My dad passed away a few years back. I was very close to him and years after I still find myself lamenting that I can’t just stop by and visit with him like I used to but life goes on and one has to adjust to living without parents at some point. Jeff and I had flown to England for a week of work. We were there to have the sound track mixed for our latest CBC television series. After unpacking at our Air B&B we walked out to a local grocery store. We collected what we would need for dinner and breakfast in the store’s wire basket and unloaded them at the till. Under the last item was a dime, a Canadian dime. Jeff had carried the basket and he doesn’t travel with loose change in his pockets so it came as a surprise to us to see it lying in the bottom of the basket. I said, with a smile and a laugh, “must be dad, giving us a message.” I guess he’s travelling with us.
Dad had passed a couple of years ago and I really missed him, more than I could have imagined. I often talked to him in my mind, sometimes asking if he could blink the lights or blow out a candle if he could hear me or if he was there, but it never happened. I wondered why I could communicate with other people’s family members but found it harder to connect to my own dad. I think my emotions get in the way of a clear link between our energies. The dime was fun, but it was a bit of a long shot so I didn’t remember it for long.
After we returned home dimes started showing up in the most unusual places and often on days when there was something meaningful on my mind or something was happening of importance in my life. One day Jeff and I were walking up the dirt road that went up beyond our house. We had walked for over a km and I was having a discussion with Jeff about my life. I was trying to sort out what I wanted to accomplish and where I should put my priorities. I had just listed off a few things I wondered if I should let go of, even though they felt important to me. Just as I said I wish I could have some guidance with my decision, I looked down and in the middle of the road there was a dime. There are no people living beyond our house. This was the middle of the forest on an old road. I thought of dad and without a doubt I felt he was telling me to keep going with all my ideas.
Months later on the first morning of my summer retreats, as I was busy getting last minute things organized and feeling a little anxious, dad found a way to bring me a dime and let me know he was there and on my team. The cooks had a young daughter, ever so sweet and lively. She came running to find me and handed me a dime she had found. She said she had discovered it in a crack in the floor boards and had dug it out and felt she should give it to me. Children’s joyful, spontaneous energy make them perfect receptors for receiving messages from spirit. She didn’t know it, but I think dad got her to let me know, once again, that I was not alone.
Many months and dimes later, I was having a reading with a medium. It was the first reading I had had since my dad had passed. First of all I prayed dad would come and be able to talk through the medium to me. I also thought of many things I wished he would tell me. I wanted to know about his feelings surrounding his death, I wanted to know if he was O.K. now. Was he around us? Did he think it was going well with my book? I had many questions lined up for him but I never thought about the dimes. For some reason they never crossed my mind; not in the days leading up to my reading, not as I drove the three hours to get to my appointment, and not as I sat down in the tiny room and waited with love in my heart to hear what the medium might say. She looked at me with a bright and happy face, and said, “Your dad is here”. That was fantastic. That was what I was waiting to hear. Then she said, without missing a beat, “And he says he has been leaving you dimes!”
I couldn’t be more amazed or grateful. It’s such a gift to have confirmation for these simple yet profound moments when I find a dime in the most unexpected places at the most significant times. I have now found nineteen dimes. I keep them in a small dish on my dresser. These are not dimes I find in my purse or are given for change at a store, these are dimes that show up in the oddest of places and you have that instant sensation that comes over you, and you just know. In that moment I stop and as I hold the dime in my hand, I say, ”Thanks dad, I love you.”
Yesterday my clothes dryer wouldn’t turn on and it came up with the symbol F01. I looked it up on the internet and it said that if you unplug the dryer for a few minutes and then plug it back in it can reset itself. I pulled the dryer out from the wall. The dryer had a large plug that carried 240 volts. Just as I was about to try pulling it from the wall I heard a message in my mind telling me to go down to the basement to the breaker box and throw the breaker first. I wondered why this mattered as I was only pulling out the plug from the socket, but they do carry a lot of power. As I hesitated, trying to decide if it was worth going all the way to the basement, I looked down and right in front of me was a dime. My dad would have been one to be careful, and I knew he wanted me to be careful as well. I went to the basement and turned off the breaker for the dryer. Once again I knew dad was there looking out for me.
If you are open to the possibilities, there are still opportunities to have a connection to people in your life that have crossed over. It’s never quite the same as when they live just down the road and you can stop by for tea and a chat, but our loved ones who have passed can still be a part of our lives in this realm. Our connection to them doesn’t have to end with the end of physical existence.
xo Dad
