Receiving Signs?

Perhaps Louise is closer to me than I dared hope. Barely a week after writing about the lack of signs, I left the house this morning to discover a small white feather sitting nestled between her muddy walking boots which still sit in our outer porch.

Rationally I know that this must simply be a coincidence. Before Louise died I would have been dismissive of anybody seeking to find meaning in such a simple occurrence. How many countless times over the years must I have come across white feathers without ascribing any significance to them, without even noticing them? I'm emotional, vulnerable and actively searching for meaning everywhere that I look. In these circumstances I am almost bound to find something but the value of what I find deserves to be questioned even more closely than would otherwise be the case. I know the risk of confirmation bias.

Yet I can't help myself from setting aside the scepticism. In spiritual terms white feathers are seen by some as signifying the presence of a recently departed loved one, a token of protection and love sent by a guardian angel. The porch is partly protected from the elements. Its not somewhere you might expect a feather to drift, particularly when there are no others in the vicinity. The likelihood of a random feather coming to rest on Louise's boots, sitting proud on top as if it was being offered up directly by her, must be infinitesimally small. 

And it reminds me that I came across another single white feather in the back garden some time ago. I largely disregarded it because the coincidences and the symbolism did not seem as strong but brought it inside for safekeeping nevertheless. Somehow a feather seems the most appropriate of all ways in which Louise might choose to communicate with me given her fascination with the small and everyday beauties of the natural world around us. Both feathers now sit alongside her fading collection of pine cones, conkers and assorted flora.

I am almost embarrassed to find myself writing in these terms. Guardian angels? I can imagine Louise's gentle but firm dismissal of the concept. And why now and not before, when I was still reverberating with shock and the raw intensity of the pain of loss was shredding my soul?

But I still need something to hold on to. I deserve to allow myself comfort and hope from whatever source I can find them. The thought that this might be a sign that Louise is close by, with me, watching me, communicating with me, makes me happier than anything else during these ten long months, even if at the same time it concerns me that I might be inadvertently holding her back from wherever she might need to be.

It may well be almost a conscious self deceit but there can be no harm, and much good, in me choosing to interpret this as evidence that Louise is still by my side. I am trying to move beyond grief and mourning, to lift my head and look towards recovery, focus on the life that I must re-make. The belief that Louise is with me, and that we might therefore one day be reunited in some form, will enable me to do so with all the more strength and confidence. I suddenly feel less alone.