I could have used a story I had written a few years ago called “Remembering Wondering Moments”, but I was inspired to push the envelope and expand on that piece.
Thinking back, I remember a moment as a young child when I decided to stop being the person everyone came to for counseling. I remember clearly, saying to myself, “I’ll grow up when I’m 40”. So, I turned myself off and instantly people stopped coming to me. I wonder what would have happened if I had continued on the path I was on.
I grew up in a household where my dad would come home from a plumbing job with stories like how he remembered a house he had worked in that day. Although he had never been there before it was familiar and he knew where everything was. Bizarre experiences to some. My mother would patiently, politely listen, never saying much so I don’t really know what she thought. I was always comfortable with the idea of reincarnation, somehow it just all made sense to me.
There was the time that I was living in Vancouver and was having surgery. Back in my hospital room, I remember saying out loud “How do you think I feel, I’ve just had surgery”, because someone had just asked me how I was feeling. No one was there. The next time I was back home in Calgary for a visit, my mom and dad asked me if anything strange had happened the day I had surgery and I told them what happened. The story according to them was that when my dad got home from work, he went to sit in his favorite chair in the living room and instantly found himself in my hospital room in Vancouver and had asked me how I was feeling. We left the experience at that. I wonder where our lives would have taken us if we had explored these connections further.
Volumes could be written about my 13 years living with Alan. A friend of mine in Quesnel, had phoned me in Toronto, asking if her co worker could stay with me while he was attending a Crisis Line conference. Off we went to pick him up at the airport. Alan said that there was a spark that shot between us when he first saw me. I hadn’t noticed being that I was with my boyfriend, Dean, who had kindly agreed to drive us. I had brought along my housemate, Bonnie, for Alan. Long story, short – I soon moved to Quesnel and started my life with Alan.
Years later, when mom phoned to tell us that my dad was missing, I found a match book in the middle of the kitchen floor. The next day I was driving along and noticed a funeral procession behind me. Signs from Dad, preparing me. Mom phoned the next day to tell us they had found my dads body.
During these years I took reflexology workshops and other various healing workshops. One day after on course in Vancouver, I missed my exit driving home to Langley. I found myself driving down a road – clear blue sky and sunshine on the Vancouver side of the road and dark stormy clouds on the Langley side. Clearly, I was being shown an obvious choice to make, in my eyes. I spent a few more years in the stormy relationship. Wonderful moments mixed in; working at Expo 86, winning a Lincoln Town Car on a scratch and win ticket, and more time with his sister, Brenda, and her family and all the other relatives.
Magical moments like the morning I drove the nieces and nephews to school. The light had turned green, yet I stayed put for some reason, even with the oldest telling me the light was green and that I could go. Just then, an 18 wheeler roared though the intersection in front of us. Another moment to wonder about.
When I finally left Alan, we were on a trip and had stopped for gas in Keremeos. I refused to get back in the car. The next day I caught a Greyhound bus back to Langley. There in the parking lot of the bus depot was our car, Alan was no where to be seen. He later said that he had gone to the bakery across the street. I jumped in the car and took off, stopping at our basement suite to load up as much as I could in a few minutes. This lead me on the most magical journey, that lead me to a transition house. The next day, each person I talked to on the phone, gave me another number to phone. Then I was to call back in an hour, so I went and sat on the beach at White Rock. There was this dog that ran first one way and then back the other way, sometimes running out into the water chasing the sea gull shadows. So free. Eventually a man came wandering by. He was the dog’s owner or I should say the dog was his owner. The story was that his wife and him had moved to a condo and had given the dog to his son and family. The dog had run away twice and had found his way back to them. A precious moment I remember well.
Back to make yet another phone call. I was told that there was a bed available, and asked if I wanted it. I had to say the most difficult word I had ever said, “yes”. I planned to spend one night and get all the information I was looking for – what my rights were, options, etc. Long story short, I stayed there for a month. There was a reference list of programs. One I called was Relationships Anonymous to be told that they had stopped meeting 2 years ago, but the lady told me about weekly co-dependency meetings at the Vancouver Unity Church. Another 8 week course called Gemini interested me because it is my Zodiac sign. It started the next day. It turned out to be a self assertive, self awareness course on polishing the Gem In I. I loved it.
I went to the Unity Church on Mothers Day, mostly to get information on the Wednesday evening co-dependency group. I felt like I had come home. The minister was talking directly to me. On the ride home every song on the radio was healing, meaningful, up lifting. Once I got back to Surrey, I sat in my car to keep listening to the songs. The next song had nothing to do with anything, the moment was over.
One week the minister said to make a list of things we want to do then to go out and do them. That was the day I met Ralph. After the service, I noticed him a few rows in front of me and heard the thought in my head, “you’ve seen that man a few times now you should say Hi to him”. At coffee downstairs, he came and stood right beside the chair I was sitting in, so I jumped up and told him a little voice had told me upstairs that I should say Hi to him. We introduced ourselves and chatted for a minute. Later, in the parking lot, I noticed that he was riding a motorcycle and that would be on my list, so I told him he needed to take me for a ride sometime. A few weeks later I got my ride and we have been happily together for 18 years. He is all my dreams come true in one bundle. My own balloon animal maker. My 13 years with Alan put me in the right place at the right time to meet Ralph. I wonder if we would have met if I had left Alan sooner.
There has and continues to be even more wonder ah ha moments through the years.
At Norah’s memorial service 4 of us honored Norah and her drum with a drumming session. Someone noticed a rainbow outside – not one, but five. One vibrant brilliant one and 4 muted ones below it, one for Norah and one for each of the 4 of us. Perfectly in line with the entrance to her condo building where the reception was.
We missed Uncle Gordon’s funeral in Victoria. I was to represent the family that was back in Calgary. We didn’t get the answering machine messages telling us the date had been changed. We were on the ferry when I saw the obituary in the Victoria paper saying the service was at that exact moment. What a helpless feeling. Once we got back home, we listened to the answering machine again and all the messages were there. My uncles doing! I wonder? He was a loner, the black sheep of the family.
At Bernie’s memorial service at the Minoru Seniors Centre today, the microphone died. A sign from Bernie, that it was time to end the stories and have coffee and cookies.
I am wondering if I am supposed to attend the Ama Deus workshop next weekend. The brochure talks about the Mayan culture and that same day I got a travel email about a Mayan resort. The instructor’s last name is Spano and a couple days later I saw that name again totally unrelated to her workshop. Are these signs that I am supposed to attend? I wonder. Wow, on Friday at the ladies Tai Chi lunch, as I was reading the menu at Moxy’s restaurant, there was Mayan again. Shaking my head here, wondering.
The timing of this topic being on the heels of the homework assignment at the Memoirs Writing class at Cambie makes me wonder. We were to write about a dead relative that influenced us and I had noticed that it is my dad’s side of the family that is connected to these kinds of Wonder moments. And that I had already written a story about Wonder which I haven’t even included in this piece. I wonder why.
Magical coincidences that prove to me that I truly am in the right place at the right time.
Looking back, I wonder what path my life would have taken if I had become the nurse I had thought I would be. Would I have found the healing energy work. Did that choice make it necessary for me to be a patient to find a medical institution that taught Therapeutic Touch and had a Relaxation Group program.
My 40th birthday has come and gone. I’ll be 60 this May and I am still wondering if I have grown up yet. I trust that some day the answers to all these questions will be revealed. For now, I will just patiently, politely wait as I wonder. Wink.
By Lynn Keeling Jan. 2009
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