Signs, Omens and Not Knowing

Little sweetheart, there’s something, a few things really, that have always haunted me. Strange little goings on just before your sudden tragic passing, that have in retrospect, seemed like possible little omens. Warnings or signs that couldn’t be fully read or understood at the time.

I remember reading aloud the play - Blackbird - we were working on at the time, just a week or two before your accident. We were sitting at the table in your apartment by the big windows. The director was there, too. We took a little break. I got up to look outside and there were two raven-feathered birds sitting there. I think I even took a picture. It seemed like a good omen at the time, given the title of the play, but in the tragic afterwards and forever now it seems just the opposite.

Another instance came at Christmas. Our only one together there at your folk’s house. The old clock on the mantel that chimes on every quarter hour was acting strangely. On the third note, something would ring discordantly. A blue note not usually heard. I think your mom said something about it needed to have a crank or a battery, I’m not sure which, replaced. But now, as I say, it haunts me, as if it was some warning that things were awry and that if I’d only somehow known and heeded this sign, you’d still be here safe and sound and in my arms.

I’m flying in a few hours to be with your folks at Christmas, little sweetheart. And for the last two days, an odd thing has been going on with the little clip light that you and I perched in a corner of the red table room here. It’s been flickering constantly. And I have a foreboding that something is about to happen.

I feel like the worst already has. I remember you saying sometime once about things that have already leveled us making us, now bereft, somehow “disaster-proof”. Maybe if this is a sign, it’s good sign, a sign that I too will pass and be again in your arms in the forever.

I’ve taken to looking for signs. A beautiful, speckled-breasted bird has alighted this week, on two different mornings, singing outside my front window. I tried to take a picture of him/her the last time, but he/she flew away in the instant that I snapped the shutter. Maybe a spirit avoiding photographic capture.

Birdsong and clocks (especially at the 11:11 hour) capture my attention and imagination. And what could be more attention-grabbing that a literal big flashing light.

Let me know what I need to know, won’t you, my love? Are you telling my to change course? To work harder to be a good boy who you can be proud of? Are you telling me to quiet myself and be ready, for my time is nearly here? Let me know, my little sweetheart. I long to follow you. With all my love forever.