Grandma Fran's Feathers

This is a re-post from September 1st, 2016

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Days after my son Grayson was born in April 2014, my husband’s Grandma Fran passed away.

Frances Momyer had been hanging on to life in a nursing home for two long years. During that time, she spent more and more of her hours sleeping while her mind and body slowly slipped away.

Fran had been a nurse and a mother of five. A red headed Irish girl who always carried her rosary, the family joke had always been that Grandma Fran had a direct phone line to God. She was the one my husband’s family called on for prayers in the midst of crisis. More often than not, her prayers seemed to work.

Though I never met Fran while she was alive, she is the first person that comes to mind when Grayson is sick or when I’m having a difficult parenting day. Because of the uncanny proximity of Grayson’s birth and Fran’s death, I’ve always assumed she’s here to help and that she has a cavalry of angels on-call.

When Grayson was about 2, we were having breakfast and listening to KKNW alternative radio. It was a call-in show featuring two clairvoyant ladies who could connect with dead relatives. While Grayson munched on cheerios, I decided to call in just for fun. I wanted to see if Grandma Fran was around.

Because I was the last caller and I only had a couple minutes, I cut to the chase and asked them directly if Grayson’s great grandmother was here.

“Ofcourse she’s here. You know that already.” They said matter of factly.

“You can feel her but your son can actually see her”.

“That’s nice.” I thought to myself. “You probably tell everyone that”. And I began to wonder how often my clients think this sort of thing about me.

“She is showing us feathers.” The psychic ladies said. “Have you been seeing a lot of feathers around lately? This is one of the ways she wants to show you guys she’s with you”.

Again, I thought “that’s nice but it seems so generic. I think they told the last caller the same thing”.

The show ended and I agreed that I would try to be aware of feathers. I trusted that Fran was around to help Grayson, feathers or not. It didn’t really matter that much.

Hours later, I was sitting in the grass, stretching. A large, black crow feather blew in on a breeze and parked itself on the sidewalk right in front of me. “Hmmm.” I thought to myself. “interesting.”

I took a mental note.

The next day, Grayson and I walked to the Magnolia baseball field. After eating some lunch and kicking the soccer ball, Grayson went running across the field like 3 foot maniac to get a closer look at the city park pick-up truck. It had a flashing light on its roof like an ambulance, which was very exciting.

When he was half way across the field, a small flock of swallows swooped in low and began to jet around, skimming the grass, diving and circling gracefully - as swallows do. From my vantage point, it looked like they were coming within inches of Grayson. He was thrilled and turned to me laughing and pointing. He was sure they were there to play with him. It WAS thrilling! Maybe we don’t spend enough time at this baseball field but I have never seen swallows flying so close to people.

Enjoying watching Grayson having a nature moment I rested back in the grass. My mind wandered to yesterday’s phone call. Grandma Fran, the psychic ladies, the black crow feather. I thought “I don’t even like crows that much…why not a pretty feather? Something white, maybe?”

I watched as Grayson chased the swallows. He ducked and dove and landed on the grass laughing. When he got up, I could see that he had something in both of his hands. Forgetting about the pick-up truck, he began running back toward me. The swallows, continued their circling and swooping and appeared to be following him as he ran my direction. As he approached me, the swallows also got so close that I jumped a little. Maybe they were playing with him?

“Mommy!!” he shouted “look a dis, Mommy!”.

He opened both of his hands to show me two, small, perfect, white feathers.

Thank You Grandma Fran.

This story still makes my heart jump for joy because it reminds me we aren’t alone (In a good way). I believe the universe is a benevolent place and that magic and miracles are everywhere if we are willing to be open to possibility and suspend our dis-belief for a few moments.

I hope you find a little magic in your life this week too.