Orvie's Antics

           Messages from my grandfather in Spirit

Orvie was my pipe-smoking, black licorice-loving, wise-cracking Grandpa. I remember him singin’, “I like to go swimmin’ with bowlegged women…” My daughter, Natalie, said all she remembers is that I covered her ears whenever he came into the room. He lived in Spooner, Wisconsin—far from his Minnesota family.

          Ever since Orvie’s Wife, Sally died, he kept a framed picture in his living room of her grinning cutely with her legs straddling a concrete donkey cart, pretending to ride in it. My aunt Diane loved this funny photo because she had a similar donkey cart, a wooden flower planter on her front lawn that she bought on one of her visits to see Orvie.

          My aunt Diane, my mom, and my brother Tim were planning to make the out of state drive to Spooner on Sunday to take Orvie out to dinner for Father’s Day. On the Wednesday before, Aunt Diane called him to confirm their plans.

          “I will see you Sunday, Dad,” she said.

          “I’m not feeling well,” he admitted.

          “Would you like me to come out sooner to help you?”

          “Oh no,” he reassured her. “I’ll see you on Father’s Day.”

          “I wish you could come and see my garden,” she said as the call ended.

          Grandpa Orvie died that night.

          Diane got the sad news and cried alone in her house. She couldn’t sleep. She woke up at 3:33 a.m. on Father’s Day to loud music playing somewhere in her house. Scared, she groggily walked downstairs to the small spare room where her radio was blaring old time music, the kind Orvie had loved to dance to. It wasn’t her radio station. She recalled seeing him dance just three weeks earlier. She thought it was odd, but she was so tired, she turned off the radio and went back to bed.

          In the morning, Diane walked to her living room window and pulled open the drapes like she did every day. She looked out at her front lawn. Something was missing. Where her donkey cart planter used to be, there was now an empty space in her yard. Diane panicked because it’s where she hid her house key. She thought someone might have been in her house overnight. She looked around and saw that the donkey cart had mysteriously moved to the middle of her asphalt driveway. It hadn’t been there when she came home late the night before, or she would have run over it. Diane ran outside to check on the house key and it was still there, undisturbed. But how on earth did her heavy donkey cart get on her driveway?

          Later that day, Diane went outside to her garden. She thought about how much she had wanted Orvie to see her well-tended flowers. Then she realized that maybe the oldies music and the donkey cart were signs that Orvie had been there. This gave her great relief, comfort, and strength that Orvie was all right. He had let her know that he had indeed seen her garden on Father’s Day.

*   *   *

          My mom told me that she had been reading about the famous psychoanalyst, Carl Jung. He had coined the term “synchronicity” which means meaningful coincidences. He once treated a very depressed patient who wasn’t getting well. Dr. Jung and his female patient randomly discussed an Egyptian scarab beetle in her therapy session. Just then a big black beetle appeared outside the office window. This amazing coincidence so convinced the patient of synchronicity, that she made great progress in her therapy after that.

          My mom, a psychology major, was so struck by the strange beetle story, that she us all about it.

          On the night Grandpa Orvie died, my mom and her husband, Jim, awoke at the same time to an odd scratching sound in their bedroom. Turning on the light, they looked to see where the sound was coming from. They were shocked to see a big black bug on their dresser—a beetle! They had never seen one in the house before. Suddenly the scarab beetle story came to mind. Jim picked up the beetle and put it in a jar. They later read that it was sometimes called “a death watch beetle.” The following night, my mom found out that Orvie had died. When she heard the news, her sister Diane said that she had a dream about Orvie. In her dream, he said, “Tell Janet, ‘Good-bye.’”

*    *    *

          On Father’s Day, in the middle of the night, I awoke reluctantly to insistent tapping on the wooden headboard of my bed. It was a loud rhythmic pounding like a type of Morse code. Apparently, Orvie’s spirit was making his rounds. I felt his masculine energy in the room and sensed the aroma of his sweet cherry tobacco.

          I asked out loud, “Grandpa, is that you?”

          The tapping got faster, like he was excited that I knew he was there, and then the tapping stopped.     

          I asked him, “Do you want me to sing Wind Beneath My Wings at your funeral?”

          The tapping started again, loud and frantic.

          With that, I said, “OK then, I will.”

Then his energy left my room.

*  *  *

          I set up my music speakers and sound amplifier at Orvie’s funeral chapel. I was afraid I might lose my composure during the song, even though I had sung Wind Beneath My Wings hundreds of times professionally. This was different though. This was my own family. I felt more emotionally exposed than I ever have with any audience.

          Orvie had helped me buy my house in Minnesota which I later sold, enabling me to move to San Diego and live my dreams as a singer. The same lyrics suddenly took on deeper meaning as my grieving lungs exhaled the words: “Did you ever know that you’re my hero? And everything I would like to be. I can fly higher than an eagle, for you are the wind beneath my wings.”

          I got through the song without crying, but as soon as it was over, I wailed for my grandpa who was the wind beneath my West Coast dreams. After my performance, seeing my tears, my male relatives kindly helped me carry my heavy speakers and pack my car.

          Weak from grief, I sat outside the chapel on a wooden bench and admired the dainty white flowers waving at me. I recalled all the signs we had seen—my mom’s big black beetle, Aunt Diane’s mysterious moving donkey cart, her changed radio dial with big band music, and my tapping experience of Orvie’s antics in my room. He wanted me to sing this song for our family. With tears in my eyes, I looked up at the puffy clouds and saw a bright light shining through them. With gratitude for all he had done for me I said, “Thank you, Grandpa.” I smiled then, imagining Orvie reunited with his wife Sally, dancing in heaven.

A true story from Sprinkles from Heaven - Stories of Serendipity

by Carolyn Jaynes, M.A