"Angels are simple and do not necessarily make grand gestures when sending messages; they simply use what's available and part of our daily lives."
6 Signs You’re Being Visited by Your Guardian Angel - Signs Of An Angel Watching Over You
So the text message on my phone in the mysterious handwritten font really could have been sent by an invisible fingertip?
You might wonder why "I'm sorry" is the one and only message my sister could send me. Let's just say she said some unkind things, not just over the years, but her FINAL WORDS about me. Lori's daughter was recording her during her last hospital visit. Asked to recall something about each of her sisters, Lori said good things about the others. "And what about Carol." Silence. Carol, sister #4 of the 5. What priceless memory would Lori share?
"Carol never did much of anything."
I hear it even now, my sister's voice inside my head. I want to unhear it.
"She was your bone marrow donor," her daughter reminded her (picture me at the kitchen table the day my sister died, listening to this recording).
I'm not going to repeat what Lori said next. It had me in tears for a few days. Why did her daughter think I needed to hear it, on the very day Lori had died?
That was a Monday. Come Wednesday, I picked up a rock in the hot September sun, remembering those words, but also hearing in my head Lori's voice when she'd occasionally "I'm sorry to hear that" (never "I was wrong and I am sorry"). I spotted this rock and held it for a minute, tears flowing, in a parking lot at a veterinarian's office. Yes, I poached the rock. Forgive me Lord I am a thief.
An hour later, leaving a grocery store, the rock still in my pocket, I glanced at my cell phone, and the big ol' "Im sorry" appeared.
I had no idea how to generate that mysterious handwritten font. Nor do I usually see a list of auto-responses to choose from: "Will do," e.g., or in this case, I'm sorry. Not the usual response to "Need more cheese," right?
Our daughter searched online and figured out how to make the handwritten font happen, so it's not "magic," but the timing of it was kinda/sorta miraculous. And for me to "accidentally" and unwittingly call it up .... why not call it a miracle. Why not answer her loud and clear: "I hear you, Lori, and I love you!"
I said it. Out loud.
I remain a skeptic.
The next day, walking a busy street with landscaping rocks stretching for a whole city block, I glanced down and spotted the two crosses (one for Lori, one for Julie?):
How many people would notice the two crosses among tens of thousands of rocks? Hi Julie, Hi Lori, I see you .... Then again, I can spot garlic mustard at 55 mph while riding in a car, so, yeah, maybe it's not magic or mysticism, just what my eye is trained to see. It's nothing. It's something. Read into it what you will!
As for the rock which preceded my mystery message, a friend wrote, "It is a cryptocrystalline type of rock. That group has Jasper, chert and flint in it. Yes, the red is very likely iron in the rock." Red, iron, blood, me, her bone marrow donor... what if rocks really connect us with the spirit world.... the skeptic in me will never buy it, but the mystic in me keeps imagining certain rocks "speak" to me.
I never understood why a sock full of rocks was considered a terrible Christmas gift. To this day I treasure my little rock collection and show it to anyone who will look. And if one rock "speaks" to someone else, even though it spoke to me first or I wouldn't have collected it, I usually give it away to the person admiring my rock.
Wishing we had a better copy of Julie with her boulder. As kids we'd pick up rocks from the field Iest they jam the combine during harvest.
While I have very strong feelings about "Stairway to Heaven" played over the shared grave of Julie and Lori (my husband on guitar, Lori's daughter on sax), I will focus on the one line that I find relevant about this:
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll
All I'm gonna say is that the "No Stairway" memes in Wayne's World totally spoke to me (for me!) and nobody else can even fathom the magnitude of Tim's generosity and setting aside his own dislike of this song to "honor Lori" with it.
You might wonder if I should go see a shrink and try to pick apart my weird revulsion to this PTSD trigger of a song. Well, I already know why it triggers me, and there's nothing I can do about it, except watch for messages from angels and listen when rocks speak to me.
Not the vibe I'd be going for at a funeral, folks
Lori, if that really was you texting me the "I'm sorry," thank you. Julie, if you've tried speaking to me, I'm sorry I never hear you. Although the tree frog landing on my head did make me think MAYBE, just maybe, it was you....
If you want to see the other five ways angels might send messages click on this:
6 Signs You’re Being Visited by Your Guardian Angel - Signs Of An Angel Watching Over You
#2 Repetition segues into synchronicity, something 
I like #4 -- Music - our lost loved ones using songs on the radio, music, lyrics.
White feathers and orbs, no, I don't get those.
1:22 Messages
2:02 Repetition
2:48 A White Feather
3:34 Music
4:09 Orbs
4:50 Scent
Messages from the Other Side
could fill up a thousand-million posts here, and I will stop now. The text message on my phone. The rocks. The elusive scent of roses on my meadow walk in October, year after year, might be explained after all: "autumn wine", a spicy-sweet scent of wet, decaying leaves with a hint of roses. Years ago, a priest assured me this mysterious scent on my daily Rosary walk (always near the same pond) could indeed be one of the "Extraordinary Phenomena" of Catholicism, as explained in The Theology of Christian Perfection by Antonio Royo Marín.
Well, that beats the scientific explanation, right?
I'd love to believe the onset of October aromas of rose are Mother Mary's way of letting me know I'm not utterly alone in my walking Rosary, meditating on some Heavenly Host who doesn't exist.
October is almost here. With a killing frost, I'll be able to walk the meadow, wetlands, and woods again. (Too much poison ivy, too many chiggers and other bitey bugs for now.)
May the angels and sisters and loved ones on The Other Side continue to send me messages, and may my skepticism step aside and allow me to #FeelTheLove.
P.S. Perhaps I will add "Messages from the Other Side" as a topic suggestion.
Thank you, Silver Bloggers, for giving me a sense of community
in a world where I feel so estranged from my own sisters and parents, my hometown, our world.