I Saw God

I saw God yesterday.

Every day I try to visit my grandmother. My routine is. Say hello and give her a brief summary of my day. And let her know how G-Pa is doing without her. I used to sit with her, but there’s like nature and stuff out there. Mosquitoes. So I sit in my car and open up all the windows and the two front doors.

I am a country girl. I now live in a town. I can hear the neighbors’ phone ring. I will never remember to close the blinds when I walk around naked. So, visiting her—is a quiet reprieve. No one bothers me. I can yell, cry, or rend my clothes. Although I am fairly certain that someone called the cops on me once because I was sitting there in my car too long. However, after a drive-by I think they decided that me, my out-of-state plated Sonata, cigarettes, and Kindle were no immediate threat to the neighborhood at large.

I will be honest. I started visiting her because when I started spending so much time out here, before I moved it, it was bloody cold out! The leading cause of death among smokers in the winter is hypothermia. So—if you run the car with the heat on for a while, turn it off, roll down the window, smoke, and roll the window back up, put the heat back on for a while, you can turn it off and stay warmer than you’d think.

Then I really enjoyed being there with my grandmother. I can still smell her hair when I would lean in and kiss her and say, “I love you. I’m glad I’m here. Goodnight.” Her Time magazine is still open to the same page as she left it before she made lunch that day. It was an article on Cuba circa 2012. Her knitting and books are as they were. Her watch is still on G-Pa’s dresser.

“This too shall pass,” she told me right before my world fell apart and I started down the path of where I am now: divorced, traumatized, disabled, jobless, depressed, sometimes hopeless, two nut-house stays in my past, and an OD to add to my resume. “This too shall pass.” I’m still waiting. She wouldn’t lie to me.

(General hint: if you take 150 pills, make sure they stay down, because throwing them up reduces the effect. And, not being alone also reduces the likelihood of success. And do you research on the pills. I had the right combo, but not the right situation. Mother Mary didn’t want me. So I must be here for some reason. Unless God just enjoys torturing my family.)

My ritual: say hello to grandma, say my prayers, rosary, novena, etc.; read my Kindle, drink my coffee, and over the course of over an hour allow myself two wonderful, life-worth-living cigarettes.

Yesterday I said my prayers. I was calling on all the Saints. Let me tell you. St. Jude, Patron Saint of Lost Causes, and I are tight. And, to his credit—he got me a car. Bless St. Jude. After I said my prayers, an amber-winged dragonfly flew into my car and lighted on my rosary hanging from the rearview mirror. I was in awe. Dragonflies are my—the Catholic way of saying a Spirit-Guide would be my Shorthand Between Me and the Big Guy. My ink proves it. The dragonfly was still. Of course I fumbled with my phone to take a picture—BUT I was aware that I needed to live in and stay in the moment. No picture. The dragonfly flew into the back seat and got trapped in the rear window. I tumbled into the back seat, phone forgotten, and carefully, oh so gently held him in my hands. His terrified, beating wings and writhing body tickled the inside of the hand. I gently got him to the front of the car and let him fly out the passenger-side door.

I saw God.

Thank you God: Mother Mary; Christ; St. Jude; St. Brigid; St. Therese; and Archangel Michael. Thank you.

I glimpsed the unfathomable depths of the Infinite.

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em and God Bless.

PS-I am not proofreading my blog posts yet. Just writing is a HUGE accomplishment. Thank you St. Brigid.