When you lose someone in your life and they pass on, you find yourself wondering why and searching for answers to large philosophical questions. The answers never come. So then you shift your context. You try to look for signs. You want to know two things: Are they doing better now and are they still out there watching over you?

In everything, you look for a sign that they’re still out there. You look high and low and over-analyze every little bit of wind, sound, our leaf falling. You look so hard and become so focused on wanting to connect with the loved one you get tunnel vision and miss the obvious. The human eye has almost 180 degrees of a forward facing field of vision. However, this narrows when you focus your eyes on an item. That field of vision is reduced over 75% and becomes approximately 40 degrees. So you can see that it’s fairly easy to miss things happening around you when you are focused on something.

This definition of sight is a perfect analogy which correlates to the search for signs after the loss of a loved one. I’ve spent the last 6 years in search of the answers and signs that will remove the veil of secrecy covering the face of the universe and its plan. And every time I start to excavate the unknown, I get so wrapped up in the begging for answers that I lose sight of the overall context. Others like my wife were saying that they saw a blue Subaru or a Monarch butterfly or heard a sound, or had a vision. Nothing for me. How could he be communicating with them and not with me?

After getting it together and trying to comprehend the complexity of the fabric of existence, I came to the conclusion that these are the signs I was looking for. He was just acting through a channel I was always tuned in to; my wife. Now, it’s easier for me to recognize the signs out there with the acceptance of the above. Now I see the blue Subarus and the butterflies. Now I know he's around. More specifically, he's with our kids.


The other day, while being ousted from our house, we were on our way to my parent’s for refuge. Somewhere midway through the trip on the valley freeway, Son #2 began to laugh and screech uncontrollably in a fit of happiness and joy like we've never heard. My wife and I glanced toward each other and chuckled a bit not yet considering the levity of the situation. It was easy to brush it off as Son #1 acting like a circus freak and entertaining his younger brother. So I glance back over my right shoulder in to the row behind me. I see Son #1 fighting to stay awake. As a side note, Son #1 has never been able to stay awake in an automobile during travel. He's like a travel narcoleptic.

Back to the ride. Son #1 had nothing to do with the laughter. Then my wife and I start to realize there was something bigger. It was a visit by my brother. He was entertaining Son #2 in some sort of way we will never be able to comprehend in our fleshy existence. He enamored Son #2 in is own unique way to keep him entertained on our drive down the highway. Whatever he did, Son #2 has never sounded more happy and joyous.

I’ve worried that Son #1 and Son #2 will never know my brother, their uncle, like I knew him. But I’ve come to realize that’s not necessarily a bad thing. They’ll know him through my stories, heartache, joy and reflection. But more importantly, they’ll know him in a much more intimate spiritual way than I’ll ever know. For that, I’m grateful. That’s wisdom, love, and comfort I will never be able to provide in my parenting. And while that may make me sound like I have shortcomings, that’s not the case. It’s more a matter of knowing that there is something more out there that a lost loved one on the other side can provide. He’s being the uncle that I never imagined he would be.


So now I know, when Son #2 goes to bed, fails to fall asleep, and is mumbling incomprehensible words to himself in his room for hours on end, he’s really talking to someone who's there that I’ll never see. Maybe he’s explaining that he isn’t going to eat his dinner or how he’s going to take his brother’s toys. Who knows? But I do know that the signs are out there for us to read. There are the slaps to the back of the head, there are the blue Subarus, there are the Monarch butterflies, and there are relationships with lost loved ones which you and I will never understand. We’re too focused on what we lost to know what we’ve gained. Better yet, what our children have gained. Heavenly playmates and guides to lead them down the dimly lit path of life. I know they’re not alone.