“Do you believe in messages?” was my sister’s slightly hesitant question, when she rang me last week.
Caught with my mind in the midst of other stuff, (probably pondering Steve Gerrard’s fit as Villa’s new manager, OR the doubling of thirty-year-olds amongst our offspring), I utterly failed to pick up on the nuance in the question, so my unthought-through answer was, “Erm, yes, WhatsApp? Messenger? Depends.”
“No, Al! I’m pretty sure you don’t believe in them, messages from people who’ve left us, but I wanted to ask.” She was still hesitant, but also undisguisedly excited.
She’s right, I’d love to, even try to, but, when push comes to shove, I don’t have that belief – the closest I’ve come is delightedly raising cocktails to a jaw-dropping double rainbow, over my cousin’s garden in Western Australia, as we told ourselves that our heavenly mothers were showing their delight in us meeting up for the first time (our only week together, ever, but one of blissful, cousinly bonding and raucous hilarity).
I have lots of friends who do believe and, when I listen to them sharing their stories (of a strangely mute robin repeatedly visiting Her Most Wonderfulness, silently cheeping, in the garden, following the loss of a dear friend, who had lost the power of speech; or a purple dragonfly appearing in the week after losing a parent – my cousin, above – who wore a tattoo of one), I fall somewhere between polite incredulity and downright jealousy at their good fortune (and their ability to believe).
With my brain now tuned in, I grasped that my sister had something to share, something that had lifted her and brought brightness to her voice:
“I was getting Mom’s bureau ready for you, emptying it of my crap and giving it a good polish so that L can bring it down to you at the weekend.
“I’d opened up the secret drawer – do you remember it? And there it was. I thought it was just a scrunched up bit of rubbish, but something made me un-scrunch it.
“It was one of Mom’s God clippings! I haven’t seen one in years! It’s as if she is pleased that you are taking over looking after her bureau, now that I won’t have space for it!”
And so it is that we now have Moosh’s bureau in pride of place in the dining room at Memsahibjit’s Prosecco Palace (aka our house), all pristinely polished and containing just one item: a tiny, torn piece of paper, taken from a magazine or newspaper (not neatly snipped as was her usual M.O.) but showing the word ‘God’s’.
Those of you who have read The God Box in ‘Who Stole Grandma?’ will already know about Moosh’s unique act of devotion, which led her to snip (or tear) and collect every ‘God’ she found in print and store them in one of her succession of God Boxes (Missio charity box for the Catholics amongst you), so that they were not disrespected by being thrown in a bin.
The one that my sister found in Moosh’s bureau is almost certainly the very last one of her devotionary snippings. We think that she used to reverently burn them and we buried her last box of them with her, (along with many year’s worth of Palm Sunday crosses).
Whether or not it is actually a much wanted message or sign, it has had me smiling and I have opened the secret draw more times in the last 24 hours than I dare admit! Although if people are around, I content myself with stroking the desk lid 🤣
Our dining room only became what it is now, after it was no longer Moosh’s room, filled with her fab electric hospital bed, beloved wingback chair and tons of nicknacks, so it is lovely that her bureau (and her last God) are where she was when she lived with us for those five months.
I’d Love To Believe 💜
The God Box 🕊
Santé 🥃 (Moosh drank whisky & coke)
Mark Lanyon Storyteller 