Friday, September 29, 2017

Angel Bumps: Hello From Heaven


     I am THRILLED to be part of a new anthology, "Angel Bumps Hello From Heaven", compiled by my dear friend Anne Bardsley.
   
     Fifty writers from around the country have come together to share the heartwarming stories of their experiences with "Angel Bumps"---signs of reassurance received from their loved ones who have passed on. Anne describes an Angel Bump as "a luminous light in a dark room. Once you receive a sign from your loved one, you will never be the same. Knowing they are still so close will give you solace. The joy it brings is immeasurable."

     I'm sharing a portion of my own story that appears in Angel Bumps in the hopes that it will interest you enough in reading ALL of the stories in this lovely collection.


                       PENNIES FROM HEAVEN  


She comes to me in dreams, her smile radiant as she urges her horse up the side of Lone Mountain to a field of Indian Paintbrush. The wind brushes her long hair across her face as she studies the azure sky and points to a Red-tailed Hawk drifting overhead.

     This is the how I want to remember my older sister Cherie; a camera looped around her neck and a bird guide tucked in her back pocket.

     I want to remember her laughter when we were kids sitting in the back of the family station wagon and making silly faces at one another.

     I want to remember our phone conversations that went well into the night, long after my husband had turned out the lights. At times I had to muffle my laughter so that I didn't wake the rest of my sleeping family.

     I want to remember the warm cinnamon rolls she made on Sunday mornings that we shared over a cup of coffee in my backyard garden.

     I want to remember her gentle hands gliding across crisp sheets of white paper as she sketched magnificent birds of prey, her fingers stained from the pencils she used for shadowing their wings.

     I want to remember the summers we spent picking huckleberries in the mountains and the flowers we strung together to make daisy chains on a porch in Montana.

     What I don't want to remember is the night I watched a broken soul give up on life too soon; the woman in a hospital room who lay pale and unmoving under sheets as white as the pages from her sketch pad.

    My sister had an eating disorder. She was killing herself slowly, and no one in my family understood why it was happening, or how to help her. Cherie never had it easy; married and divorced twice, she was a single mother raising a rebellious teen and had to work long hours to make ends meet. By the time she reached the middle-age years, obesity had robbed her of living a normal life. Food replaced the love and fulfillment she sought but never found. It was the crutch that filled her emptiness. Loneliness and disappointment fed into her depression, preventing her from seeking the professional help that she needed. Something had broken inside her, leaving her heart cracked in too many places for anyone to fix.

     In the fall of 2009 at the age of 56, my sister succumbed to pneumonia after weeks of being sick. My family and I urged her to see a doctor when her symptoms became worse, but she was a stubborn woman, convinced that she could fight the illness with simple, over-the-counter medications.

     Cherie's son finally convinced her to check into the hospital once she started coughing up blood, but her lungs were already severely infected and had so much fluid in them that it made breathing nearly impossible. There was little the doctors could do to save her----the pneumonia, coupled with her obesity, was more than her body could handle. Her heart had become enlarged---three times the normal size---and one by one, her organs started shutting down.

     My sister died in the early morning hours as we stood praying by her bedside. It was still dark outside with only a few stars sparkling in the west like silver glitter scattered across a black velvet sky. The moon had slipped away, its shadow swallowed by a blanket of thick clouds.

     After Cherie's death, I was consumed with guilt for not forcing her to see a doctor earlier, and angry that she chose to give up without a fight. She left behind a son, a granddaughter, and a family who cherished her. It hurt to think that our love wasn't strong enough to give her the strength she needed to rise above the unhappiness that plagued her.

     I tried to ignore the terrible grief I felt, but there were subtle reminders of my sister everywhere. The Red-tailed Hawk that watched me each morning from the tall pine in my backyard; the smell of cinnamon in the kitchen; the cardboard boxes her son had given me that were filled with her cookbooks, the glass figurines she'd collected, and a few articles of clothing that still held her scent of sandalwood and vanilla. But the most painful reminder of her absence was the sadness I saw mirrored in her granddaughter's eyes.

     The finality of Cherie's death didn't hit me until a few months later when I found her favorite purse inside one of the boxes her son had given to me. I pulled it out, touched the soft, dark leather and opened the flap. Inside was a small cache of memories: my sister's comb, a few barrettes, pens and several sheets of tissues. She had terrible allergies and never left the house without plenty of tissues.

     I held the comb in my hand and felt a tide of grief wash over me, the pain so acute that it brought me to my knees. The memories unleashed a flood of tears that cracked the dam I'd built around my heart. The walls came tumbling down, and nothing could stop the deep ache that left a hole inside me that no one else could fill.

     For weeks I walked around in state of numbness and disbelief. Even though other members of my family tried to comfort me, there was no solace in the fact that I would never see my sister again. I felt disconnected from everyone and wanted time alone to work through my grief.

     And that's when the first penny appeared.

     It was old, the date barely legible on the worn, copper surface. I thought it was odd that I woke one morning to a penny sitting on my nightstand---I never carried pennies, and neither did my husband. I had been crying heavily the night before while thinking of Cherie. I wanted to believe that she'd found the peace she was looking for, and every day I had prayed for a sign of reassurance from her.

     Later that afternoon, I found more pennies in the house. They appeared in the middle of my living room floor, by the kitchen sink, across my desk, on top of the couch cushions and on the windowsill.

     Pennies started cropping up everywhere, and I soon noticed a pattern in their frequency. Whenever something upset me, a penny would magically appear. The day my husband lost his job and I was fearful of our future, pennies appeared in abundance. The same thing happened when my mother became ill and I was consumed with worry. I found the pennies everywhere while she was in recovery.
 
     I didn't understand the significance of the coins. They seemed to pop up out of nowhere whenever I became agitated or depressed, and I went so far as to scold my husband for dropping them around the house. He promised me that he had nothing to do with them and admitted the he had been finding quite a few himself.

     The mystery of the pennies continued for several months until I discovered.......

WANT TO READ MORE?? YOU CAN BUY THE BOOK HERE: https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Bumps-Heaven-Anne-Bardsley/dp/0997587113/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1506474762&sr=1-1-spell



22 comments:

  1. Wow! This bit does make me want to read more. I found myself wishing I could see the drawings your sister made. It is hard to watch loved ones suffer, and I think most of us blame ourselves for not doing more when things end badly. Of course, we typically are doing all we can, as I'm sure you did! It is never easy to know how hard to push, when to pull back, how to love best. Cherie sounds like a neat person, and I'm so sorry that you lost her so young. I'll never see a penny on the ground without thinking of you now!

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    1. Thank you----I'm glad you enjoyed the story and I hope you will consider checking out the stories from the other writers in the book.

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  2. Beautifully written from your heart, Marcia. Your story will touch many. I love anthologies because I am a firm believer that we do not have to look far to find another person with a similar story and we can draw strength from that. Thank you for sharing

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    1. Thank you, Carol. I really enjoyed reading the stories from the other writers because I could relate to every single one of them.

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  3. A very sad but compelling story. I know I'll spend much of today thinking about this.

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    1. Thank you, Stephen. I hope you'll check out the book.

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  4. Great- even though tragic- memories.
    May her memory always bring you tears of love.

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  5. I'm so sorry to hear about your sister. Now I've got to go get the book because I need to know what happened next. I'm also sharing this in a roundup post to publish on 10-7-17 because I think others will be touched by it as well.

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    1. Thank you so much, Shelley. I appreciate the share.

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  6. I had to go get the kleenex, Marcia. This is incredibly beautiful, sad, loving...so much. The pennies! Your sister is definitely watching over you and loved you so much! This anthology will comfort many who have lost loved ones. So wonderful your story is included, a lovely tribute.

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    1. I'm so honored to be a part of this book---it really means a lot to me. I think my sister would love this tribute, too. And hopefully, she knows how much I miss her.

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  7. I edited some stories for friends who submitted to Anne. I almost sent her a story myself but decided the piece really belonged on my blog.
    My heart breaks every time I read this story about your sister. I think of it every time I make your (and hers) Butterfingers Rum Cake.

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    1. Thank you so much, Karen. I know you understand this kind of loss. Hugs to you, my friend.

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  8. I believe in the Pennies from Heaven. My husband's sister died in her thirtys of bone cancer and ever since then we've been finding pennies in our path. Especially after she passed 12 years ago. This book is perfect and very touching, it brings back many memories both good and sad. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. I'm thrilled to hear that your husband's sister made contact with you through the pennies!

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  9. Oh, My darling, Marcia.

    Our lives are never the same w/ out our sisters.

    Love you. xx from MN.

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    1. Not a day goes by that......well, you know exactly how it feels.

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  10. I love your writing Marcia, this enthralled me ... I know how you had such a difficult time dealing with the loss of your sister... I would like to read the end of this story to see what the pennies meant xox <3

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