The Wealth of Pennies

When people go within and connect with themselves, they realize they are connected to the universe and they are connected to all living things.

- Armand Dimele

Are you a penny finder? I am. Have been since my daughters' father and my own father transitioned, and now my mother gone two years, I feel an exhiliration each time I look down - wherever I am - to see a penny, dime, nickel, even a quarter in my scope. Skeptics can laugh it away, but I know it is support from universal love telling me, telling us, we are never alone.

In her book, Angels 101, Doreen Virtue offers 999 numbers which when seen again and again, hold a message for us. I use the year the coins were printed to give me insight into my own life connected to spirit.

My childhood home's numerical address.
I've only ridden or seen this train's car three times.

Yesterday's 1999 penny told me this: (199) "It's essential that you hold positive thoughts about your career and Divine life mission, as your thoughts are determining the outcome." (999) " This is a message signifying completion of an important chapter in your life, and now it's time to get to work - without procrastination - on your next life chapter. This number sequence is like an alarm clock, ringing loudly in order to jolt you into working on your life purpose." And, (99) "The spirit world has an urgent message for you: 'Get to work on your Divine life purpose now!' Ask the spirit world to help you with motivation, clarity, direction, and anything else you need." Finally, (19) " This is a message for you to believe in yourself and your life purpose. The angels want you to know that you are qualified and ready to follow your dreams. Stay positive, and take action without delay."

Voguing one day with my camera, I was shocked to find what
John Holland told me at his workshop is a "spirit light".

Look for connections, signs, messages, and ways to forge your ideas, requests, longings, and needs with actualized manifestations. Most importantly, never give up. Over and over again, the messages I receive are to stay positive as I can slip into worry or negativity so easily, and so these reminders buoy me to the surface, skirt me to victory. Being positive, having faith, and being compassionate as well as forgiving will bring to you every desire ever conceived.

A photo my daughter took a few months after my mother's transition.
My mother's name is Nancy. 

Gifted on My Girl's Day

Last night I walked up the steps to my apartment building, went in, and on cue, checked the mail. I pulled out, first a catalogue, then a few bills, and then I saw an envelope containing a card and for that quick second, I thought the handwriting was my mother's. And just as soon, I realized it could not be hers since she's now two years, flown.

The card was from my cousin, Sheri, and I carried it upstairs, and after setting my things down, washing my hands, and turning on a few lights, I took the envelope and opened it. It was a postcard with 'N Sync smiling at me saying, "Thanks." I had to grin as the postcard was now vintage 90s.

My cousin was thanking me for being there for her. Nice, I thought, and then I reached the last of her message where she stated, "Here is a photo I ran across of your mother, I thought you might like."

Hurriedly I reached deeper into the envelope and took out a small photograph of my mother at what must have been her at seven years, nine at the most. I gasped as I had never seen a picture of her that young. I sat down and cried. I will not show it to anyone, not until my book about my mother and me is complete for I know this is my answer for help in focusing and knowing how to write this.

I am so thankful. I fell asleep with mascara-streaked hands, but I fell asleep with a vision, and a hope. And it happened on my baby's birthday. I felt the power of love coming down on me. I felt faith taking hold of my fear and quieting everything around me. I felt the magnificence of support.

Oh mother, I see you.

I do.

No Negative Waves

Oh those poor angels, heads in their hands, wings up, conversing:

"We tell her over and over, over and over, signs, numbers, coins, birds, what's next? Appearing? Tapping her on the shoulder, whipping her around to see us? Sheela! we say, stay positive, everything manifests, everything you want, in the positive, chica. Oye vah. We aren't paid enough for this. When's retirement?"

But I swear I'm a getting it. Sour moods aren't allowed to last long with me anymore. I have learned to pick up the sorry whiners and escort them to the air. "Buh bye, babies," I say, writing down an affirmation, saying a prayer, saying "yes" when I see what I like, and "no" when it's something I surely don't want.

And as Louise L. Hay said of her early days in understanding, I am getting those green lights now, too. Winston Churchill got it when he said, " A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." Yep.

On this my daughter's 28th birthday, I am here to tell you, sugar sweet angels that your child, Sheela, gets it. That and drinking water. I'd write more, but I'm rushing off to see my girl, have some dinner with loved ones to celebrate her day. And it's going to be a swell time. I positively know it.

Thank you. Ears open, I see you.

Realized Potential

Dear Mom,

That dream I had of you drinking a Cappuccino made me so happy and a bit confused, but then I started thinking about it and it makes so much sense: You are in your true Self now; this life's journey of coming here to accomplish what you agreed to is over. How'd you do? I'm trying to understand, but I miss you even though I know I will see you again since death is simply an open door, back to our true selves, the eternal one that tries on different costumes, life after life.

I miss you in this one.

Today on your second anniversary in transitioning, I salute you, and ask you to show me a sign today. Yes, yes I know last Saturday there was a quarter right in front of me on the train car's floor when there wasn't when I sat down and no traffic around to drop it. I know it was you or a dear angel reading my every thought and right then, as is the case when I find a coin, I was deliberating over how am I progressing on my ride through this life? The quarter was a nice touch.

And now I realize how much you held back - with your own ambition - hell, I know you'd be someone like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Frida Kahlo, hot like Lady Gaga or a dancer, singer, a CEO or tenured professor. You have it in you, naturally. 

I still struggle with my ambition, Mom. I can hear you..."The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Help me, Mom. We weren't close throughout our lives here until the end and I miss you so much. I saw you stripped of fear and you are beautiful. 

Thanks for the quarter. I will finish the book, and be the poet you know I am. I feel you right now. I vow to live happy and free. That is how I shall accomplish my destiny.

Te amo. - Your daughter, Sheela

Swerving on the Autobahn

It was before and during the time when I met my future husband. In my early 20s I spent time at the apartments of my two brothers, both living in the same three family home in Central El Paso in the late 70s, early 80s. It is where I would stand, pass the doobie, and listen to Kraftwerk. The friends there were mainly my brothers', but I'd known them for a decade, so we were family all of us, in a way. My older brother held court at those parties and we all gave him the floor. He was seldom nice to me. I should have turned and left, but I stayed, low self esteem, bored in West Texas, not knowing what else was outside the border city, and most the time not caring. I was so lost and so needing to be found in those days.

Tonight on WNYC's Soundcheck, I hear that Kraftwerk is playing eight nights at MOMA and I am thrown back to the patio of my younger brother, the music spitting out into the quiet, lonely street. Sometimes it all - the drink, weed, and music - was too much, too much joy, too much tension, too much nothing. My mother was hurt and never going to get better. The center dropped out, but still, now I know I was blooming into a fabulous woman, no place or situation could stop it. I see it in my older daughter as I sit across from her at dinner tonight and I witness her glory. The shaping of the face, the hair, softer than the jeans I zipped up, flat on my bed, breathing in, ready for the night. Nature carries on and hopes for the best.

Somehow I drifted from the parties of my brothers and ended up rocking in front of boulder-sized speakers at the Treetop where I would dance, feeling nothing but freedom. There I met my husband. Not the finest place, but it was indeed my destiny for my daughters are my center.

I've never forgotten what happened inside me when I was dancing. I pray it is what lives in me as a writer, as I venture into the waters again, cold, never liked the womb, bad experience I suspect. I hear the taunting of my brother as his court closes down for the night and his eyes light on me and I know I am hamburger.

As Kraftwerk plays this week, I walk the streets of my city, and I wink and wave.

We both made it out alive.

 

Bearing the Fruit of Purpose

Twenty-eight years ago I was pregnant with my first child. April 7th was my due date and I awoke that morning, ready, waiting, wondering what to expect? My husband and I hung out together; him irritable, me pensive, both of us bothering the other. It ended up with him going to a friend's house and me driving home, mad. I wished for labor to begin; oh how badly he would feel, me calling him from the hospital, him now dashing to me. But labor did not happen and he returned blitzed. I laid in bed, angry, feeling alone. Once he was in bed, too, and asleep, I calmed down. Our baby, Leila Sandra, would not come for 14 more days, and once again, my husband and I would be together, him just home from playing in the band and me up late watching "Fanny Farmer". He was eating a hamburger, urging me to eat it with him, and I refused, trying to watch the movie, but he kept saying, "Comon. For the baby." And just then, a spiriling pain swirled through my stomach and into my legs. "No!" I growled, rising to go to the bathroom and there I discovered labor had begun as I stood to see "the plug" swimming in the bowl.

I told him, we called the hospital, and then both of us slid into bed, our eyes wide, excited, waiting as the nurse said not to come in until the pains were four minutes apart. He got back up to watch TV. I laid there not a clue of what to think. In the morning, we called our families and around four in the afternoon, I went in and that evening at four minutes til midnight, I delivered my porcelain doll, but before that my husband had gone on to play again at the club. I had sent him away. His eyes were bulging and I knew he'd need to go out and have a smoke or two or three and something told me it would be better to summon my sister to help and to send him back to work.

Leila Sandra Wolford, April 21, 1984

Early that next morning, around two, I heard him coming down the hospital hallway, his keys clanging. Leila had been born for a few hours and into his arms she went. He sat there and cried, looking up at me, and saying "thank you." And then he stood, come toward me, leaned down and kissed me. I have never forgotten that moment. It is what I remember when I think of us having our second girl, Sarah Nancy three and a half years later and separated from him, our divorce or of my girls and I hearing through a phone call that he had died. I go back to remembering his tears flowing that night.

"Don't you want to wait four more minutes and your baby will be born on Easter?"  the nurse had asked me as I pushed in desperation. "No!" I shouted, realizing Easter falls on a different Sunday each year so out she came!

They gave me a hard-boiled egg since it was Easter, and it sat on a cute bright yellow egg holder. Every year on this day, I see dyed eggs and cellophane grass, baskets, Easter dresses, and baby chicks, and I see my daughter being born. I see my daughters' father crying and I see the possibilities and the struggle. I see my destiny and I say to my girls and their father, "thank you."

Happy Easter!

Sarah Nancy (left), Leila Sandra (center), and me.




Time to Write

Tomorrow I say good-bye to the seniors of Flushing House Senior Residence. I felt it a month ago; time to move on. And as much as I tried to gather up more memoir workshops, to tell you the gosh awful truth, I am thankful it didn't work out. Just the long commute to Flushing, Queens was a lot. But still I loved seeing the seniors. But something inside me is telling me to consolidate, work smart, and to conserve my energy. My older daughter nailed it when she flat out asked me to consider my craft as a writer - to do that - to see what would happen if I set my eyes on that prize, instead of running all over?

I heard the universe and I accepted.

I've grown to a place where I want to listen to my own thoughts for a bit. I am richer because of the men and women who told me their stories. In fact, they encouraged me to write more, too. Once at a session, one of my writers who wrote magnificently, and who I praised and applauded, said a few times to me: And what about you? When do we get to read what you've written?

I heard the universe and accepted. I am healing, have been healed. No longer does the blank page frighten me. No longer do I worry what might come out. The rotting wound has been cleaned. The suffering ceased. A strength grown solid, bending like a reed. A child, I am grown.

Two of my best memoir writers who have since transitioned.
I deeply miss them.

 When we close our black notebooks, shelve them, put the
pens away, fold the chairs and lay them against the table,
I will remember your blue eyes, your stories, your words
that had me breathing when there was no air.

"When We Close"
April 4, 2012

Laying Palms at Your Feet, Mother.

Two years ago on Palm Sunday, my sister and I are standing in The Blossom Shop in El Paso, Texas, buying a plant for our mother, palm leaves in our hands. And in her room, we will prop the palms against the sun-heated window in the rehab hospital where she will stare at them, half-heartedly, knowing the reverence, charm, time is gone.

It is early April and her stomach hasn't worked since the last day of February when a stroke fiercely infiltrated her brain stem. I know she is going to die. Mighty measures have been made to keep her alive. IVs with syrupy liquid, formulas to inspire her digestive system to process, and even my younger brother sending in a psychologist to evaluate whether she has given up, but I know my mother is at the end of her physical rope.

"What should we write on the card?" my sister asks and I go blank.

On Easter Sunday, my sister's pastor comes to call. We have taken mother home, to the bedroom she built on in at my sister's. And now I am her hospice caregiver. We line each side of her bed and a conversation carries on, but not directed to her. I want to send them all out. I can feel what she is feeling and I ask her when they leave how she is? "I know life goes on," she says, and my heart rips for her. But Nancy, my mother, it is weaker. Life is blander without you.

My mother (right) with her sister in Utah.

"Why do I always learn everything too late?" she says to me two days before leaving, before I watch her pulse cease, my sister and I breathless with her.

Two years later I dream of her. She is in my sister's and my bedroom, the one on Album Avenue, the one she made curtains for and dresser scarves. In the dream, she is drinking a Cappuccino, her head tilted back, drinking it with a sultry abandonment. Waking up, I know she is free, free from all her religious worries, food fears, and societal snubs. 

Life goes on.