In the weeks and months after Joey’s death, and even now, I
was constantly searching for signs that he was still with us. I knew
I would never “see” his spirit or anything like that, for if there truly is a
Heaven, Joey was let right in, and commenced partying immediately. I can’t see that fun-loving child coming back here for anything.
But I wanted to believe, I needed to believe, that he would at least send us signals that he
was still keeping tabs on us. After all,
Joey loved to be the center of
attention, and I doubt that would stop in his afterlife.
Everywhere I looked, though, I came up empty.
In my formal living room, which is a pretty room that never gets used and happens to be the room where Joey died, hangs our beautiful
family picture taken shortly after Joey was diagnosed.
Until one day I saw one of the boys bound down the stairs on
the other side of the wall rattling the pictures out of place.
And then there is the picture of all of the boys on an end
table in the family room. I noticed quite
frequently that it would be lying down rather than propped up.
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| Knox, Slim, Lil' C and Joey in 2009 |
Yes, of course. My
brilliant little Joey had learned, a la Patrick Swayze in Ghost, how to push over an object to get my attention.
Until I saw one of the boys aggressively knock the picture
over while playing with toy cars on that same end table.
I became a bit distraught.
I wanted to see signs of him so badly that I became almost jealous of
another woman’s heartbreak. This woman
lost her husband, the father of their three small children, very suddenly about
two months before Joey died. She had a reading
with psychic Rebecca Rosin, who told her that when she found pennies, that was
her husband’s way of contacting her.
Pennies, you say?
Pennies are so commonly found all the time, you say. But this woman was finding pennies in the
most unlikely of places, even before
she talked to Rebecca.
Rebecca Rosin gave a talk in my city last spring. Friends encouraged me to go. Perhaps Joey would come through and send me a
message, they said. The thought was so
delightfully tempting. I could imagine
her picking me out of the crowd and telling me there was a little boy whose
name began with J who had something wrong with his head moving to the front of
the pack. He would be smiling and laughing
and all the other spirits were letting him through because he was so cute and
sweet. He would want me to know that he
would always be my boy, my
Sweetface. You see, I would always sing
him You Are My Sunshine, but I would
change the words to “You are my Sweetface,” and I would tell him, “Joey, you
are so my boy,” because he always
wanted to be with me.
My fingers hovered over “purchase tickets” to her show on
the website for a moment before I shut down my computer. I would be devastated if she didn’t pick me. If Joey didn’t come through to give me a
sign.
But for all of this looking for specific signs, I think I
was missing the simple signs that were in front of me all along. I’ve heard people say that the signs are
there, and that a person just needs to be open to accepting them.
Like the green jeep I see frequently driving in our
neighborhood. Joey loved green and
jeeps.
Like every time I see a yellow car. We used to play this game in the car when
Joey and Slim were four and Knox was two. We'd pick out a certain color car to help Knox learn his
colors. We started with yellow since it
was an unlikely color for a car. Once we
moved on to another color, Knox would keep pointing out all the yellow cars. Joey would say, “We gotta stop looking for
yellow cars,” giggling hysterically every
time.
Like every time I see the same striped cat wandering through
my yard. Joey’s favorite stuffed animal
was named Stripey Kitten. We still have
her, and Slim and I often fight over who gets to cuddle with her at night.
Like the green boat I kept seeing on our vacation last
week. A really big, really cool green
boat that always seemed to be anchored in the lake in front of our condo or
parked in the slip just down from our boat.
Joey would have loved that boat.
These things are surely just coincidences – the green jeep’s and the cat’s owners live in our neighborhood, and someone in the same condo building owns the green boat. And really, yellow cars are a lot more common than you would think.
These things are surely just coincidences – the green jeep’s and the cat’s owners live in our neighborhood, and someone in the same condo building owns the green boat. And really, yellow cars are a lot more common than you would think.
But then there are those signs that really make me take
pause, that make me wonder, Could they be
directly from him?
Like the number 444.
Joey died at 4:44 a.m. When I
look at the clock and its 4:44, or I’m handed my latte and the total is $4.44,
I get a shiver.
Or when I hear the song I Can Only Imagine by Mercy Me. I came across that
song a few days before Joey died and decided I wanted it played at Joey’s
funeral. On Knox’s fifth birthday, two months after
Joey died, he got a toy motorized truck to ride in. The very first time he got in it and turned
on the radio, I Can Only Imagine was
playing. I think it was Joey’s way
of telling his little buddy that he would always be his co-pilot.
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| Knox and Lil' C |
And this week at the lake we heard the song just as we brought out the new inner tube to pull
behind the boat. The boys were all too
chicken to get in, and even though I hate lake water more than a manicure that
chips the next day, I got in to prove to them it wasn’t scary. Around that time , the song came on the
radio, reminding me that had Joey been there, he would have been the first
person in that inner tube with me.
Two years after Joey's death, I fear my memories of him are fading even though I think about him daily. And though the logical part of me says that all of these signs are merely coincidences, they serve as little Joey reminders, which I sometimes need. If all of these things - cats and cars, boats and songs and numbers, make me think of him, I'll take them as the signs I seek.
Two years after Joey's death, I fear my memories of him are fading even though I think about him daily. And though the logical part of me says that all of these signs are merely coincidences, they serve as little Joey reminders, which I sometimes need. If all of these things - cats and cars, boats and songs and numbers, make me think of him, I'll take them as the signs I seek.
The last night of our vacation, as we were cleaning the
condo, Daddy cranked up LMFAO’s Party
Rock Anthem, and an impromptu dance party broke out – Joey style! We used to have dance parties in the basement
all the time when Joey was alive. Hubby,
Joey, Slim, Knox and I would dance and laugh until our sides hurt.
We needed a little fun just then, and it took a little Joey reminder to get us there.
We needed a little fun just then, and it took a little Joey reminder to get us there.
