The things you cannot explain.

The things you cannot explain.


In the days and months after he died I opened myself up to watch for signs that he was still with me. The first thing I noticed was butterflies.  They were everywhere and they came so close to me.  Then I realized birds were nearly landing on me.  I felt comfort from these signs. Immediately after he died I couldn't feel him in my world and that is how I knew he was already gone.  Now he was back, in a differrent way.  I would catch a scent in the air and hear his voice in my head.  The memory of him was not fading as I had feared.  His life had so entwined mine that he couldn't be separated from me even if I had wanted him to be.

In the spring, almost four months after he died I had a call from the funeral director. He told me Ken's final affects had arrived. I had not expected anything else, beyond the three boxes of his belongings which we had divided up in January.  I rushed to retrieve the box.  Inside I found the most mundane things which had been in his pockets.  His car keys, chapstick, ink pen and wallet were there.  Something I had hoped to find, a silver ring he always wore was not there. I wouldn't be surprised to see it turn up in my world someday. 

The Christmas before he died Ken had come home.  We had a wonderful time playing with my grandchildren and daughters.  Ken had always stayed a kid at heart and he loved buying toys for all five of the grandkids.  I had given him a Timex Indiglo watch and he wore it as proudly as if it were a Rolex. He loved to light up the dial and ask "Do you know what time it is?"  In the bottom of the box was his watch.  The band was broken so I put it under my pillow and listened to the ticking as if it were his heartbeat.  The last thing I did every night was light up the dial because I knew that would have been the last thing he would have done too. 

After a week of sleeping with the watch I decided to take it to a place to have a small band put on it. I wanted to wear it and have him near me.  I took the watch to a local drug store where I knew the watch technician.  She told me it would take about five minutes to fix.  When I came back to the counter she looked sad. She said the metal was broken and a band could not be put on it.  I looked at the watch and saw the time on the lighted dial.  It was 9:30.  I walked a few feet to my car and looked at the time.  The  watch face read 5:25 and it would not light.  I closed my eyes and let my mind wait for the first thought.  This was the thought that filled my mind...."You have to let me go."  As clearly as if Ken had spoken into my ear I knew they were his words.  "You have to let me go."  That was the moment I let go of his legs and let him go to God.  It was step one in my very long walk beside his suicide.

To this day I remember that moment and those words and I know there is no way to explain how the watch went forward or backward to that point but I firmly believe it reads the time he passed away. It was either dawn or dusk at the time in the desert in December.  Now I had the comfort of knowing when he passed.