I am a bit of a Woo Woo. Throughout my adult life I’ve read spiritual books, including what many people would consider “out there” supernatural material. I had been heavily researching the law of attraction when I came across a book E2 Nine Do-It-Yourself Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality. It’s basically a lab manual for manifesting energy into reality—with deadlines. I did some of the energy experiments in it, with surprisingly successful results.
During a relaxing massage one day, I was overcome by a feeling of grief. It was Father’s Day weekend and although my dad had crossed to the other side 27 years earlier, the longing for his presence is often powerful, especially on holidays. I desperately wanted to connect with him—so I direct-dialed the universe and asked it to merge my call.
“Dad, give me a sign, a message that is unmistakably from you. Show me that you hear me and are still in my life—even if in a different dimension.” I also gave him a Veruca Salt deadline: Daddy, I want it NOW.
I felt a release of my sadness, and my tear-filled eyes dried with the expectation of Denny Stanfa answering my call. After my massage therapist Donna left the room, I slowly dressed while studying the room in search of his sign. The big, gold Buddha statue on a shelf laughed at me. The Om embroidered tapestry and Sanskrit symbols adorning the space reminded me that the massage room was in the back of my yoga studio and I was unlikely to see anything that reminded me of my dad. There were no Catholic crosses or Virgin Mary paintings in sight.
Just as I told myself there was no way Denny’s “unmistakable” sign could be in that room, I spotted a small, round, out-of-place item on a low bookshelf. It was a golf ball. I picked it up, and in further amazement saw that it was a Titleist—my dad’s preferred brand. The ball was discolored and worn. Maybe it’s from the 1980s, when he was still alive and playing?
I was smiling and crying when Donna entered the room. I told her the significance of the golf ball.
“Huh. I didn’t even realize it was there. I occasionally give them to people to roll on the bottoms of their feet to relieve planter fasciitis,” she said. But I knew that it landed there by more miraculous means—from a fairway in heaven.
The following week, I went boating with my husband. We anchored several miles out from our home on the Florida Gulf. I reclined on the cushioned seat near the bow, while Tom fished from the back. As I soaked in the sun’s rays, my mind floated back to the summer of 1969.
I am nine years old. I feel the heat of the sun on my body as I lie on the dock of our tiny rented cottage with my two sisters, my mom and paternal grandmother. I’m back in my childhood vacation paradise—on a serene lake in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
As Grandma Stanfa passes me the Coppertone, I hear the low hum of a motor, getting louder, closer. I stand up to greet my dad and maternal grandparents. Grandpa is steering the small wooden boat, and Dad is smiling as he holds up a stringer dripping with lake perch. “Who’s ready to clean some fish?”
I picture a handful of shiny nickels, the standard payment for cleaning and fileting—a nickel a fish. I imagine the Smarties, Razzles, and Sweetarts candy I’d buy with the money.
My thoughts swam back to the present and I flipped onto my stomach to even out my tanning session. God, I am so grateful and lucky to have this peaceful waterside life with Tom. I felt a little tightness in my throat (the retaining dam for my tears) and a little wave of sadness Dad would have loved it here. Although he’d been gone for more than a decade before I met Tom, I knew that if Denny was still alive, they’d be playing golf and fishing together. I pictured my dad on alongside Tom—poles in their hands, laughing about me being too lazy to fish.
“DC, come back here. I need some help.” Tom’s yell shook me out of my daydream and onto my feet. I ran to the back of the boat.
“Grab that pole,” he said, nodding his head toward a mounted rod holder. His hands were otherwise engaged, gripping the fishing pole, and reeling in his line. I plucked the pole from its station and felt a heavy pull, signaling a fish on my hook.
“Tom, I haven’t fished in forty years.”
“It’s like getting back on a bike,” he answered.
We reeled in our catches at the same time—big groupers. “I think they’re both keepers,” I shouted.
Just like that, the adrenaline rush took me back to Michigan when I caught a 20-inch northern pike on a bamboo rod. I remember Dad beaming with pride over my catch.
I could almost see my dad wink and hear him whisper, “I heard your wish. I’m here.”
Who else has received signs from loved ones, on the “other side?”
**DC Stanfa is the author of ‘The Art of Table Dancing: Escapades of an Irreverent Woman’, and co-editor of ‘Fifty Shades of Funny: Hook-ups, Break-ups, and Crack-ups.’ She is an expert on fun, and its by-product trouble, and has cahoonas the size of coconuts, per some people who aren’t even her ex-husband.dcstanfa.com
Her hilarious books are available on Amazon: The Art of Table Dancing: Escapades of an Irreverent Womanhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/1933197099/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_i9aGEb2Z0VEMN Fifty Shades of Funny: Hook-ups, Break-ups And Crack-ups https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A8S24I0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_V9aGEbB815CR8
