I Saw the Sign

..and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign. Sorry, got a little carried away there. Ah, Ace of Base. I almost forgot about them. I remember jamming out to them back in High School. Funny how you can go for years without thinking of something, or a song until something jogs your memory. The song will make sense later on.

The last couple days at the visitation/funeral went about as good as you can hope for under the circumstances. We went to the visitation and we talked with Jacob and Clara quite a bit about what to expect. So we walk in the room, and the see Meema, up by the casket. They go up and you can tell they are curious. They look at Great Grandma, ask me and Meema a couple of questions, and they look at her some more. Clara I don't think *really* understood. She was the one I was worried about her getting scared, but she ended up running off and playing with other kids. Jacob, however, I think got it. After a bit, I was looking at the photo collages they had up by the casket and then I look back to the kids and see Jacob's lip quivering and he's crying. It's a completely normal thing to happen at a funeral, but it absolutely broke my heart. I wanted to scoop him up and take him away from there, wishing that as a parent, I didn't' have to explain life and death, and be there to witness when they finally understand. He was just fine later on, but he was sad that Great-Grandma had to die.

Okay, now here's what jogged my memory of Ace of Base, and in particular the song "The Sign".
The next day was the funeral service. After that, we went to one of the daughter's house (Husband's Aunt) and had the usual meal. The kids had a blast. The yard was huge, they had a very large playset and there were tons of kids their age to play with. It was a nice time. I also saw something I have never before seen. Now before I say too much about it, I have to explain my beliefs. I am a Christian and believe in miracles. I'm skeptical about spirits roaming the earth, but believe that maybe it's possible, I've just have never seen it. I am also skeptical of signs sent from those who have died. Again, I'm not saying I don't believe it isn't possible, but I've never seen one and I'm more likely to believe it was a coincidence. But yesterday, I changed my mind about signs. I was sitting on the deck with SIL and we were watching all the kids play and the groups of adults gathered all around the yard. Then I notice this huge white bird, a hawk or a gull of some kind, (I'm not up on my ornithology) just sailing around in circles over the yard. The house is in the middle of a corn field. This bird was flying incredibly low, so at first I thought it was hunting mice in the field, but it wasn't flying over the field, it was flying over the yard. It circled around and hung real low for 10 minutes before it finally flew off over the trees and disappeared out of sight. I turn to my SIL and before I could say it, she says it for me: "I think that may have been Grandma". Later on, Husband, who isn't religious and doesn't believe in signs or stuff like, that asked if we saw the bird. He then said he thought it was Grandma, letting everyone know she was okay, and peeking in on the whole family gathered together. That's saying something if my skeptical husband thought the same thing about that bird. This sounds just like other stories I've heard about people seeing signs, and I've always thought "Yeah, yeah, it's just a coincidence", and honestly, if I was reading this, I'd be thinking the same thing. But having seen it myself, I have little doubt that this was just a bird flying over the yard. And, if it was a coincidence, so what? I'd rather believe that it was grandma looking in on her whole family, letting us know she was just fine. Somehow, it makes it a little easier.