After the end

Everyone has different beliefs about what happens to us after we die, and I’m certainly no expert.

What I can tell you is that there were so many times I felt my boy’s presence in the days and weeks after he died. I didn’t have visions or feel invisible hugs but there were definitely signs that might have been just coincidences– but what’s the harm in believing they were more than that?

You be the judge. Here is one example of what I’m talking about.

It was the Sunday after he died, the day before all the services were to begin. My friend Hollie took me to get my nails done. I was in no mood to pick a color, because, I mean, how could I be worried about something so trivial when my baby was dead?!

But I had celebrated my 50th birthday 2 weeks prior and my nails were ridiculously cheerful and pissing me off so to the salon we went.

I stood in front of the wall of polishes, closed my eyes, shrugged my shoulders and silently said, “Ok Lawrence, let me know what color I should get.” I opened my eyes and started scanning shelf after shelf for an answer. You’re going to think I’m exaggerating, but when my eyes reached a particular polish, a purply-plum color, they locked. It seemed as if the bottle was jumping off the shelf and try as I might to look past that bottle to the rest of the colors, my eyes were drawn back to that color like a magnet.

Asked and answered. Ok Lawrence, I guess this is the color.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. On Sunday, when I got my nails done, I had no idea yet what Lawrence was going to be wearing. My friend Mark, a tailor in Cleveland who makes beautiful bespoke suits agreed to help me with that, but he wasn’t going to be in town until Monday morning. (we needed to have his clothes to the funeral home by noon on Monday)

I asked Lawrence’s best friend, Joey, to help pick out an outfit for him. After all, no self-respecting 17 year-old boy wants to spend eternity dressed in a suit that their mommy picked out. And selfishly, I didn’t want to be to blame, if he hated it.

Around 10am Monday morning, Mark stopped by to get Joey and they went to his shop. (Maestro Tailor- in Cleveland) About 40 minutes later I got a call from Joey. He felt like he had found “the one” but wanted to make sure it was ok with me, because it was an odd color.

Joey said, “Mom, it’s purple, but it feels perfect!”. He sent a picture and it was the exact shade of nail polish that “Lawrence” had picked for me the day before.

And it was PERFECT!