The Blessing

          This is a very different blog today, as I share something that happened to me this past Sunday.
It is something I still am trying to wrap my mind around, so please bear with me as I try to find just the right words. It was amazing, moving, wonderful, and awe inspiring all at the same time, and to be honest, I am still in the process of understanding it. Here is my best description, as I recall it.
 

Early morning cleaning and mowing..My grandparents stone in the back corner

           Sunday was a warm, partly sunny day, and drier then it has been, so I decided to mow the lawns. My mother's mower was in the shop, so I decided to start in the family cemetery..Homeland Cemetery, located in the back of our hay field. I rode over on the mower, and started mowing, saying hello to all the relatives that are buried there. As I mowed, I noticed the deer had been munching on the geraniums we had planted on Memorial weekend. Several plants had just stalks sticking up, and it seemed all the others were in desperate need of 'dead heading'..removing all the dead , brown flowers.
           As I rode around and around, the little angel on my shoulder said .."Ya know, you need to get off and take care of those flowers", while the little devil on my other shoulder said "Naw, your knees hurt today, just leave them." I finished mowing and pulled up to the first group of stones, parked the tractor, and got off..creaking knees and all.
           I hobbled along, pulling off the dead flowers and tossing them over the wall into the woods, chatting away as I went. Then, I had a thought.
           " How about a sign today?"I asked out loud. "You know, like...a butterfly landing on my arm, or even on the flowers next to me. That would be cool."
            I come from a long line of believers in the afterlife and have personally seen and heard things that can not be explained. Our farm has been in our family for 6 generations and with it comes an almost tangible feeling of being surrounded by family and those gone before, at all times. Signs, as we like to call them, are just a small way for the kin to let us know they are here.
           I finished weeding the first graves and made my way down to my grandparents, aunt and uncle's graves. I apologized to them as I had driven over them with my mower, and could almost hear my uncle sputtering. I chatted away, and wished Nanny, my grandmother a Happy Birthday. She would have been 109, three days before and I had been thinking about her often. As I cleaned her grave, and pulled off the dead flowers, I just tried to imagine it has been 25 years since she had passed away. It seems like it was yesterday, and we all still miss her daily. To know my grandmother was to love her. She was warm, naturally funny, kind to everyone and everything. I truly never heard her say a mean thing about anyone, and loved just being with her. We went on many adventures together..antique shopping, to the fair, taking long rides to different farm stands where she would send me in with a list and say.."If you see something you want, get it and use my money." She was a wonderful person, and it was a huge loss to the family when she passed away.
         

Nanny and I

 I said my goodbyes to everyone, climbed back up and off I went to mow at my house. I hadn't seen a butterfly, but figured the day was young. I mowed my three front lawns, and then started to mow along the woods.
           I was tooling along at a pretty good clip, when one of those flying grasshoppers flew up and straight at me. Now, he was initially probably 20 feet away, but I was headed straight for him, and he was flying straight for me. I yelled " AHHHHHHH....." and envisioned him yelling "AHHHHHHH",
as we continued on our collision course. He was headed straight toward my open, "AHH" yelling mouth, when at the last second, I threw my head back and he landed right under my chin!
           "AHHHHH" changed  to "ARRRGGGGGG" as I slapped at my neck and scraped that little beastie off, flinging him to the side of the lawn. I laughed and said (to no one in particular).." If that was the sign, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for."
           I finished mowing the woods area, rode my tractor into the apple orchard, and picked a couple nice looking apples. I drove back to the house and hollered to Cliffy. He came out and we both ate our apples, me still sitting on the tractor, him sitting on the step. I told him I was just going to go out and check the raised beds, and would mow the lane and be done. I had already been mowing about 6 hours, so figured I would wrap it up.
            I rode out back to the garden area and checked over the plants. The sweet potatoes are growing great, again thinking how Nanny used to always buy those special for me. I love the yellow sweet potatoes much more then the orange yams, and you can't find them often but when she saw them, she would always get them for me. She spoiled all us grandchildren, and loved doing it.
           I headed out of the garden area, and turned right to go toward the house. As I headed down the lane, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of white. I didn't pay much attention, just kept on mowing back to the house. I turned again, and headed back down the lane and when I got to the end of the garden, I turned back again toward the house. I saw a flash of white again and this time, I looked to see where it was coming from. I kept on mowing, but squinted to see across the field. I could see a bright white light, but was almost back to the house.

            For some reason, I thought.."Go get your phone,"so I drove over to the house and cruised around the back, looking inside to see where Cliff was. I hollered for him to grab my phone, and then drove over to wait for him at the back door. He brought it out and I headed back down the lane, pretty sure whatever it was was bound to be gone. I got back to the garden spot, and there it was..a bright light across the field.

            So, I pulled a right and started bumping my way cross country, through the hay field toward the cemetery over in the far corner. The whole way across I was looking and squinting, speculating as to what I was seeing. The closer I got, the brighter white the light shone. I thought..Hmm...is it the sun reflecting off that old flag pole down behind the fence? Is it the white sign by our Scottish Cousin's grave ? Is it beyond the cemetery or inside? I stopped several times to take photos on the way across the field, watching as the light got bigger and brighter.
            I finally cleared the edge of the field, and drove closer to the cemetery, looking on in absolute amazement as the brilliant, white light got bigger and brighter. I drove to the edge of the cemetery, and it was huge, and the most BRILLIANT, PURE WHITE LIGHT I had ever seen.

           Suddenly, two points of white light shot from the top and the bottom. I stopped and filmed it, amazed and not even sure what I was seeing, or where it was even coming from. I sat there for only a few seconds, I think..just watching as it blazed pure white in front of my eyes..and suddenly the two points of light pulsated..with the top showing just a bit of color.
            I said out loud as I filmed " Isn't this the craziest thing you've ever seen?" And it truly was. It was so bright and white it hurt my eyes. What did I do next? Well, despite the frequent warnings about not going toward the light..I went toward the light.  I remembered thinking..am I going to go in it? Through it? By it?

           I drove onward into the cemetery, and there it was..my grandparent's gravestone, shining with a brilliance that you do not see on earth. Suddenly, I was up in front of it...and there it sat..just as I had seen it earlier that day..grey from 30 years of sitting in our field, lichen growing on it. At this point, I am not even sure what I was thinking, but I snapped a photo of the stone..grey and humble and unremarkable. On a whim, I blew a kiss toward the stone, and said " Thanks for that!", and turned the tractor to go.

            The white light was amazing and impossible and wonderful..but what I saw next was even more "not of this world." I blew the kiss, and then turned the tractor in a tight circle and as I passed their stone again..I suddenly stopped the tractor.
             I was looking at their stone...but it was now...GLORIOUS. I could see the stone clearly, but it was no longer grey and humble. It was shimmering copper and gold in color, with the lettering all deep black and bold in that blended burnished, amazing color. Unlike the white light that shone beyond the edges of the stone, the copper and gold color stayed within the edges, but surrounding the entire stone was a reddish/pink haze.
             I do not know what I was seeing in the shining, changing copper and gold stone, but I heard myself ask out loud.." Am I dying?" I am currently sitting here typing, so the answer was no, but I am convinced I was seeing something beyond Homeland Cemetery, beyond Maine, beyond this world.
             I remember thinking I wanted to take a picture of that spectacular color, and thought I did. However, when I checked my photos later, there were no photos of that technicolor gravestone. I do not know if I took the photos, and they didn't come out, or if I didn't take them at all. Nor do I remember leaving the cemetery, but just found 4 photos as I drove the tractor back across the field, brilliant white light shining again behind me.

              Skeptics will say it was the sun hitting the stone just right, but we have all lived here, worked here, farmed here for the 30 years the stone has been there in that same position, and there has never EVER been ANY kind of light radiating from that cemetery or any of the stones. I do not know why I saw what I did, except for the simple fact perhaps that I asked for a sign..a simple sign that they might possibly still be with us, even though we can not see them. What I got was a miracle..a blessing, and I am forever grateful and honored. See you again someday, Nanny.

I will post the video on my face book page tomorrow..It is AMAZING!!