necklace

The Necklacestring(12) "The Necklace"

As many of you know, my wife passed away a few months ago.  I’ve wrestled with sharing the necklace story because it is a bit out there for a left-brain business guy, but friends have suggested that I should share it, so here it is.

After Elisabeth passed away, all my children came over for a private memorial at our house. We gathered around her Bagua Circle (pictured here).  Elisabeth loved to do Tai Chi and Qigong (Chi Gong) in the circle with nature all around her.

That evening, I brought my two daughters and daughter-in-love (as Elisabeth called our daughter-in-law) up to her closet and I gave them some of her jewelry to remember her.

I told them that I would eventually give them most all her pieces except for two that I wanted to keep; her wedding ring and a necklace.  The necklace was a heart with a lock and key that she often wore.  We looked everywhere for the necklace – her jewelry drawers, the safe, everywhere.  But we couldn’t find it.  I was distraught because this necklace had a lot of sentimental value.  I bought it for her on a long romantic weekend trip to New Orleans and we both loved this piece a great deal.  Ashley, my eldest daughter, said that sometimes women drop a piece of jewelry in their purse and so we went through every purse she had.  (OK, so can I just say – OMG, I had no idea she had so many purses!!!!). We did find some jewelry but not the one I wanted so badly.  I was distraught because the necklace held so many happy memories.

The Necklace Dream

After the family left, I went to bed.  That night, I had the first dream about Elisabeth since her passing.  I had a very vivid dream about hands (that looked like Elisabeth’s) holding up a small pocketbook to my face and opening it up.  I couldn’t see anything else and I woke up and wrote the dream down.

A couple of weeks later, my daughter, Dorian (AKA Cassandra) came over for Thanksgiving Dinner (an American tradition).  While she was there, she asked if she could look through some bags that were in our pantry that had a lot of Elisabeth’s things in them.  She was looking for a Switch game that they both played together.  Dorian couldn’t visit Elisabeth’s island on the game without permission and she wanted to do that.  I told her to feel free to go through the bags and if she happened to find the necklace to let me know.  She sat on the floor and started going through everything.  I stood next to Dorian wondering if I should tell her about the dream I had.  It was so “out there” for me that I thought she would think I was losing it.  However, I felt compelled to tell her and so I shared the dream.

Just as I finished telling her about the dream, I looked down at her and she opened a small pocketbook and held it up to my face – “does it look like this?” she said as she opened the pocketbook and pulled out the necklace.  And there was the pocketbook exactly like in the dream I had.  I realized that it wasn’t Elisabeth’s hands in my dream, it was our daughter’s hands, and it was held up to my face just as in the dream except in her other hand was the necklace.

The fact that I shared the dream with her just as she found the pocketbook and necklace at the same moment was surreal.  We laughed, we cried, and we were both dumbfounded.

No one really “knows” what happens after we pass on – but today more than ever, I believe our loved ones can come back to us in mysterious ways with messages.

I have no answers – only my experience.  And that experience was stunning.

Have you ever lost a loved one and felt that they somehow spoke to you afterward?  If so, tell me about it here.