Lord Give Me a Sign

The title of this post is a lyric from DMX, not a quote from me, but it’s topical. This week, I’m doing something a little bit different. I’ve wanted to write about signs for a long time, which means I have collected a LOT of thoughts. That also means that when I wrote this post, it ended up being far too long! Instead of posting it at once, I’m breaking it into three parts as we lead up to the end of the year.

Especially around Christmastime and New Year’s Eve, people tend to search for signs, miracles, or any indicator that “2024 will be their year.” In the spirit of all of those things, I give you installment #1.

I’ve heard people talk about “signs” from loved ones for a long time. The first time I remember truly thinking about them and believing in them was when my best friend’s dad died. I knew Stan well, both from my friend’s stories and because I had been on family vacations with them. When I was visiting Florida soon after he got sick, I went to visit my friend’s parents to hang out, even though my friend was back in New York. Her mom is a talker and she kept chatting with me and I remember him saying “Karen, stop it, she’s here to see ME!” We all laughed at that, but he was a character, and his outburst was completely predictable and on-brand. I had known him for 11 years when he died, and I was really sad for my friend when he was gone. But there was a sense that he was still around, and that he LOVED when we were hanging out together. It seemed like he was always looking out for us, and when my friend and I would do activities or travel, everything seemed to work out.

For example, we went on a trip to Costa Rica, and she had arrived a few days before me. The drive from where she was to pick me up from the airport was treacherous, and we later found out that the entire road was closed just days prior. But that day, it was open, and she picked me up with no problem. Later on that same trip, we went on a hike to a waterfall and found out that it was extremely muddy. Our hotel manager that morning said “you have rain boots right?” We didn’t. We also couldn’t find the trail head. Eventually we parked on the side of the road and saw a small sign, which led to us trekking through a private resident’s backyard. We were a little hesitant, but then this little lemonade-stand-type thing appeared with someone offering rain boots for rent. What??? How strange! We grabbed two pairs, and we definitely ended up appreciating them! Things like this kept happening.

When we were planning the trip, we had really hoped to see a toucan. We knew they are native to Costa Rica, but they are also very rare to see because they dwell in rainforests, they sit at the top of trees, and they don’t tend to get close to humans. The 2^nd day in Costa Rica, we were sitting at the open-air restaurant for breakfast when our server heard something completely undetectable to us, and ran from our table to grab binoculars. Sure enough: a toucan. He told us to run over to him and look through his binoculars. It felt like we were spotting a unicorn. How crazy!! 5 days later, on the tail end of our trip (pun intended), it was Superbowl Sunday. We discovered a beach bar with TVs right by our second hotel and we decided to go there for the game. As we walked through the hotel parking lot to the beach, we heard a bird call. It was so close, we thought it couldn’t possibly be a toucan. Also, we were on the beach, pretty far from a rainforest. But there, perched on top of a tree in the parking lot was a toucan. My friend looked at me and just said, “Stan.” It had to be him, right? Like, how do you explain that?

Many years later on her honeymoon, she saw another toucan and sent me a photo. I couldn’t even believe she had service deep in the jungle of Belize! I said that, and she replied, “toucan Stan!”

Ever since our trip to Costa Rica, I’ve been a little more open to signs. For other people, that is. For me, I still can’t fully buy into it.

Here’s my main issue: thinking that there are dead people communicating to you through signs means that you think they are still out there somewhere. I’m not sure I believe that. I have a very fuzzy understanding of my own beliefs, but I’d say a rough outline is that I’m very far off from believing in a specific physical place like “hell” and “heaven” and definitely far off from believing there’s any sort of god-figure who is somehow meting out rewards and punishments.

However, since Maliyah died, I’ve been a little more open to thinking about “the universe” and the idea of karma. It’s still difficult, though, to see endless stories of tragedy and believe there’s some sort of justice involved. It feels completely unfair, and it’s almost better for my mental health to simply believe it’s all random. I do think there’s an extreme amount of solace in thinking someone is looking out for you, and everything is part of some long plan, and I often wish I was more religious for that reason, but that’s a whole different blog.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about signs a lot recently, so I asked my friend about how and why she believes in them. She isn’t too religious (probably more than me but that isn’t hard!). First of all, she said her mom believes everything is a sign! Even pennies on the ground are signs to her mom, so she was raised to look for them (the signs, not the pennies… well, maybe both). Second of all, she said that the alternative was that there are no signs, and that believing that when people die, they are just GONE forever is too difficult. This resonated with me. The finality of it is too much. I definitely believe that a person’s body is not their person, which is why for me, cremation and having an urn was not important, but it’s nice to believe that a person’s spirit still exists.

You may have heard me say, “I hope Maliyah is out there somewhere, having a whole lot more fun than I am.” But what does “out there” mean, and how can I be sure? I have listened to some podcasts about signs, and they always say you have to “ask for them.” My issue with that is… if I don’t believe in jack sh*t, then who am I asking?? I have been going back and forth about this all year, but even without asking, I have experienced some pretty strange stuff.

Part II about that coming later this week!