A Four Leaf Clover from Above

It seems as though luck of the adverse kind winds and weaves and punctures it's awful head too often in my family, leaving holes in the hearts of us left behind.

As the story always goes, the bad news came in the form of the dreaded phone call.

I closed the door to the bedroom of the room we'd been sleeping in during our visit at my Mother-in-law's house, telling my husband I needed a minute.

I sat on the bed where I slept with my boys the past two nights.  I looked out at the bright sparkling sun dancing off the small ripples of the water.

It was a beautiful day outside.

As my tears fell fast I looked out the window though my eyes didn't really see the gorgeous scenery displayed.  It seems I'm continually asking the tired question...why?  What good comes from a life so young lost?

It's a question that here on Earth will never be answered.

I know this yet it wasn't comforting me at that moment.

I grieved openly for all the cousins I've lost over the years.  Too young to be taken away.  I grieved even more their parents, my aunts and uncles who should never know such loss.  I cried for all the parents I know that have lost their child tragically and unfairly.

Why....why...why.

I still want answers.

I allowed my mind to go where no parents mind ever wants to go.  Especially when your children are young and healthy.  These thoughts glance you out of nowhere with a blow to the soul every time something like this happens.  The aftermath leaving everything seeming so fragile that even the gentlest of touches could crumble it all into a million little pieces, never to be put back together again.

As I dried my face from the tears and entered the room where the rest of my family was, my sons took turns crawling into my lap.  I soaked them in with a quiet ferocity.  I silently and mercifully said to them, "Please don't ever leave me."  and I prayed to God, "Not my boys...please never my sons." 


Yet why should I be any different?  It's those thoughts that haunt my worst nightmares.


We bundled up for some much needed fresh air.  It was the nicest day of the year so far and I wondered why terrible news always seems to come on seemingly perfect days.

My littlest found an acorn as we rounded the house and started down the hill towards the water.  "A corn!"  He said over and over again.  As his yellow and black striped mittened hand gave the 'a corn' to me I noticed a dried leaf that looked to be a four leaf clover just behind him.  I almost turned and walked away but it wouldn't let me.

I looked away and back again.

There it still was.

I walked over. Bent down. Picked it up.

Unbelievable.

There was snow on this ground just yesterday yet here it was.

A four leaf clover.  The only four leaf clover I've ever found.

It was large, yet dried and as fragile looking as my emotions felt.

Another wave of tears hit me again but in a different way.

Grandma Belle was at it again.  She had begun her other worldly journey half my lifetime ago leaving signs here and there the weeks after she passed.  She has since visited me often in my dreams and through moments such as these.

I knew right then my Grandma Belle was once again looking over us all from above.

She was telling us it would, somehow, be okay.

The significance of a four leaf clover from above?
My Grandma was Irish.