Shortly after my mother died, I was taking a walk in the early evening around the fields in back of my home. I am fortunate to live in a beautiful location, with expansive Eastern views and uninterrupted skies. On this particular night it was clear, the moon was in its first quarter and the light it shed did not obscure the Milky Way, spread like a ribbon across the sky.
I was sad and grieving–of course I was. Despite the fact that my mother had lived 92 years and was, in the end, at peace with dying. She suffered no pain or final illness. There was nothing to put on her death certificate other than “old age.” She had chosen several weeks before to stop eating. It was her time. She was ready. We got to say our goodbyes and hold her hand. That was surely her greatest gift to us–her quiet ability to know when it was time. She had often said she did not want to give up driving, but when her reflexes and sight began to dwindle, she put the keys down and did not drive again. She had said many times she hoped she would not have to go into a nursing home. After several months of increasing illness and inability to live alone, it became inevitable. There was never a word of recrimination, a hint of disappointment with her children who had made that decision for her. She looked around, saw others who were worse off than she, graced them with her smile and kind words. She was grateful for any visit, phone call, a drive in the countryside.
The weeks since her death had been consumed with the practical things that are necessary, the phone calls, the service at home, the decisions about her possessions. I had written a eulogy, planned a memorial service with my brothers, tried to provide comfort to my family. But I did not know how to exist in this world now empty of her physical presence.
Walking in that calm nighttime, digging into the depths of my shaky spiritual core, I admitted that even though I knew in some vague way she would always be with me, I surely could use some kind of sign. Just at that moment, a shooting star flew across the sky. I have looked up into this night sky for 30 years and have seen numerous shooting stars. But on many nights I would stand outside in the dark, neck muscles aching in their support of my tilted head, hoping to be looking in the right direction at the right time, without any luck. On this particular night, I was not looking for them at all.
So was that a sign? Or a coincidence? Or just the random operation of the unfathomable universe? The part of me that is rational and scientific says it was just the random operation of the universe and a coincidence that I was facing in the right direction at the right time. But the part of me that has roots in the ancient ties to the natural world says something different. It says that there are signs that we cannot read and places beyond our ability to imagine. That there are many things so far beyond our comprehension that we can only gasp in wonder and acknowledge them with joy.
©Martha Hurwitz, 9/27/17
Inspired by Daily Prompt: coincidence
The carob pods seemed so ugly. Why would anyone ever think to use them for food or bring them to a potluck? Perhaps my prejudice came from all those earnest attempts back in my counter-culture youth to convince me that carob is a perfectly good substitute for chocolate. Not a chance! Carob may be useful in its own right, but chocolate it is not and never will be!!
Clearly I didn’t care too much about planting them correctly, because I used some old potting soil that had been left out in the rain and was clumpy and dense. And yet … with a little water they sprouted within a few days and are growing fast.
Many years back, when both my husband and I could still bend over without crackling sounds and shooting pains coming from the general area of our spines, we owned and operated a pick-your-own strawberry farm. This was an endeavor that he had started several years before I came on the scene. In the rose-colored, early days of falling in love, I was eager to prove my worth as a field hand. This freed him up to drive around in the air-conditioned tractor, while I made friends with the ticks and black flies and grew blisters on my hands from wielding a hoe. Love is not only blind, but apparently also immune to pain, heatstroke, and mosquito bites on the behind. (Obviously a farmer wife has a very different experience peeing in the woods than a farmer husband!)
Not that I blamed them much. Anyone who works the 
Even in its specific use relating to bees, the word seems to have a slightly negative cast, as if gentle honeybees searching for a new home are really more akin to hoards of hostile minions flowing over the hills and valleys to wreak destruction upon a peaceful village.
In the fall, the field of milkweed was alive with Monarch butterflies feeding eagerly before their long flight to their winter home in Mexico.
