Reconnecting

Tonite I stepped outside to rock a while in my chair. The patio was dark and I sat silently listening to the frogs singing nearby. There have been so many other nights like this throughout my life --- me, looking up at the silhouettes of mountain tree's, listening to the frogs.


I began to sing worship songs aloud. Sometime later I just had an overwhelming sense of Billy's presence. I sat there in the silence and began to talk to him aloud. A few minutes later my husband Wayne stepped outside and I began to tell him of how I had sat singing and then felt Billys closeness.


Wayne stepped outside from under the porch and said "Have you come out here to look at the night sky? There are thousands of stars out tonite." I got up and stepped out under the starry sky and looked up. Even that view has not changed for me.


 I related once more to Wayne of how from the time I was 10 years of age, as a girl I would lay in the back of my parents rambler wagon and would have that view for myself. I was filled in those days with awe and fear.....awe at the vast night sky and how the sky reminded me of chocolate ice cream with vanilla chips....and fear -- that at any time forest animals could amble up to the car and look at me through all the windows. Yes, I did have an avid imagination. But, I always knew I was safe as long as I could hear Billy's voice.


 At that very moment as I was recounting this story and looking up at that night sky with the forest sentinels standing so tall in the night air the biggest, brightest, slowest shooting star arced across the night sky like a firework! Tears had been gently flowing down my face as I recounted the story but my breath literally caught in my throat as I watched that slow star shooting across the velvet sky.


 A half cry came from me with a sob and I said to wayne....did I just imagine that or was that as significant as I feel it was? He said Doe - that was all you saw it was. That was for you, from Billy.


You see, long ago as I lay in the back of my parents wagon staring at that expanse of stars I could hear my parents and grandparents playing pinochle inside their small red and white trailer while Billy sat in a chair playing the ukulele and singing to us as we tried to go to sleep. As long as Billy played and sang, I was safe.


 I will never forget tonite and the shooting star in the chocolate sky with all the twinkling vanilla chips winking back at me. I know Billy....I miss you too.