So I got me a pen and a paper
And I made up my own little sign
I said, “Thank you, Lord, for thinkin’ ’bout me
I’m alive and doin’ fine”
The lyrics above are from a song called Signs, written by Les Emmerson of The Five Man Electrical Band. It was repopularized by the Hard Rock band Tesla after they covered it on their 1990 live album Five Man Acoustical Jam which, I have to believe, was titled as a nod to Emmerson’s group.
Yesterday, on the way to the airport, I was thinking about a promise I made to my brother shortly before he passed away this Summer. This coming Sunday would be a big first in his family’s life and I asked him to please give me a sign that I’m doing an okay job living up to that promise. I offered this up while stuck in traffic on the Van Wyck on the way to JFK where I would fly to California for a weekend workshop on storytelling that I was giving to an industry association.
For context, I do believe that our loved ones who have passed do reach out to us after they have died but it’s up to us to be
open to seeing and experiencing these signs. Call me crazy, I don’t care. It happened to me after my grandmother Maria passed when I was in high school and it’s been happening since Gregory passed in June. Skeptics will call these events coincidences, but hey, I read the Celestine Prophecy in college and James Redfield wouldn’t lie to me about there being no such things as coincidences.
When I got to my hotel in Culver City I was dismayed to find that my room wasn’t ready. With nothing in walking distance to my hotel except for a California Highway Patrol Police Station (no sign of Ponch or John), I decided to hang in the lobby and review the presentation I would be giving the following day. My concentration is interrupted by a knock on the door behind me and I see a rather large gentleman wearing a bathing suit looking for entry. I open the door and this man, who is the spitting image of The Notorious B.I.G, thanks me profusely for opening the door as his sciatica is acting up and had I not opened the door, he would have had to walk all the way to the front entrance and he was in a lot of pain.
I figured that’s where our relationship would end but then he decided to sit down. He asked me my name and I said Mike to which he replied, “Hey brother, that’s my name too.” I learned he is in town from up towards wine country because it’s his birthday on Sunday and he wants to spend it with his girl who lives down in LA and helps take care of adults with special needs. I also learned he is an associate pastor of a Church up in Santa Rosa and before being a preacher he was a Nurse’s Aide and worked in law enforcement. He’s a guy that basically spent his whole life in service to others and to the community.
Some of you may be wondering, “Mike, how is this a sign from your brother?” It’s not. This is what we authors call a red herring. The preacher man was not a sign from Gregory, but I have every intention of wishing him a happy birthday tomorrow should I see him in the lobby.
As mentioned, I’m in LA to speak at a weekend conference. This industry association must have some deep pockets because they flew me in from Connecticut to give a ninety minute presentation on storytelling and they flew another speaker in from Puerto Rico. I had never met her before and, since we are the only two out of towners here and staying at the same hotel, I asked if she wanted to have dinner and she agreed.
I didn’t know Mari from a hole in the wall, but we both have the same day job as moderators. We are hired to interview groups of strangers and turn those conversations into insights our clients can use to make better decisions on things like advertising, product development, and customer experience. Needless to say, it takes a somewhat unique individual to do this work and I often find that I have a lot in common with my peers.
On the way to the restaurant we got to talking about how business has been for both of us and then she shared something that I wasn’t prepared for. Mari told me that she had to take a couple of months off in the summer because her brother passed away. Now, my brother’s passing is not something I bring up with complete strangers. It’s not like I meet someone and say, “Hi, I’m Mike. I’m a Virgo, have a limited sense of adventure, and my brother passed away in June. Want to split an Uber?” But after Mari shared that with me, I had to do the same.
Her brother died of complications due to Covid and mine passed from complications of lung cancer. What were the chances that the two of us would have brothers who passed around the same time of diseases that both involved their respiratory system? As we continued to share our experiences, she told me about how she was there for her brother in his final moments and how she felt an energy pass through her at his moment of death. I shared how I was also with my brother when he passed but while I did not experience a rush of energy, I did have the opportunity to hold him in my arms when he was slipping away. And then we talked about signs.
Sign, sign
Everywhere a sign
She told me she asks for signs from him regularly and that they are given to her. I smiled and admitted that I do the same thing.I told her about a deer I saw while trail running at a park my brother liked to walk through and how this beautiful creature didn’t move a muscle as I came barrelling near it. Usually when I see deer and my presence becomes known they hightail it away, but this one just remained calm and watched me pass by. I shared about rare birds I’ve seen when I was thinking of my brother and about a family of turtles who emerge from a pond I like to hang out near and have some alone time. She told me about musical signs her brother has sent her and also shared some stories about birds.
Again, skeptics will say that we are hunting for meaning in these events as a coping mechanism for grief. To that I’d counter by saying, “So what?” If it works and helps us, what does it matter if it is a mystical gift from the universe or a freaky coincidence, the outcome is what matters.
So my meeting Mari, not the Reverend BIG , was the sign that my brother answered my request with. It is also not lost on me that Mari is short for Maria, also my maternal grandmother’s name, who started sending me signs the night she passed away over thirty years ago.
Please share any signs you’ve experienced in the comments below.
