sand dollars are fossilized and pyrite nuggets begin to grow on the fossils and they are quite beautiful, not easy to find but he hoped one day I would see one. I still was in wonderful disbelief that this had unfolded. Skipping ahead, I get into Scottsdale. My girlfriend picks me up and we head to our boutique hotel. When we arrive as we are walking to the room, I say, what room are we in? She turns to me and says, "Ohmygod, I forgot to tell you and I swear I didn't do this. We are in room 222." I said Holy @#$%@#$, no way! She said, I swear I swear. When they told me the room I thought there's something about that number but I can't remember and then I remembered driving to pick you up." I am serious folks, you cannot make this stuff up! We were both blown away and laughed and laughed. Our trip was absolutely magical in every way. And on our last day my friend asked what I wanted to do. I said I wanna go see the world's largest fountain that Fountain Valley was named for. She said, "whaaaat? really? It's man made." I said, "so what, let's just go see what it is all about." When we arrived there was a street festival with artists and various peddlers of all kinds. We walked around the lake, saw the fountain, walked thru the botanical gardens and then headed over to the street artists. The very first table we went to, the first one on the street, was selling crystals and sandstone pieces. As we walked around his 3 tables, there, in the hot sun, shining like a beacon, was a Golden San Dollar.... I gasped. I laughed. I asked the man if that's what it was. It was. It was his only one and of course I had to buy it!
It's gorgeous and huge and bigger than the palm of my hand. To this day it sits on my table at home where I do my phone sessions from. We could not have capped off our trip in any more perfect of a way. My Dad is still truly amazing!
As I sit here and write about this from nearly a year ago, it brings me feelings of happiness and joy in this time of uncertainty. As the Virus reminds us that we are all one, these stories remind me that there is so much more to believe in. That life DOES go on! That life CAN be magical. It downright IS MAGICAL! And that is something worth sharing ~