Kate
Straight up....they do not post because you and others with a piss poor outlook in life jump on them as stupid. So...rather than a tit for tat exchange......they wrote me in private.
Steve
Could you stop with the therapy BS. I had an experience...I'm looking for others that might have had the same thing because I'm writing a book on observations I've made. Is this that hard to understand. Move on...
So today I decided to hire a day laborer to work with me in the front yard. Poplar trees took over and I had to take them out. Yeah...it was a mistake to plant them but oh well.
For years there has been a meeting place near a local market for the labor pool. But I found out today that it has been disbanded. So I went to the Day Labor Pool official office. It's a more organized way to use labor for all kinds of jobs.
Today I got John E. There were only four or five there by the time I got there and John was assigned to me by the staff. On the drive to my house we talked. Almost right away he told me about his father who had passed away because of cancer. And that his mother had died only seven months later.
I never know where I'm going to get a story. But it's not always a "go to" part of my conversation. Sensing that he was at least open to the idea, I told him about the work I was doing with the book. I told him the example of the Buddhist. And then he told me his story....
His father was a plumber by trade. So was his grand father. His father had a few keys on a clip that he carried with him while working. They were on his belt and of course swayed back and forth as he walked. At days end when he came home his dad might forget to take off the keys from his belt. When he sat down to the dinning room table they would bump up against the chair. John's mother would flip out at the sound of keys rubbing up to her chairs. It was a distinct sound of the key metal brushed up to the wooded chair.
A few weeks after his father's death, John was at the house with his mother in the kitchen. The loss was a big deal for him. John was training to be a plumber with his dad and because of that, they became closer. Now he lost his father, his friend, and his boss (those were his words btw). Standing there in the kitchen....he heard the keys rubbing the chair. Just John heard it....not his mother. But he heard it plainly. And it gave him some comfort. But then...
Even I'll admit it's a little weak. I mean it's a good story and because I had an experience I personally would lean towards it as true. But after a while he just chocked it up to memories. It was a good memory for him to have anyway.
A few months later mom got the news she had the big C too. At seven months after her husband died, she passed away as well.
John has a habit that is known to his family members. At the end of the day, after dinner but before bed, he checks his cell phone to see if there was a call he had missed. Two months after his mother had passed, he checked his phone.
There was a call from Mom on it.
He had inherited her cell phone. Because it was surplus he spoke to Verizon about it. They said it was part of the plan and that number was assigned to his plan. But, they could cause it to hibernate so to speak and shut off the phone. So....he did that. He turned off the number.
He told me himself that he was very upset at this happening. His brother asked him "how come she didn't call me too?!?!" John called the cell phone provider and explained what happened. He was surprised to be told that there was NO RECORD of the phone call. And that there should not have been any activity because the number was turned off.
About three months later after that, he reactivated the cell phone and gave it to a niece using the same number. No one ever got anything out of the ordinary again from that number. The same number and cell phone. And he didn't delete her call from his phone.
I did press it a bit further as to why it was just him she called.
"I was her favorite. You know as a parent you're not supposed to have a favorite....but everyone knew I was her favorite."