Butterflies

[Janet]

WOW Sandy that is a great story. I understand what you're feeling though about being old. I don't want to lose my mother, but never thought I'd be taking care of her. I don't mind, but I have to have a good cry myself now and then.

[DianaB]

My Dad's been gone a couple of years now but I don't have anything that shows up, like a connection. He told me once that if there was any way that he could contact me that he would and that I was to watch for some sign from him, but...........I don't think that it can happen. Anyway not for me.

This is a neat story that was in Reader's Digest that goes along with what you're discussing.

Pennies from Heaven
By Julie Bain

My dad loved pennies, especially those with the elegant stalk of wheat curving around each side of the ONE CENT on the back. Those were the pennies he grew up with in Iowa during the Depression, and Lord knows he didn't have many.

When I was a kid, Dad and I would go for long walks together. He was an athletic six-foot-four, and I had to trot to keep up with him. Sometimes we'd spy coins along the way—a penny here, a dime there. Whenever I picked up a penny, he'd ask, "Is it a wheat?" It always thrilled him when we found one of those special coins produced between 1909 and 1958, the year of my birth. On one of these walks, he told me he often dreamed of finding coins. I was amazed. "I always have that dream too!" I told him. It was our secret connection.


Dad died in 2002. By then, I was living in New York City, which can be exciting, or cold and heartless. One gray winter day, not long after his death, I was walking down Fifth Avenue, feeling bereft, and I glanced up and found myself in front of the First Presbyterian Church, one of the oldest churches in Manhattan. When I was a child, Dad had been a Presbyterian deacon, but I hadn't attended in a long time. I decided to go.

Sunday morning, I was greeted warmly and ushered to a seat in the soaring old sanctuary. I opened the program and saw that the first hymn was "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," Dad's favorite, one we'd sung at his funeral. When the organ and choir began, I burst into tears.

After the service, I walked out the front doors, shook the pastor's hand, stepped onto the sidewalk—and there was a penny. I stooped to pick it up, turned it over, and sure enough, it was a wheat. A 1944, a year my father was serving on a ship in the South Pacific.

That started it. Suddenly wheat pennies began turning up on the sidewalks of New York everywhere. I got most of the important years: his birth year, my mom's birth year, the year his mother died, the year he graduated from college, the war years, the year he met my mom, the year they got married, the year my sister was born. But alas, no 1958 wheat penny—my year, the last year they were made.

Meanwhile I attended church pretty regularly, and along toward Christmas a year later, I decided I ought to join. The next Sunday, after the service, I was walking up Fifth Avenue and spotted a penny in the middle of an intersection. Oh, no way, I thought. It was a busy street; cabs were speeding by—should I risk it? I just had to get it.

A wheat! But the penny was worn, and I couldn't read the date. When I got home, I took out my magnifying glass and tilted the copper surface to the light. There was my birthday.

As a journalist, I'm in a profession where skepticism is a necessary and honest virtue. But I found 21 wheat pennies on the streets of Manhattan in the year after my father died, and I don't think that's a coincidence.

[Janet]

Diana, that was a great story. I really do feel Dad sends me butterflies. It all started when I was really young and they would lite on my dad. I couldn't believe they would actually land on a person and stay there for awhile. They would never land on me..until after his death.

I've had them land on my head, my cheek, the corner rim of my glasses...so funny. People will look and point if it happens while I'm in town or where there are other people. When I'm feeling particulary down or even just missing my dad...one will appear, whether it be a real one, or a picture or some kind of butterfly. I just know that they appear when I need them.

[DianaB]

I'm sure that it's really comforting for you. I know that my Dad loved me and I wish that I could believe that he could send me a sign. I do miss him. My Dad had some problems in his life and while I miss him and I don't miss the problems that he had.