Believe

The first unusual occurrence came after the funeral.  Some of the family came back to my mom’s house.  We were all exhausted and slap happy from a lack of sleep.  We were able to talk and laugh about memories a little and begin to celebrate dad’s life without crying continually.   We were visiting in the kitchen when the funeral director arrived with the 17 live plants that had been sent from lots of friends and family.  As my husband carried in one huge peace lily he said, “Wow, this one even plays music!”  The funeral director’s face went white and said “Yeah, I know – it’s been playing all day and I can’t figure out why or how.”   He added, “if you figure it out, pleeeeease give me a call.”  It stopped just as Jim entered the house with it, so the rest of us didn’t get to hear it.  We started arranging plants everywhere while Jim continued to mess with that peace lily.  My husband is what you’d call a skeptic and feels certain paranormal activities can somehow be explained.  He was clapping and jumping and lifting and turning this plant every which way to try to get it to make music again, but nothing.  I finally, asked why it was bothering him so much and he said “I think it was playing Orange Blossom Special, it was definitely banjo music (my dad’s favorite).”  So we all got a little chill and decided to look into the matter a little deeper.  I read the card and this plant was from my godfather, my parents’ dearest friend in the whole world.  He was a bit of a prankster, though, so I called to see if he could explain the musical plant.  He definitely could not and didn’t appreciate us telling him about this spooky occurrence.  Next, I called the florist to see if they could explain, but once again, no explanation!  My mom ordered us to get the plant out of the house – she never wanted to see it again.  I, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to take it home.  How cool!!!!  Unfortunately, I’m terrible with plants.  I placed it in a corner in our finished basement and watered it rarely.  It never made music again.

A few weeks later my son and a friend were playing in the basement and came screaming up the steps that there were monsters in the basement and they were never going down there again.  I reassured them that monsters are make believe, but they decided not to take my word for it and no longer played downstairs.  A couple weeks after that, my son asked me “Do you think the ghost lives in or behind the plant, Mommy?!”  I asked what plant he meant and he said the one in the corner in the basement.  I ran down the steps as fast as I could and there sat a brown, much smaller, nearly-dead looking peace lily.  I asked my son why he thought a ghost lived in the plant and he said it made noises at him and his friend.  He said, “remember we told you there was a ghost in the basement.”  I asked him what kind of noises it made and he described it as “a whistle like Paw Paw’s”.  He said they were climbing on the pool table, (which, of course, is a number one No-No in our house), and “the plant made the whistle noise at us”.   Now, I don’t believe my dad became a plant after his death.  But rather a part of his spirit remains with us.   Through God, He is able to reach us and keep us safe.  After all, he got those young boys down from the pool table before anyone was hurt.

I rushed the peace lily upstairs to my counter and began to plead with it to live.   I pulled out dead leaves and gave it some water.  Then I decided if my dad were in anyway watching what was going on I wanted him to know I knew he was there.  So I popped open a cold Bud Light (his favorite), toasted to him, and poured the entire bottle of beer on the plant.  The plant came back full size and bloom.   It always has one huge bloom shooting straight out of the top pointing to heaven.  I decided to give the plant a Bud Light on the 4^th of every month to celebrate my dad’s life and let him know I know he’s still with me.  His birthday was April 4^th (4/4).  It’s been 3 ½ years and I had to re-pot it last month because it became too big for its old pot!!