Spirit Is Always Near

My ‘new’ light with the pumpkin 🙂

This time of year can be challenging,  our hearts can ache for those that have gone before, if this is your experience, I hope these words help show you that spirit is always near.

If you’ve read Ride, you may remember I like to acknowledge Dylan’s arrival and departure day by doing something special. This year I was uncertain what to do on his birthday – the 24^th April. The weather wasn’t very welcoming to take the two-hour drive to the Tutaki valley to hike up into the Tiruamea, to where his ashes are laid. This is something I will often do on these special days, it is also a 7-hour trip or an overnight adventure and is so much more fun in nice weather.

So … I was working in my kitchen on the eve of the 24^th, thinking how I would spend the next day. I was baking big grey pumpkin in my oven. Roasting them whole till I could cut up them up easily and fully cook. My oven is second-hand and at least 30 years old. The internal light had stopped working years ago. Electricians had come and done work in the house since that time and I had always forgotten to ask them to check/change the bulb in the oven. I had tried myself but couldn’t budge the lights cover or figure any way to get to the bulb. I had resigned myself to cooking in the dark.
I’m deep in thought and I open the oven door and can see the pumpkin really clearly.
I’m confused, and then I laugh.
My oven light is glowing brightly.
I turn the oven off and off goes the light, turn it back on and the light comes back on.
I hear my boys laugh and a “Happy Birthday Mum!”
I cry and I laugh and, I am reminded once again that the veil is so very thin.

Dylan has often played with electricity to get my attention. (for those that don’t know; he was an electrician) There is even a chapter in Ride called ‘playing with lights’ which is about the time he first showed this form of communication.

A few years back, one of my only two, downstairs lights, suddenly stopped working. I tried everything I could think of before I accepted that I’d have to get an electrician in. I rigged up a make shift light for the meantime. I tried the old light every day I was down there but no light appeared. On the morning I went to book an electrician, I tried the light and it worked and has worked ever since…

At one point my iron just stopped working. I was annoyed about it, it wasn’t very old and I thought it must have been expensive junk. For weeks I delayed buying another iron – it’s not like I use it very often and there are definitely more interesting things to spend money on. Every week or so I tested it in different power outlets in the house and it wouldn’t work.  I was suspecting Dylan was playing with me again, but after about a month I relented and got online to buy a new iron. I was just about to push the ‘buy now’ button when I heard; ‘try the iron now Mum’, and, you guessed it, when I plugged it in and turned it on, it went, and worked in any socket I tried it in. Years later it continues to work. Little shit (Dylan) had always told me ironing was a waste of time J

These little things remind me he is always near, even when I can’t feel or hear him, he’ll show me his presence.

Back to the 24th April …. I didn’t do anything extra special this year other than walk barefoot in some beautiful bush by the ocean, that I often walk in with my dogs.
And, I consciously loved myself and my son for the incredible journey that we are on together and apart and I laughed every time I thought of my ‘new’ birthday oven light.
Now, 9 months on, my heart ping’s with love and connection, when I see the oven light come on.

In a few short weeks it will be the 12^th anniversary of Dylan’s final earthly decision. I’m hoping the weather is fine and my two, now getting older dogs, and my new puppy and myself can make it in to the Tiruamea. I will have to wait and see. My dog ‘Muma’ must be 14 years old or more now and the walk in may well be beyond her soon.
Whatever we do, it will be in Connection with Self-Spirit-Nature.

As always and forever
Blessing and Love to all, xx Andrea and Dylan xx