Signs

All the ways my mother is still with me

I knew my mother’s death would bring us closer together.

It’s hard to understand unless you’ve experienced it, but dementia makes it feel like the person you love is a million miles away, lost somewhere in time, even when they’re sitting right in front of you. Especially when they’re sitting right in front of you.

Over the years of my mother’s illness, our fairly normal conversations deteriorated into my own lonely monologues—first met with understanding in her eyes and the occasional murmured “mm-hmm,” then with nothing at all.

I’m one of the few remaining people on the planet who doesn’t have a podcast. It’s difficult for me to talk just to talk. I need something, anything, in return—a reply, an acknowledgement, a glimmer of presence. Once her spirit broke free from her body, I knew I would get that again from my mother. I just didn’t know how or when.

Our wonderful hospice nurse, Pearl, texted me on a Monday morning in late August to confirm what I knew from spending Sunday with my mother to be true: She was no longer eating or drinking. Her heart rate was rising and her blood pressure was dropping. She wouldn’t be with us much longer.

I always hoped it would be clear when it was time to have one last private conversation with my mother, and it was. I labeled fourth-grade school supplies and held my daughter’s hand on the walk to meet her new teacher, then drove 45 minutes to my mother’s memory-care facility to spend time alone with her. I traded my list of glue sticks and colored pencils for a list of things I needed to tell my mother before she died.

Late-afternoon sunlight illuminated the pale-butter walls of her room. A portable air conditioner hummed near the window, working overtime to cut through the day’s humidity. My mother looked shrunken and frail in her rented hospital bed. Her mouth gaped open as she slept, her cheeks pink from the heat. She wore a white T-shirt tie-dyed in pink and blue, which I recognized from a ‘60s party the facility had thrown the previous summer. A charcoal grey bedsheet covered her body up to her elbows, exposing her arms clenched tightly to her chest, per usual. I’d heard another caregiver compare this gradual folding-up that occurs in the final stage of Alzheimer’s to the way newborns begin their life all scrunched up and frog-legged from being nestled in the womb. Some of us exit much like we enter.

Before I launched into my final monologue for my mother, I started recording a voice memo on my phone. I wanted a way to remember what I said—a way to quell my panic if, in the future, I lamented not saying something I meant to tell her. I’d be able to absolve myself by simply reviewing the tape.

I started by talking about some of the highlights of my mother’s life and describing happy memories I had of her from my childhood. I read aloud from various artifacts I’d unearthed while going through her belongings: restaurant receipts and notes that chronicled the beginning of her courtship with my stepfather, Don; a letter she wrote to my paternal grandfather after the death of her own father; a college-admissions essay I wrote about her. When it felt right, I wove in the critical points I wanted to hit: that all her loved ones were going to be okay; that she was forgiven by anyone she’d hurt; that her life had meaning; that we were always going to remember her; and that it was okay to let go.

“You did the best job in your time on Earth,” I said, “so I don’t want you to have any regrets or any things you wished you could have done or done differently, okay? Because you were perfect to us.”

Then I addressed the next phase of our relationship. Long before she became ill, my mother joked that she’d haunt me after her death. She certainly believed in communication from the other side, especially after her father died in 2001. She was an avid viewer of Crossing Over with John Edward, an early-aughts TV show in which the eponymous psychic medium performed live readings for members of his studio audience. My mother always yearned for messages and signs from her parents.

“I don’t know if I want to be haunted, necessarily, because I think that sounds scary,” I told her, “but find ways to show me that you’re watching and that you’re with me. I’ll look for you.”

I suggested she send me ladybugs. In early July, Don and I wheeled my mother out to the garden of her memory-care facility and enjoyed a visit in the balmy shade. After we brought her back inside, I noticed a ladybug had landed on her glasses and stayed there for the whole trip up to her room.

In a journey tinged with so much sadness, this moment filled me with such joy and peace. I got the feeling that, no matter what happened, everything was going to be okay.

I spoke to my mother for just over an hour. When I felt like I’d left nothing unsaid, I spent another hour playing all her favorite songs. It was an eclectic mix of music from her formative years (John Denver, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac) and mine (Third Eye Blind, Goo Goo Dolls, Incubus). I also played a recording of my lifelong friend, Gillian, singing the Irish Blessing, which she sent me when my mother reentered hospice:

May the road rise with you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face
May the rain fall gently on your fields
Until we meet again
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.

Gillian is a gifted vocalist and the recording is absolutely beautiful. Listening to it is like what I imagine having warm honey poured on my forehead would feel like. I hope my mother felt the same.

She never woke up or reacted to anything that day, but I have to believe she heard me and John Denver and Gillian.

She died two days later.

I didn’t think to look for any signs from my mother in the two weeks between her death and her funeral. I was too busy debriefing with my therapist and friends, managing my daughter’s school and dance schedules, and figuring out, as a non-Catholic person, what exactly goes into a Catholic funeral mass.

“Which hymns would you like to include in the service?” the parish music director asked during our planning meeting.

“Umm… can you name a few of your greatest hits?” I replied. (Gillian opened the service with “Amazing Grace” and my other incredibly talented friend, Lindsay, sang “Be Thou My Vision.”)

When it came to designing the funeral program, I provided a photo of my mother and the names of everyone who would sing and speak. The default content on the back of the program was the lyrics of the Irish Blessing.

“Do you want to change it to something else?” the funeral coordinator asked.

“No, this will be just fine,” I said with a smile.

The night before the funeral was when I broke down watching the slideshow of photos from my mother’s life. Not only was there an upsetting point when my mother went from looking vibrant to sick, but I chose to end the slideshow with a photo from her sixty-fourth birthday in 2022. In it, my mother was smiling. She was still able to talk and walk. It was the last photo I could find of her looking truly happy.

I felt all the photos from the final three years of her life were too sad to include. And for her obituary and funeral program, I had to go back a full 10 years to her 2015 wedding day to find a suitable image. Those long gaps between the end of my mother’s quality of life and the end of her actual life made her long, slow decline feel so terribly tragic all over again.

I locked myself in the bathroom, sat on the toilet lid, and sobbed uncontrollably. After a minute or so, the lights over the sink quickly blinked. Then they blinked again. Just as I thought, “Could that be Mom? No…” the lights blinked a third time more forcefully, plunging me into total darkness for a full second. I knew it was her.

My mother let me know she was with me when I needed her most, and the peace I felt when I saw the ladybug on her glasses, the warm honey I imagined when I listened to the Irish Blessing, all came flooding back. My mother was okay. I was going to be okay.

I wish I could say I’ve had plenty of space to grieve for my mother since her funeral, but I haven’t. I’ve been dealing with something else that saps a lot of my energy. When people text, “How are you doing?” it takes me a second to remember they’re referring to my mother’s death. We all thought that would be the most difficult thing I’d endure this year, but life’s full of surprises, isn’t it?

I was having a particularly hard time in mid October, which coincided with a few unseasonably warm and sunny days in the Seattle area. I was feeling so alone, as I hadn’t even told my closest friends what I was going through yet. After I dropped my daughter, Evie, off at her dance class one afternoon, I decided to treat myself to an iced latte. My favorite coffee shop has a drive-through, and when it gets busy, an employee will walk from car to car with a tablet, taking orders and payments to speed up the line.

“What would you like today?” the young woman asked me, and just as she finished her sentence, a ladybug flew between us and landed on her shoulder. It was the first ladybug I’d seen since the one that camped out on my mother’s glasses, and it brought tears to my eyes.

“I’ll have a 12-ounce iced oat-milk latte, please,” I choked out. “Sorry, my mom just died a few months ago, and I think that ladybug on your shoulder is a sign from her.”

“Oh!” she replied, noticing it for the first time. “Well, hello to your mom!”

I drove straight back to Evie’s dance class—which, one day a week, is in a different location from the rest of her dance classes—and parked, sipping my latte in the car as I waited for her to finish. The side street in front of me was Janet Ave N. I’ve noticed this literal sign many times before, but the sight of my mother’s name lifted my spirits even more after seeing the ladybug.

She’d love that lavender down below, too.

I know everything I see as a “sign” could be just a coincidence, but when feeling my mother’s presence brings me the comfort I need, I choose to override the logical constraints of my brain and let the spiritual part of it stay wide open and ready to receive whatever the universe sends my way.

The next day, I felt a tickle on my left hand during my morning walk. It was a tiny ladybug crawling across my thumb. Amazed, I quickly snapped a photo before it could fly away, but it never did.

The ladybug remained perfectly still on my thumb for another quarter-mile. I grew more and more emotional as I walked. As I neared a wooden bench, I knelt to grab a fallen red leaf and coaxed the ladybug to crawl onto it. I sat on the bench, placed the leaf next to me, and cried. For the first time since she died, I talked to my mother.

I talked about the very hard thing I was going through and how I wished she could be there to help me with it. I talked about how scared I was not knowing what the future held. I talked about feeling so alone and like nothing would ever be the same again.

The ladybug crawled off the leaf and onto the bench, but stayed next to me the entire time I talked.

When I was done, I felt wrung-out, but lighter. I thanked the ladybug and continued on my way.

Since that day, I haven’t hesitated to talk to my mother whenever and wherever I want to tell her something. I know she’s always with me and listening, whether I get a sign from her or not. But I’ve noticed so many signs that I keep a running list.

Just before Halloween, Don and I took Evie and her friend to our favorite pumpkin patch—an annual tradition we used to do with my mother. We’ve missed having her with us for the past few years, but I love to remember the perfect day we enjoyed there in 2020. It was sunny and the farm was nearly empty due to Covid. Although my mother was a year into her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, she was still able to do everything independently. She’d also lost her inhibitions. All the things she’d previously declared herself “too old” for—like riding the cow train and careening down a steep slide on a burlap sack—she eagerly embraced. It was amazing to see her enjoy these activities like a joyful little kid alongside four-year-old Evie.

After this year’s pumpkin patch visit, we went to lunch at The Maltby Cafe, a legendary restaurant that’s always packed on weekends. It’s just 15 minutes away from my mother’s house and the site of so many special occasions over the years: birthday celebrations, breakfasts with out-of-town visitors, and an intimate brunch following Mom and Don’s courthouse wedding ceremony. It’s also the last restaurant she ever visited back in 2023. I took her there the day before Mother’s Day, but the atmosphere was much too loud and chaotic for her. We took our California scrambles to go.

This year, we put our name in with the hostess and squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder with other hungry patrons in the waiting area. Don went to the restroom and I had a moment where I could just barely hear a song playing below the din of chatty customers and clanging silverware. It was “Drive” by Incubus—one of my mother’s favorites. She always gave a little cry of joy and recognition at the opening guitar strums when I played it for her in the car. She even wrote these lyrics from the chorus on a Post-It note:

In 2018, she sang this bit of the song and asked me to tell her the artist and title so she could add them to her note. The irregular spacing, missing letter, and messiness of her handwriting indicate things had already started to change in her brain. I bet these words brought her comfort:

Whatever tomorrow brings
I’ll be there
With open arms and open eyes, yeah.

I carry the note in my purse to remind me of my mother’s incredible strength and bravery in facing the unknown.

Maybe it was completely random that this 25-year-old song played on a Saturday afternoon in a busy cafe, but I believe it was my mother meeting us for lunch, and perhaps sharing some of her strength and bravery with me. Because I believe that, I didn’t feel sad. I smiled, even laughed a little, and reveled in the peace of knowing she was still with us.

My personal situation grew even more difficult after that. I felt stuck in limbo, unsure whether to keep fighting for something or to release my grip on it. I could barely eat or sleep as I agonized over which path to choose.

One day in early November, I awoke with a startling sense of clarity: I had to let go. For the first time in several weeks, my body felt completely at ease, saturated with a deep, peaceful knowingness.

I let my dogs out into the backyard that morning and discovered a full rainbow.

Later, I walked my daughter to school and saw another rainbow. I went for a run and saw another one. They were practically everywhere I turned.

I took these magical displays as confirmation—from my mother, from the universe—that my intuition was correct. Although the choice I made was terrifying and filled with uncertainty, it also came from a place of light and love. The other option was to stay rooted in place out of fear. I can’t see very far down the path I chose, but I know there is goodness there. I just have to trust it will take me where I need to go.

As the weather turned cold, I pictured all the ladybugs hibernating in warm nooks and crannies for the winter and regretted suggesting such a seasonal sign to my mother. Surely I wouldn’t see any more ladybugs until spring.

I should have known better.

I spotted it one morning from a block away: a jaunty red umbrella with black polka dots and pop-up eyeballs, clutched by a kindergartener wearing tiny rain boots. Whenever it’s wet—which it is most days now—I see this little ladybug bobbing along on the walk to school.

On a recent tough day, I got a rejection email in the morning that triggered feelings of massive defeat and anxiety about the future. Later, Evie and I went to the grocery store, list in hand, and she took us on a detour down the pasta aisle. Once she grabbed a box of rigatoni, I turned around to find myself face-to-face with a display of ladybug timers.

Ladybug timer: $6.49. Sign from Mom: priceless.

Maybe it’s a year-round sign after all.

I could describe so many more instances when the lights have flickered and I know my mother is watching and listening. It always happens when Evie’s dancing in our gym and does a particularly great move, or when I’m thinking about my mother. Earlier this week, I was lying on the floor with my legs up the wall, as runners are wont to do, and I opened a draft of this post on my phone and started making edits. The ceiling light flickered more wildly than ever. Maybe there’s something wrong with the bulb, but I believe it was Mom. She always loved my writing.

I’d already received most of these signs before I heard the psychic medium Laura Lynne Jackson on The Oprah Podcast and read her book, Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe. Both simply affirmed that experiences like mine are quite common, particularly when people are going through a difficult time and when they’re spiritually open to receiving signs from their loved ones. I recommend listening to the podcast or reading the book if you’re woo-woo like me, or even a little woo-woo curious.

I meet with my therapist every week, and she made sure to check in on my grieving process ahead of the holiday season. “Have you thought about setting a place for your mom at your Thanksgiving table or displaying a photo of her nearby?” she asked.

I just laughed. Either one of those things would make me dissolve into a puddle of tears while trying to host a dinner for nine people. And I don’t need an empty plate or a photo to act as a placeholder for my mother’s presence.

She already joins me on walks and grocery runs. She plays DJ and paints my skies. Her loving energy buoys every decision I make and permeates every word I write. She can now support me in ways she couldn’t in her final years on Earth.

I knew my mother’s death would bring us closer together. I feel her with me all the time.