I sat alone at a table in the bar of the first restaurant I found on the Santa Cruz wharf. I chose it because I was tired of walking, and I wasn’t even sure I was hungry, but it was five and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Maybe it was the sun that deceived me, or a day full of walking and taking pictures had distracted me, but actually eating was much further from my mind than just sitting down in the shade and taking off my backpack.
Nevertheless, I ordered a glass of wine, a glass of water and one of their specials, the Salmon Orzo. And it was magically delicious.
I was there for roughly an hour. I sat at a window that looked down the length of the wharf. And right in front of the hot dog stand was a flag stand, where the owner was starting to pack up for the day.
He looked like Paul.
Actually, I’m not sure if he really looked like Paul, any more than the hot dog stand owner looked like the tropical vacation version of Santa Claus (he totally did). The flag guy had gray hair that was long enough to touch his collar. He had a mustache and goatee, which Paul himself didn’t have, but they still seemed to fit. He wore a sleeveless white t-shirt, shorts, a ball cap and sunglasses. He was tall, strong, and most of all, alive. It was like watching an impressionist painting. The spirit was clearly there, if not the stark reality. I knew if I got too close, it would cease to be him, and while I knew it really wasn’t him, I was enjoying watching what seemed to be the impression of an earlier version alive and well — and healthy — right in front of me.
I stared out the window at him the entire time I was there. He looked back more than once, but most likely, not at me. It was strangely comforting, and sad, and completely unfair, because it wasn’t real. And that sadness is something I haven’t felt in some time. I used to feel it all the time while he was here, and especially right before he left. I always knew he was trying to get my attention when I felt a little stab in my heart.
I don’t know what he actually did to make that happen, but it would come at me from out of nowhere. I would see someone that reminded me of him, or something that reminded me of his interests, his life, or something that he said, and it was as if he stood right in front of me and gently pressed his thumb right into my heart. And at that moment I would miss him terribly, and the connection was made.
I thought that would never happen again after he left.
At 5:30 on the morning of April 3, I woke up and tossed the cat a treat to get her to stop staring at me like some kind of bedside gargoyle clawing my hair. I went back to sleep, and woke up twenty minutes later from a very clear dream about Paul. Specifically, about the absence of him.
It was the anniversary of his death. My mom was in the kitchen chopping vegetables, talking to Paul as if he were there to hear her, like we often do, her back to me as I saw her over the counter from the breakfast area. It was pitch black outside. I stood on the other side of the bar and I thought, She’s handling this better than I am. Next, I was sitting at the table with my back to the clock on the wall. I turned to look at it, and it was later than I had thought, just after midnight. It was now the actual anniversary of the day it happened, the day he died. It had snuck up on me. I remember thinking, By now, I knew. It didn’t really make sense, since he died in the evening and this was early morning. As I looked at the clock, it was as if I saw his face in it but I knew it wasn’t there. That he wasn’t there. Painfully not there. Tragically, not there.
It was the first time I had ever felt the real tragedy of what had happened, the trauma of the act itself. It was as if I had been protected, both in my dreams and in life, until that moment.
I woke up in a sort of shock. I didn’t feel anything. I lay there in the dark trying to decipher it, remember every detail so I could write it down. Analyze it. I rolled over to go back to sleep, and stopped, and then found myself sobbing uncontrollably from a very deep place I couldn’t identify. I didn’t feel it coming and then suddenly it was there, full force, and it was the only thing in the room. The only thing in my life.
I called my mom in a panic and woke her up asking what had happened in April of last year, because I couldn’t remember. Something must have happened. I was reliving the anniversary of something terrible — it was April 3, he died on July 3. Not a coincidence, but not the same day. Something must have happened in April.
Something had already happened in April, many years ago. Something traumatic from an old relationship that gets me anxious and insecure once a year until I remember my subconscious is reliving a terrible anniversary. It always seems to take me a few days and then I remember, duh, it’s April, I’m not myself. I had already figured it out this time. I had already gone through that.
We talked for some time before I finally calmed down and realized, I was dealing with more than one anniversary, and the dream explained the other one so I could deal with it directly. This was about the time last year that my friend had predicted something “traumatic and unexpected” within the coming three months. There were no details. She felt it was a death, but she didn’t know who, and if she had told me that much at the time, I would have made myself crazy trying to figure it out. She did me a favor by not saying that (I got my own death signs later, but wasn’t sure that’s what they were until it was over). But she really didn’t know anything else. In fact, by the time it finally happened, I had written it off as something that was too vague or too exaggerated to really worry about.
The thought I’d had in my dream was the answer to the question of what had happened last April. By now, I knew. This time last year, it was already going to happen, and I had been told. And that was tragic in and of itself, and it was affecting me. Later that day I would find out that my dad needed a triple bypass, and that my great aunt had passed away, and I dealt with all of these things over the background of trauma that the dream had left me with. It took a few days to really sort out everything I was going through that week, but without that dream, I’m not sure I would have been able to figure it all out.
Then on the morning of Friday, April 13th, I awoke to my clock radio playing “Leaving On A Jet Plane.” I opened my eyes and wondered why I was hearing it. And then thought it was odd that I didn’t seem to feel anything in particular as it played. The 13th is a significant day in Paul’s history with my mom, but other than that, I decided by the time I got up that day that it was a fluke.
The next Monday when my mom left for Texas to attend a painting workshop — one that she had last attended with Paul — I awoke hearing that song again. I didn’t feel anything in particular, but I couldn’t ignore it this time. By the time my mom came back from her trip, I knew what it meant: that he was with her on her trip. He was here.
She came back the next Monday. The day before, I had volunteered doing some art activities with kids for Earth Day, and one of the other volunteers complimented my ring, the one with Paul’s logo. That hadn’t happened before and it put him in my mind more than usual. That Monday, on my way home from work, I got stuck behind a really slow truck getting on the highway. I flashed on the memory of moving to California, of Paul driving the moving van of stuff to be stored in Colorado, of how he had his CDL and could actually drive a real truck. I didn’t know why I was thinking this, but I was, and then before I knew it, his thumbprint was on my heart again.
I turned off the iPod and turned on the radio and I said, “If you’re here, I’m going to keep the radio on until I get home. Okay?”
After about three songs, “Unchained Melody” came on. The song from Ghost, the one I heard the day that I realized he was listening to our conversations. I got emotional and drove past my apartment so I could listen to the whole song. And then when the song was over, the emotion was over. Like it had never happened at all.
When I got home, I called my mom and I said, “I think Paul said hi to me.” And she said, “Did you see the pics I sent? Because I almost posted one of them on Facebook and said, ‘Paul says hi.’” What? She said, “I felt compelled to stop and take that first picture and I felt like I was supposed to do it for you.” It was a picture of the sign for the C & C Auto Ranch in Denton, Texas. Paul and I had spent an afternoon there in 2008 taking pictures of all the old cars, him telling me without fail what make and model each was and what year it was made.
Except the picture of the sign had something special about it. She took it from behind a street sign, and the combination of the two contained a very specific message.
It’s one of my favorite memories. And when I saw this, I knew for the first time that he really hadn’t gone that far away. He had gone somewhere where he could return once in a while, and he had. Maybe to go with my mom on that painting trip. Maybe to remind me not to settle for something less than what I deserved, which he did very successfully. Maybe both.
I think he’s been making his presence known off and on for a few weeks. Just a week ago, I was getting ready to leave work when one of the guys I work with started singing, “I’m leaving on a jet plane, I don’t know when I’ll be back again.” He’s barely out of college and Korean. “Out of context” doesn’t even begin to describe that. For some reason, it compelled me to look up the lyrics to a couple of Eagles songs that I had heard quite a few times while Paul was here, and one of them was “Lying Eyes.” It’s one I heard a lot but couldn’t really figure out what he was trying to tell me with it. I had come to the conclusion that since it was about a woman who cheated on her husband because she had settled and was unhappy, then it was a message for me to make sure I didn’t settle myself. And sure enough, I heard that song on the radio almost as soon as I left work that night.
Today, I felt that thumbprint again when I watched that guy pack up his flags. It was odd that I didn’t feel it earlier in the day. I had spent the day taking pictures of the amusement park on the boardwalk, and I’ve been drawn to one specific ride over and over again all day: the swings. They reminded me of the swings I saw in the dream when Paul told me he wanted me to have his camera. I’ve never forgotten that image, and I know I took over 100 shots of that ride today. But it wasn’t until I walked down onto the beach to get a different perspective that I realized he might be here. When I got down onto the sand below, “Hotel California” started playing on the park’s speakers.
I called my mom and left her a message about what had happened. She called back while I was having dinner, watching Paul’s lookalike pack up his flags. She had talked to Paul too, and had gone out to take pictures of the sun setting in the mountains, when she saw another fox. He looked right at her this time, and she snapped a picture.
It seems odd that I didn’t really feel Paul’s presence until that one moment on the highway a couple of weeks ago, and until I saw his lookalike on the wharf, despite all the other signs that he’s been here. It doesn’t matter though. I’m starting to see that I don’t always have to feel it for it to be real, for him to really be here. I’m pretty far removed from the connection I had a few months ago, but he still has his way of letting me know he’s around. And his presence reminds me of everything he taught me while he was here before, that I deserve everything, that I’m worth the effort, and that I should never settle for less.
Not that I want him to leave or anything, but I hope there comes a day when he doesn’t have to remind me of that anymore.
Nevertheless, I ordered a glass of wine, a glass of water and one of their specials, the Salmon Orzo. And it was magically delicious.
I was there for roughly an hour. I sat at a window that looked down the length of the wharf. And right in front of the hot dog stand was a flag stand, where the owner was starting to pack up for the day.
He looked like Paul.
Actually, I’m not sure if he really looked like Paul, any more than the hot dog stand owner looked like the tropical vacation version of Santa Claus (he totally did). The flag guy had gray hair that was long enough to touch his collar. He had a mustache and goatee, which Paul himself didn’t have, but they still seemed to fit. He wore a sleeveless white t-shirt, shorts, a ball cap and sunglasses. He was tall, strong, and most of all, alive. It was like watching an impressionist painting. The spirit was clearly there, if not the stark reality. I knew if I got too close, it would cease to be him, and while I knew it really wasn’t him, I was enjoying watching what seemed to be the impression of an earlier version alive and well — and healthy — right in front of me.
I stared out the window at him the entire time I was there. He looked back more than once, but most likely, not at me. It was strangely comforting, and sad, and completely unfair, because it wasn’t real. And that sadness is something I haven’t felt in some time. I used to feel it all the time while he was here, and especially right before he left. I always knew he was trying to get my attention when I felt a little stab in my heart.
I don’t know what he actually did to make that happen, but it would come at me from out of nowhere. I would see someone that reminded me of him, or something that reminded me of his interests, his life, or something that he said, and it was as if he stood right in front of me and gently pressed his thumb right into my heart. And at that moment I would miss him terribly, and the connection was made.
I thought that would never happen again after he left.
At 5:30 on the morning of April 3, I woke up and tossed the cat a treat to get her to stop staring at me like some kind of bedside gargoyle clawing my hair. I went back to sleep, and woke up twenty minutes later from a very clear dream about Paul. Specifically, about the absence of him.
It was the anniversary of his death. My mom was in the kitchen chopping vegetables, talking to Paul as if he were there to hear her, like we often do, her back to me as I saw her over the counter from the breakfast area. It was pitch black outside. I stood on the other side of the bar and I thought, She’s handling this better than I am. Next, I was sitting at the table with my back to the clock on the wall. I turned to look at it, and it was later than I had thought, just after midnight. It was now the actual anniversary of the day it happened, the day he died. It had snuck up on me. I remember thinking, By now, I knew. It didn’t really make sense, since he died in the evening and this was early morning. As I looked at the clock, it was as if I saw his face in it but I knew it wasn’t there. That he wasn’t there. Painfully not there. Tragically, not there.
It was the first time I had ever felt the real tragedy of what had happened, the trauma of the act itself. It was as if I had been protected, both in my dreams and in life, until that moment.
I woke up in a sort of shock. I didn’t feel anything. I lay there in the dark trying to decipher it, remember every detail so I could write it down. Analyze it. I rolled over to go back to sleep, and stopped, and then found myself sobbing uncontrollably from a very deep place I couldn’t identify. I didn’t feel it coming and then suddenly it was there, full force, and it was the only thing in the room. The only thing in my life.
I called my mom in a panic and woke her up asking what had happened in April of last year, because I couldn’t remember. Something must have happened. I was reliving the anniversary of something terrible — it was April 3, he died on July 3. Not a coincidence, but not the same day. Something must have happened in April.
Something had already happened in April, many years ago. Something traumatic from an old relationship that gets me anxious and insecure once a year until I remember my subconscious is reliving a terrible anniversary. It always seems to take me a few days and then I remember, duh, it’s April, I’m not myself. I had already figured it out this time. I had already gone through that.
We talked for some time before I finally calmed down and realized, I was dealing with more than one anniversary, and the dream explained the other one so I could deal with it directly. This was about the time last year that my friend had predicted something “traumatic and unexpected” within the coming three months. There were no details. She felt it was a death, but she didn’t know who, and if she had told me that much at the time, I would have made myself crazy trying to figure it out. She did me a favor by not saying that (I got my own death signs later, but wasn’t sure that’s what they were until it was over). But she really didn’t know anything else. In fact, by the time it finally happened, I had written it off as something that was too vague or too exaggerated to really worry about.
The thought I’d had in my dream was the answer to the question of what had happened last April. By now, I knew. This time last year, it was already going to happen, and I had been told. And that was tragic in and of itself, and it was affecting me. Later that day I would find out that my dad needed a triple bypass, and that my great aunt had passed away, and I dealt with all of these things over the background of trauma that the dream had left me with. It took a few days to really sort out everything I was going through that week, but without that dream, I’m not sure I would have been able to figure it all out.
Then on the morning of Friday, April 13th, I awoke to my clock radio playing “Leaving On A Jet Plane.” I opened my eyes and wondered why I was hearing it. And then thought it was odd that I didn’t seem to feel anything in particular as it played. The 13th is a significant day in Paul’s history with my mom, but other than that, I decided by the time I got up that day that it was a fluke.
The next Monday when my mom left for Texas to attend a painting workshop — one that she had last attended with Paul — I awoke hearing that song again. I didn’t feel anything in particular, but I couldn’t ignore it this time. By the time my mom came back from her trip, I knew what it meant: that he was with her on her trip. He was here.
She came back the next Monday. The day before, I had volunteered doing some art activities with kids for Earth Day, and one of the other volunteers complimented my ring, the one with Paul’s logo. That hadn’t happened before and it put him in my mind more than usual. That Monday, on my way home from work, I got stuck behind a really slow truck getting on the highway. I flashed on the memory of moving to California, of Paul driving the moving van of stuff to be stored in Colorado, of how he had his CDL and could actually drive a real truck. I didn’t know why I was thinking this, but I was, and then before I knew it, his thumbprint was on my heart again.
I turned off the iPod and turned on the radio and I said, “If you’re here, I’m going to keep the radio on until I get home. Okay?”
After about three songs, “Unchained Melody” came on. The song from Ghost, the one I heard the day that I realized he was listening to our conversations. I got emotional and drove past my apartment so I could listen to the whole song. And then when the song was over, the emotion was over. Like it had never happened at all.
When I got home, I called my mom and I said, “I think Paul said hi to me.” And she said, “Did you see the pics I sent? Because I almost posted one of them on Facebook and said, ‘Paul says hi.’” What? She said, “I felt compelled to stop and take that first picture and I felt like I was supposed to do it for you.” It was a picture of the sign for the C & C Auto Ranch in Denton, Texas. Paul and I had spent an afternoon there in 2008 taking pictures of all the old cars, him telling me without fail what make and model each was and what year it was made.
Except the picture of the sign had something special about it. She took it from behind a street sign, and the combination of the two contained a very specific message.
It’s one of my favorite memories. And when I saw this, I knew for the first time that he really hadn’t gone that far away. He had gone somewhere where he could return once in a while, and he had. Maybe to go with my mom on that painting trip. Maybe to remind me not to settle for something less than what I deserved, which he did very successfully. Maybe both.I think he’s been making his presence known off and on for a few weeks. Just a week ago, I was getting ready to leave work when one of the guys I work with started singing, “I’m leaving on a jet plane, I don’t know when I’ll be back again.” He’s barely out of college and Korean. “Out of context” doesn’t even begin to describe that. For some reason, it compelled me to look up the lyrics to a couple of Eagles songs that I had heard quite a few times while Paul was here, and one of them was “Lying Eyes.” It’s one I heard a lot but couldn’t really figure out what he was trying to tell me with it. I had come to the conclusion that since it was about a woman who cheated on her husband because she had settled and was unhappy, then it was a message for me to make sure I didn’t settle myself. And sure enough, I heard that song on the radio almost as soon as I left work that night.
Today, I felt that thumbprint again when I watched that guy pack up his flags. It was odd that I didn’t feel it earlier in the day. I had spent the day taking pictures of the amusement park on the boardwalk, and I’ve been drawn to one specific ride over and over again all day: the swings. They reminded me of the swings I saw in the dream when Paul told me he wanted me to have his camera. I’ve never forgotten that image, and I know I took over 100 shots of that ride today. But it wasn’t until I walked down onto the beach to get a different perspective that I realized he might be here. When I got down onto the sand below, “Hotel California” started playing on the park’s speakers.
I called my mom and left her a message about what had happened. She called back while I was having dinner, watching Paul’s lookalike pack up his flags. She had talked to Paul too, and had gone out to take pictures of the sun setting in the mountains, when she saw another fox. He looked right at her this time, and she snapped a picture.
It seems odd that I didn’t really feel Paul’s presence until that one moment on the highway a couple of weeks ago, and until I saw his lookalike on the wharf, despite all the other signs that he’s been here. It doesn’t matter though. I’m starting to see that I don’t always have to feel it for it to be real, for him to really be here. I’m pretty far removed from the connection I had a few months ago, but he still has his way of letting me know he’s around. And his presence reminds me of everything he taught me while he was here before, that I deserve everything, that I’m worth the effort, and that I should never settle for less.
Not that I want him to leave or anything, but I hope there comes a day when he doesn’t have to remind me of that anymore.
