The weekend of January 13th, 2001
I was in San Antonio, Texas for inventory with my company.
During the weekend I read two books on grief. The first
book was C. S. Lewis' "A Grief Observed" and the
other was Harold Kushner's book "When Bad Things
Happen to Good People". One of the observations I
made in Lewis' book was that he was able to communicate
with his wife after her death. This began to open me up
for any communication from Ryan in the future.
Erin's mother, Vangie, had told me
early on after Ryan and Erin’s death, that she had been
having communication with Erin through her dreams.
Although I wasn’t sure what to think about this I was
open to any communication from Ryan just to know that he
was ok. On Monday January 15, 2000 about 11:45 a.m. as I
was driving between 2 Dillard's stores, Vangie called me.
Then she told me that she had been seeing Ryan and Erin in
her dreams and that usually Ryan was there but didn’t
say anything. She said for the first time Ryan
communicated with her that week. He told her that he had a
message “For Dad”. Vangie said she hesitated to tell
me in fear that I might not understand but she finally
felt she must approach me with what she had encountered.
The message from Ryan to me was: “I was to receive a
brown package and I should look at it very carefully”.
The only package I could think was
coming to me might be from Alayna, my niece in North
Carolina, as she told me that her Christmas present to me
was in the mail. I arrived home Monday evening and
immediately went to the place where my mail was usually
kept near the coffeepot. I was surprised to see a brown
package laying on the counter. The package was from Alayna
and it had stars on the front of it and a smiling face
close to her name. I opened the package and discovered
that Alayna had made a 2001 calendar of pictures about
Ryan. She had contacted other family members to gather a
variety of pictures of Ryan from birth through his most
recent pictures. Some of these I had never seen and was
overcome with joy just to see these new found treasures of
past days.
I carefully looked at each picture
trying to find some communication. It was not until I came
to the last month, December that I discovered something
very unusual. The picture showed a number of family
members in front of Mom and Dad's fireplace in Memphis
about 4 or 5 Christmas’ ago. In all there were eight of
us standing in front of the fireplace: first was my older
brother John, then Ryan, myself, my wife Marilyn, my
sister Abigail, her son Nate, and mom and dad sitting. In
the background was the painting of the Bluebonnets which
was the same picture we had used as a background for
Ryan's picture for the memorial. As I looked carefully, I
noticed that Ryan's hand was on my shoulder. When Ryan was
alive his hand on my shoulder was a message to me that I
was the best dad and that everything was all right with
this world. At that moment I knew he was in heaven and
that he was OK and it was also a message to me that I was
going to be OK as well. As you can imagine my heart leaped
with joy and I knew that God had honored my request to
somehow let me know that Ryan was safe in heaven.
I called Vangie the next morning and
told her my discovery of the brown package. She was very
happy for me and said there was one other thing that I
should look for. For some reason there was a picture that
had angel wings around Ryan. She did not know where to
tell me to look, but it was possible some picture would
reflect this. I thought back of the calendar and did not
recall anything about the appearance of angel wings.
Later in the day I decided to put the
calendar on a wall next to my computer desk. The January
picture showed Ryan as a baby, probably 8 months old,
holding a bottle. We use to lay down a giant gray and
white Teddy Bear on his back, then lay Ryan on his back on
top of the bear and feed him his bottle. He always seemed
to enjoy the comfort of this bear while he had his juice
or milk. As I was typing along I happen to look up and all
of a sudden I noticed that the paws of the bear made
perfect angel wings around each of Ryan's shoulders. Once
again my heart leaped for joy as I experienced a sign and
message from God that Ryan was now safe and in God’s
hands.
Many of you may find skepticism in
this. I know that it is a strong desire of those who
remain to want to know if their child is OK. That may
drive the wish-fulfillment dreams to come true. But for me
this is much beyond all of that. I am convinced that being
open to communication from God as a Christian has allowed
me some messages that I would have otherwise never
received. I thank God daily for this special revelation in
a time that has been so difficult.