signs
30 August, 2006I lost something very important today. At first I was sad, but perhaps it may be the sign I was looking for.
So, here's a story. It's a story very few people know, but I figure it's a fitting time to tell it. It may seem a story that's quite out of character for me, and some of you may think I'm nuts, but I'm not concerned. I just hope no one is offended or upset. If you are, let me know and I'll remove it.
Here's the story.
It was a hazy, hot, humid day in Cancun, Mexico. My friends and I had gone down for the week during spring break of our senior year. I think we had spent the day of our arrival on the beach and had just come back to the hotel when I told everyone to go on ahead; I had to give my parents a call to let them know I had arrived safe and sound. When I reached home by phone I sensed something wrong in my Dad's voice from hello. I somehow knew deep down in my bones. That had happened once before, one summer night when I was a kid, coming back home on my bike when the street lights came on. My Mom was waiting for me in the driveway, and as she greeted me with a slightly anxious voice, I somehow knew before she even had to say anything that my hamster had died. Or maybe it was a gerbil. Anyway, I would have been happy to hear of the death of a rodent that day in Cancun, compared to what awaited me, but unfortunately my Dad was the bearer of the news that my grandfather had passed away.
I wanted to get to Baltimore for the funeral, but logistics were difficult: that time of year, flights were chartered into Cancun on one Saturday, and out the next Saturday, without much option during the week. My family assured me that it would be best for me to stay in Cancun; Pop-pop loved the ocean anyway. So I stayed. I knew it was the most logical decision, but I still harbored (and continue to harbor) some guilt over it.
At any rate, a few months later, my grandmother had to have open-heart surgery, and I went down to Baltimore to look after her for a week. It was the first time I had been to my grandparents' apartment since the death of my grandfather, and his absence stung the moment I walked in the door. I cried a bit. Yes, me. After dinner, I decided I needed a moment to myself. This was during one of those sporadic periods of my life where decide running everyday is a very good idea. So I laced up my sneakers and took off through the streets surrounding my grandmother's apartment.
For whatever reason, I've always been the type to find four-leaf clovers very easily. I used to find tons when I was a kid, and I remember impressing the hot senior by finding one at a spring track meet when I was a geeky awkward freshman. Anyway, out of a mixture of lack of oxygen to my brain and my tumultuous mood, I decided that if I found a four-leaf clover during my run, it would be a sign that my grandfather was with me and that he was ok with me having stayed in Cancun. This coming from someone who, when pressed, believes that we are made up of molecules, and those molecules simply go back to the Earth when our bodies expire; we are no more special than an ant. Anyway, I didn't find a four-leaf clover, and I wasn't very surprised or disappointed, to be honest. I finished up my run, and sat down for a bit on a bench outside of my grandmother's door.
Let me digress for a moment. Prior to the apartment, my grandparents had lived for many years in a house with a porch that faced the park across the street. They both loved to sit outside, and had an album full of sunsets throughout the years. One of the saddest parts of them moving was that they would no longer have this porch to sit on. They did, however, have a bench outside their door, and my Nana had told me once that Pop-pop would often go outside and sit on that bench to find some peace and solitude.
It was upon this very bench that I sat to catch my breath. My eyes naturally fell towards the Earth, and without paying attention to or focusing on what I was looking at, wouldn't you know that the first thing I saw was a four-leaf clover. I almost pissed myself, for real. My heart started beating out of my chest, but I picked it and walked inside, shaking, and placed it in a book to press it. I was too taken aback to phrase to my grandmother what had happened and kept the whole sequence of events to myself for quite awhile. But that four-leaf clover stayed with me, and to keep it safe, I laminated it in clear packing tape when I got home.
A couple of years later, as most of you know, I was in a pretty awful car accident, an accident that, through time, has become quite fortuitous, actually, as it is what affords me this magnificent opportunity to see the world. At any rate, at the time it was pretty awful, and I'm sure my family will agree with that even more strongly than I. Hell, I was unconscious for the most part. Without getting people upset with the what-ifs of that fateful day, I want remark upon one thing. I'll stay away from the serious stuff. I have a scar on my scalp that stops precisely at my hairline, without one mark on my face. Mind you, I flipped over five times and my head went out the window. A fortunate coincidence, no? So what's my point? Well, that car accident ocurred on March 24th, my grandfather's birthday. And that's all I'll say about that, because thinking about it any further brings me into territory even weirder than that which I am about to enter.
Fast forward another three years, and I decide to take off for a year. This is a big decision--I'll be missing a lot. My adorable nephew, only 18 months old now, will be a vastly different child when I return. Also, the reality is that my grandmother, who in the interim has moved up here from Baltimore to an assisted living place, is not doing very well, and it may well be that I have a difficult travel decision to make in the near future, similar to the one that faced me in Cancun. I felt guilty about leaving again, and pondered this one day as I took a walk down Blackstone Boulevard in Providence and stopped by the tomb of my other grandparents. I revisited the four-leaf clover, and decided that this time, if I found a four-leaf clover, it was Pop-pop telling me it was ok to leave. Of course, in reality it didn't matter; the tickets were already booked, but still, I was obsessed with the idea the rest of my walk, and looked for four-leaf clovers everywhere, to no avail.
It was ok. I knew I was being silly. A couple months later, my departure date arrived, and now, here I am in Colorado. I made sure to spend some quality time with my Nana before I left, and had a bit of a heart-to-heart with her, even though I know she can't understand me, but still, it brought me a little bit of peace at least--I felt a little less guilty. Still though, I'd go back to that day on Blackstone and still wish for some sort of sign.
I of course brought my four-leaf clover with me on my trip. I put it in a nifty envelope built in to the back of my journal. I brought that journal with me when Michelle and I went for a hike today in Rocky Mountain National Forest. We stopped for lunch on the beautiful and aptly named Emerald Lake, whose deep green waters are caused by minerals from the glacier from which the lake was formed. I was watching as the sun caught the ripples of the water, admiring the brilliant diamonds in a lake of emerald when I decided I should write about it. So I take out my journal and set to writing. Just as I finish a page and flip to the next, a great gust of wind came along. I watched with absolute horror as my four-leaf clover in its plastic sleeve came out of its safe little home and blew away. Everything else in the envelope, with the exception of a fortune from a fortune cookie, stayed intact. Michelle sensed my alarm, saw something from the corner of her eye, and set off to search for whatever had blown away. I quickly joined her. We scanned the surface of the lake and looked through the rocks and branches surrounding us, to no avail. I told Michelle the story of what it was I was looking for when she said, "Allison, here it is, the sign you were looking for, telling you to let it go." We stayed a little longer, and as we left, I gave one last look around. Under a branch I found the fortune. Spirits lifted, I started searching again in earnest, but alas, the clover was not meant to be found, and maybe me finding the only other item that had blown out of the envelope was further indication of this.
So I lost something very important today. It's floating along the surface of a beautiful lake, in the Sunshine State. My grandfather always liked the sea, but I suppose a lake will have to do.
So I'm sad, and maybe I'm just careless, and maybe everything is all just a series on non-connected coincidences, but I'd like to think of it as a sign.
And that's my story. Don't mock me, please.
posted by La Rizz @ 11:09 PM
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