I once asked my mother if she would haunt me when she died. It was a quiet moment, where we sat in companionable silence, watching television. As far as I knew at that moment, she was not actively dying and had no plans to let the cancer kill her.
Do you want me to haunt you?” She asked me, laughing.
I thought for a moment before replying earnestly, “No. Not really. But it would be nice to know you’re around. Maybe you could just give me a little sign from time to time.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe move a vase or blow on my cheek or something.”
“OK,” she replied then. “I can do that.”
Quickly I amended my statement. “But make sure it’s obvious. I don’t want to sit around wondering whether it’s you or not.”
“Got it,” she affirmed. “I’ll do my best to make sure you know it’s me.”
Satisfied, we returned to our program and to our shared silence.
A year later, when I was just seventeen, she did die. For years after that, I looked everywhere for signs from her, something to let me know she was still with me—if not physically, at least in spirit. There were moments while lying in bed at night when I would imagine I felt a ghostly hand on my hip or would see a shimmering shape in the darkness and wonder if it was her.
Other times when I would catch a glimpse of a woman who resembled my mother or might meet someone with her name, I would wonder if this was her sign? None of these moments felt like a fulfillment of her promise, though, so I would dismiss them out of hand as mere coincidences rather than sure signs. This back and forth between possibility and doubt continued for years. I was never quite sure if, in a moment of tingling curiosity, it was actually her. My reluctance came out of fear that perhaps by settling on something paltry or unimpressive, I might inadvertently give her permission to opt out of a grander, more obvious gesture. I’m not sure why the standards I hold for the dead are sometimes more stringent and mercurial than for the living. I suppose the insatiable appetite of grief doesn’t always make sense.
My mother’s death left me untethered in many ways. Even as I sought my mother in every stranger’s face or every inexplicable coincidence, I also sought a vocation for myself that could help fill the gnawing hunger for meaning her death left behind. I wanted work that had purpose, that helped me make sense of her loss and what I lost of myself in the process. Then, after nearly seventeen years of seeking, a friend casually asked if I had considered becoming an interfaith minister? Upon hearing her question, I felt time slow and the perpetual seeking machine that compelled me forward in life finally fell still. I had never heard of such a thing, but I knew almost immediately that in her words, I was hearing my future foretold. While still on the phone with my friend, I searched for “interfaith minister training” and gasped when the first result was the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine.
Living in Maine had been my mother’s dream and she and I did live there briefly in the late 1980s. I don’t know why she was so driven to live there. Perhaps she read about it in a book or fell in love with its remote and rocky charm in a movie. Regardless, she possessed her own perpetual seeking machine, which compelled her forward towards Maine. After she sold our house in Western Pennsylvania—after we traveled to Europe for five months—we settled there, in Southern Maine, first Old Orchard Beach and then Cape Elizabeth, a suburb of Portland. Eventually, the dismal local economy and our lack of a support network drove us to North Carolina to live near my aunt, but Maine always held a bittersweet nostalgia for me. It was a place at once foreign and familiar. It was a place I had briefly called home and now, it felt like it was calling me back in an attempt to heal something, calling me back to join this program. Every sign pointed me in its direction. Every synchronicity was beckoning me forward, so I applied and, of course, got accepted.
After enrollment, I would drive ninety minutes north every Wednesday night from my home in Massachusetts and return home ninety minutes south after class ended three hours later. It was an easy routine, albeit tiring. Yet every night when I’d crossed the Piscataqua River Bridge, adorned with its large “Welcome to Maine” sign, I felt a sense of return—a subtle lifting in my heart as if I were going home to my mother and her dream.
During that first year of training in 2014, we had a class on Veteran’s Day on the topic, “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Our school’s founder, Jacob Watson, was unexpectedly called in to lead our cohort that evening when the scheduled facilitator was taken ill. As chaplains, we were there to learn how to best support community members through their grief, anger, loss, or other challenging circumstances that confronted their faith or affronted their sense of stability. As part of his class that night, he gave us an exercise: we were to tear up phone books—you know, the paper kind—to help us move through any anger that may be stuck in our own bodies. As he explained the exercise, Jacob moved around the small circle of students handing out our pages. He handed me the back half of a phone book, which contained the yellow pages and just part of the white pages.
As I sat waiting for him to finish distributing the rest of the books to my classmates, I decided on a whim to flip open the white pages and see what Stewards—who were surely my long-lost brethren—might be living in the Portland area today. Running my finger down the page, I found Stewart, Stewart, Stewart, and finally Steward. Pausing, I began to skim the names there. Ah yes: Thomas, Richard, Cynthia…Betty. Betty Steward? I felt my head begin to buzz at the coincidence. That was my mother’s name. What are the chances that another Betty Steward would be living in or around Portland, Maine at this time? As my thoughts swam with the possibilities, my heart clenched and then began to beat faster. “Where does this Betty Steward live?” I wondered. The finger that rested next to the name on her listing slowly moved to the right. She lives at 17 Oceanview Road, Cape Elizabeth. My heart started to move up to my throat. That’s where I used to live! What’s her phone number? My finger continued on its way and stopped at 766-2026. The pounding burst into my head and my mouth went dry. This was more than a coincidence. That was MY phone number when I lived here.
I was stunned speechless. As I sat mute and blinking, mouth slightly agape, my classmate Karen caught my eye and asked me what was wrong. I told her I just found my mother’s name in this phone book.
“What is happening?” I wondered aloud.
Karen had been handed the first half of a phone book, which included the cover. While we had waited for the exercise to begin, Karen noted the phone books were from 1988, which she shared with me from across the circle, as I stared in disbelief at her. 1988. As a girl, my mother and I lived in Cape Elizabeth for three years and we were only in two phone books during that time. And Jacob Watson just happened to have them in his possession. He just happened to be teaching us that night after the other facilitator called out sick. And he just happened to hand me the exact part of the phone book where I could find my mother. I say I found her, but it’s more likely that she found me. Or rather, after twenty-one years, she finally found the perfect opportunity to wake me from my insolent dismissals of every other sign or synchronicity she’s sent to tell me once and for all, “I’m here. I’m here.”
I had a friend ask me recently if I actually believed in signs and synchronicities. It was a new friendship at the time, and I think he was trying to take stock of who I was as a person—if I were some woo-woo, angel-number-lovin’ spiritual bypasser or perhaps, to his mind, at least, a saner, more rational type. I laughed when he asked. Far too many people conflate those who operate through blind faith or the learned helplessness of religious dogmatism with those that enjoy the wonder and magic presented through the Great Mystery of life. I can believe in the importance and credibility of the scientific process and also be awash with skin-tingling disbelief when I find my mother’s literal phone book listing twenty-one years after her death, while sitting in a classroom that happens to be located in her favorite state. Being able to question the credibility of something does not discount the legitimacy of the incredible. If something irrational happens, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen or that isn’t important. It simply means that there isn’t a rational explanation available at that moment.
In Buddhism, it is believed that all occurrences in our life, good or bad, serve to awaken us. In the advent of what they call an “auspicious coincidence,” a series of events cluster in a way that force us to examine the deeper structures of our subjective versus objective reality. These coincidences may indicate that time and linear causality are not ultimately how our world is ordered. Sometimes these “auspicious coincidences” have deeply personal meaning. And sometimes, their meaning may be more universal with every instance pointing to the Great Mystery that underpins everything in the world. We may not know why we’re experiencing these signs or exactly what they mean, but the magic of their sheer existence reminds us of the wonder and delight of the unknowable and the miracle of life on Earth.
Renowned psychotherapist Carl Jung coined the term “synchronicity,” to refer to “acausal parallelism” or these meaningful coincidences of “two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved.” He believed deeply in the importance of this principle. For him, these events were not a result of mere chance, but were rather connected to the observer’s mind, serving to provide them with powerful insight and observation. Whether spiritual or practical in nature, Jung didn’t waste time trying to separate one from the other but rather helped his clients leverage their synchronicities to derive deeper meaning and understanding throughout all areas of their lives.
Signs and synchronicities are also, of course, incredibly meaningful and important in indigenous cultures all around the world. The interconnection between humans and the natural world relies heavily on the ability to read the signs, interpret dreamtime, and understand the meaning of these synchronous events. For instance, the appearance of certain animals at certain moments has specific messages for the observer, depending on the tribe or setting, where the hooting of the owl can be a harbinger of death or a sign of protection. Cultures that rely on ceremonial fire may observe how the flames behave or notice what symbols may appear during the ceremony to garner spiritual insight. The abundance—or lack thereof—of certain annual crops could be both a practical and spiritual sign of the year to come, depending. These cultures were built on ancient wisdom traditions, rooted in a relationship built of both pragmatism and faith, regardless of whether rational observers find them to be superstitious or odd. Meaning and purpose of this “acausal parallelism” is not derived through observation but rather through one’s direct experience with the events themselves. Whether these signs or synchronicities “prove anything” doesn’t matter: They are simply reminders of the unseen world, meant to awaken to its existence.
My mother’s death has left me questioning everything—every part of life and my subjective reality. It has left me questioning each part of my faith and what, if anything exists beyond, death. It has left me wondering if the people I love—whom I have also lost—remain with me. It has left me wondering if I do, in fact, believe in the supernatural? Do I believe that my mother is hovering around in the atmosphere, available to possibly materialize at any moment? It’s a thrilling question I ask myself every time I watch a spine-tingling rerun of The Ghost Whisperer or Medium. There is a part of me that wants to believe in the possibility of an invisible world of helpers who will teleport a cup to my hand when it’s just out of reach. Yet, there is another more thoughtful, and dare I say more mature, part of me that realizes that no, I don’t believe in ghosts or spirits, at least not in the way Hollywood has portrayed them. I have realized that in looking for the big signs—the showy signs, the spectacular signs—of the unseen world, I have missed the truth of it: my mother has in fact been with me all along. She is with me every time I smell fresh mint, and it transports me to her garden. She is with me when I zest a lemon and I can practically taste incredible lemon meringue pie. She is with me when I laugh and I hear her cackle come out of my mouth, which is far too often, just ask my husband.
She is here, in every breath and in every cell. She is here now, helping me write these words for you. She is also there, with you, while you read them.
And I can almost—almost—hear her cackling, just like when I was a naughty little girl, “I always told you, Jessica. I see everything. And I am everywhere.”
Believe it or not.
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