Faith Like Potatoes

I was thinking about my dad the other day. It will be 1 yr on March 15th that Dad went home for eternity. This has been the fastest year of my life. It’s been filled with much heartache also. And maybe that’s why God allowed it to go by so fast, so He could spare us more pain. I don’t know. I try not to really think I know what God is thinking! His ways are far above mine!

As I was thinking of Dad, the date hit me. March 15th. We’ve got babies due March 15th! Do you remember that on June 22, 2010 we had babies born?  That’s ok…I really don’t expect you to remember dates like I do.

June 22 was Dad’s birthday! Danny Boy and Valentino were born and Dad got such a kick out of it. He always got such a kick out of me and these critters! Laughing his big gregarious laugh as I’d hang up from phone calls! Now when I hang up with Mom, I wait a few seconds and do my best to remember how he’d be laughing at all my stories and talking to mom before he hung up the phone!

So anyway……Grannie Ginger is due to kid on Dad’s re-brith day! His home going day! It would tickle his socks off if I named a baby kid, Angel!!!! LOL!!!Dad was anything but an Angel!!!! He was forgiven, not perfect!

For most of you it doesn’t mean anything, but for me it means a lot. I don’t believe that when loved ones die they are gone from us forever. I believe they may not be visible, but they are not gone. Their spirits are all around us. Our loving heavenly Father doesn’t just leave us and forsake us. He sent his Spirit to be our comforter and guide. And just like His Spirit is all around us, I believe the spirits of our loved ones who are in HIS presence are all around us too. If we choose to look for them, we will see them.

This past summer when my sis from Cali was visiting, just 4 months after Dad’s passing and her first time back “home” after Dad’s passing, we were here eating hamburgers on the deck. Her 2 grown girls were here will her grandson and Mom. Dad always enjoyed eating my food! And Grannie Jackie does too!!!

Right after we sat down to eat, a beautiful blue butterfly fluttered over us in no hurry to leave. Out of my soul I said, “oh look Dad came to see us!” I was given a few glares of concern and I let it go. But I tucked it deep into my heart not wanting to believe that when they are not visible here, they are gone from us.

Now, just so some of you rigid evangelicals don’t think I’m talking reincarnation and New Age dogma….I’M NOT!!! I no more believe that Dad WAS that butterfly than I believe I’m the Queen of England! I just believe that God can if He chooses to, use nature to reveal himself as a loving God, full of compassion and mercy. That’s the God I serve. 

Wouldn’t you know ALL summer when I was in the garden that blue butterfly would flutter around and visit me. I got into the habit of talking to that butterfly…..it’s ok folks, that’s pretty “normal” for me, my Gma use to talk to the birds and I suppose it rubbed off on me. I’d just start talking to my Dad and telling him how much I missed and loved him. Then I’d hear him speak and tell me to go on and continue to do and love the things I do and love. That he didn’t want me to mourn forever, but to rejoice! And so I would with tears flowing down my face, I’d turn my ashes into beauty.

It was after Thanksgiving when Mom came home from a long visit to Cali and my niece helped her home, that we were sitting and eating hamburgers (because like I said, that’s what we do when we’re together…eat hamburgers!!!)  at Mom’s and Shelly said how much she missed PopPop’s presence and how he just filled a room laughing and carrying on. Then she told me that she remembered that blue butterfly and what I said that day in July and how when she and her sister and mom were out spreading some of Dad’s ashes in the ocean a butterfly came and hovered over them. That gave me chills. She also chose to believe that although Dad is not visible, he is not gone.

I’ve had others tell me about butterflies and how they have brought comfort after the death of a loved one. I’m not sure if God just uses butterflies or if he uses potatoes too.

You see, Dad gave me my love for gardening. He was always watching the calendar and would remind me when it was time to plant potatoes. He always used St Patrick’s Day as his marker.

Funny, isn’t it? St Patrick’s Day is March 17th….Dad’s re-birth day into eternity is March 15th!

From now on until I can’t bend my back anymore to garden, I’ll be reminded of Dad at the first sign of digging my hands deep into the earth and rejoicing that we are surrounded by a host!

Faith is like potatoes. You can’t see potatoes growing under the earth, you just have to choose to believe they are there!