Easter Miracle: Sight Anew

Yesterday was Easter Sunday.  I left my house post Easter baskets/ pre-Easter-mass to hike alone on our local trails.  The place I go is one of peace and transformation.  Its where I go when I feel lost and alone.  Its where I go when I feel frustrated and angry.   Its where I go to be healed.

I seem to be on an extended journey of healing these last few months.  Events have entered my life to help me look at the pain and loss I seem to bury so well.

Easter is one of the days where I miss my mom alot.  She made it special.  She owned it in my heart and I can’t really explain why that is the case other than to say her devotion to Jesus made it special.

I have a broader view of faith than my mom held most of her life.  But at the end of her life it was my brand of faith that helped her understand parts of her journey through cancer in a way that traditional catholicism could not.  One faith is not better than the other. They both served us.

As I headed to the top of the first hill I started to cry.   I missed her.  Still.  Three years later.  I rarely ask her for a sign that she is with me.  I know she is.  I talk to her.  She talks to me.  I have never missed HER.  I simply miss the warmth of her hugs and the feel of her words said through her human voice.  But yesterday I needed something – a sign.  I asked her to show herself as an orb in a picture.

It was a weird request.  Why an orb?  I have no idea.  It just popped into my mind.

So I snapped a few pics and looked at them… nothing.

I sighed.  I knew it was silly to ask for signs this way.   To make such a specific request limits the magic .. the possibility.

So off I went …walking…walking.  I felt my mother near.  She whispered words of love and support.  I forgot about my request.

At the end of the hike I came over a ridge and the sky was so beautiful.  I snapped a few photos hoping I could capture what I was seeing.  (A mentor had recently told me I needed to do a better job of sharing my life – “my brand” – on Instagram -ugh.  I thought this might make for good Insta-fodder.)

As I got in my car to rush back for church I thought about looking through the photos to find a post for Instagram.  But it felt heavy.  Really, really hard.  So I didn’t.  I’m learning to stop “pushing through.”  So I shoved my phone in my pocketbook.

After church I scanned through the pics on my phone to see if any of them were Insta-worthy.  And what I found instead was my Easter Miracle.   There it was in picture after picture, a dancing orb.

It looked fake.  When I showed it to my husband (who doubts metaphysics but doesn’t doubt me) he told me it looked un-real.  He wondered what had caused it.  I know its easy to want to explain it away.

But even if there was an explanation – a dust mote, a photographic anomaly – it doesn’t make it less magical for me.  I asked my mother for something I needed.  I asked from a place of love.  And she delivered.

So is it an Easter Miracle?  I think so.  It shifted my heart.  I felt heard and loved – what else is required for a miracle?

What do you think?