You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘afterlife’ tag.
You may want to read the following story, previously posted on this blog, as background for this installment. The tale of Mavis’ Ladybug below has been excerpted from a chapter in my book, “Good Grief: Finding Peace After Pet Loss”.—Sid
Mavis’ Ladybug
I was blessed to know a phenomenal woman named Mavis Vitums
for more than a decade. There were more times than I could count
when I saw evidence of her doing the work of angels in people’s lives,
my own included. She was the most giving person I think I’ve ever
known. In her sixty-eight years on Earth, she had fostered dozens
upon dozens of children and later gave homes to adults in need of
foster care, including my stepfather Leonard and his mentally
retarded brother Benjamin, who both lived quite happily in Mavis’
home until their deaths in 2001 and 2003, respectively.
After years of battling numerous forms of cancer and heart disease
— after even having died twice in the ER and been resuscitated — she
finally chose to let herself stop fighting and truly transform into the
celestial being I knew she always was on the inside.
However, while she was in hospice care in her nursing home
room, a few days before she died, I had said to her, “Mavis, we have
to work out an important detail. What are you going to send me as a
sign that you’re around and doing all right once you pass? I want to
be able to recognize it.”
She thought a moment and then said with a grin, “A ladybug.
Red with black spots. I think they’re classy.”
Well, she died on September 19, 2007, and I was to perform a
wedding ceremony on September 21. I’d gone into the ladies’ restroom
at the golf course clubhouse in Shakopee, Minnesota, for a
final freshening up before the ceremony was to begin, and when I
reached into a basket of paper towels to dry my hands, I stopped
short because there, atop the stack of towels was a red ladybug with
black spots!
The members of the bridal party who’d been gathered there waiting
for the big moment said they’d seen it earlier and just thought,
“Oh that’s nice. It’s good luck.”
I told them of Mavis’ promise to send me a ladybug, and they
promptly cursed me out for making them all cry before the ceremony.
I put the bug on my left palm and ran around the party room, showing
as many of the 250 guests and/or wedding party members as I
could find. The ladybug just contentedly sat on my hand, occasionally
stretching its legs and preening but otherwise never budging. I
picked up my note cards and decided I would perform the ceremony
with a bug on my hand. The wedding went off without a hitch; I can’t
imagine where my newfound confidence could have come from!
My husband took a Polaroid picture of this as untampered-with
photographic evidence.
After about an hour of holding my palm turned upward, though, my
hand started to cramp. I said to the ladybug, “I’m going to have to have
you climb up on my dress, okay?”
As if it understood me, it began crawling toward my chest when I held
my hand next to me and wound up positioning itself on my dress approximatelywhere a brooch would go. It sat there for nearly another half-hour then got a little bit “antsy,” pardon the pun, and crawled along my collar.
I said to it, “Oh, I get it. You have to go now, right? I’ll take you
outside.”
I placed the bug back on my left palm, where it sat, pouting, legs
tucked in and unmoving. My husband, Anthony, and I went outside
to near the waterfall beside which I’d just performed the ceremony.
The ladybug remained motionless until I said, “I see some impatiens
in the rocks over there. I’ll put you there, okay?”
The instant I’d said that, the bug began crawling up my palm to
the tip of my index finger, just like a trained flea circus performer. I
placed my finger next to a leaf on the purple impatiens plant, and the
ladybug readily climbed onto it. I turned for just a second to hug my
husband and say tearfully to the heavens, “Mavis, you rock!”
When I turned back, the ladybug had disappeared.
Later on, as we were leaving, I saw Stacy, a.k.a. the new Mrs. Jake
Adelmann, racing across the parking lot like a runaway bride, only
she was running toward us. She called out, “Tell your friend how
grateful we are she came to our wedding!”
Now that you’re caught up, back to the current story…Yesterday, I took my four Westies for a walk around beautiful Lake Calhoun here in Minneapolis. As I prepared to get them out of the back seat of my car, I placed my keys on the roof and stopped in my tracks. There on top of my car and right next to where I’d laid my keys was a ladybug.
This has enormous significance because it was another gift sent from the Other Side by my dear, departed friend Mavis Vitums. The timing was incredible, too, because the ladybug showed up on the afternoon of my opening night of “The Dixie Swim Club,” a play in which I play Jeri Neal, currently staged by Expressions Community Theater at the Lakeville Area Arts Center.
A bit more backstory is needed here. A few years ago, just a few months after she died, Mavis surprised me with ladybugs on another opening night at the same venue. This one was during Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap,” in which I played Mrs. Boyle. It was my return to the stage after a long hiatus. I’d gone into the ladies’ room deep within the theater building, and I was greeted by two ladybugs on the bathroom mirror right before I went onstage. (This was late October in Minnesota, it was cold outside and quite well past ladybug season.)
Knowing that my dear, dear friend is still a fan of mine and following my “career” on the stage is both thrilling and deeply comforting to me. Every time she sends me these messages, she reminds me that she is not gone, merely transformed into another form of energy—evidently a form of energy that has a lot of clout with ladybugs!
Thank you, Mavis, for remaining my steadfast friend even after death! My every performance in this play is dedicated to your memory. XOXOX
P.S. Added Monday following the play’s opening weekend: Mavis sent another live ladybug, which landed on and stayed on a barrette on the back of Bonnie Rae’s (Vernadette) head during the show on Saturday night! As I was informed of this on Sunday, another live ladybug flew over our heads in the dressing room and landed on the window above my makeup station! I think Mavis loves the press she’s receiving from this!!!—Sid
"The Dixie Swim Club" cast L-R, seated, Pamela Page (Lexi), Bonnie Rae (Vernadette), Me (Sid Korpi/Jeri Neal), Megan Ward Trower (Dinah); standing, Kate Habegger (Sheree)
Do animals go to heaven? Do they have souls? I’ve been asked to weigh in, in my capacity as an animal chaplain and author of “Good Grief: Finding Peace After Pet Loss” as, together, we ponder these and other spiritual questions on “The Honoring Hour.”
Please join me and host Lynn Allen for “The Honoring Hour” Blog Talk Radio show tomorrow (Wed., April 6) at 10 a.m. Central/11 a.m. Eastern. Click on the link for the show now to get a reminder sent to your email or call in at 347-838-8944.
Here’s a description of this show from its website:
The Honoring Hour is a radio show on blogtalkradio.com respecting the collective One of all beings. The show is here to foster personal transformation by offering a variety of different teachings, techniques, perspectives and tools that help create change supporting peace on Earth. We recognize the innate perfection of every individual as the embodiment of Love, Peace, Joy and Prosperity.
The Honoring Hour will include interviews and discussions that support Divine Light and Love. Through offerings of service and wisdom, we seek to assist our listeners on their journey of contributing to the global awakening of consciousness and the manifestation of Heaven here on Earth. We honor all paths to God and look for the Truth that we all have in common rather than that which would keep us feeling separate.
We are dedicated to helping people experience and celebrate the power of Universal wisdom actively working in their daily lives. This show was created with the desire to support people in finding and pursuing their passion and life purpose.
Our Mission:
|
To awaken our Consciousness to Love’s Presence in each moment, person and encounter
|
|
| • |
To encourage each other in recognizing that true power lies in taking responsibility for the creation and actions of our own lives
|
| • |
To provide a variety of information to support the empowerment of each individual in taking the steps to create the life of their dreams, knowing that this is truly supporting everyone and everything
|
| • |
To live in Faith in all we do and support others to do the same
|
This past weekend, I performed a wedding ceremony alongside the shore of Lake Superior in Two Harbors, Minnesota. The setting alone was magical, but several things set apart this event as singularly meaningful for me. The first was that my hubby and I took a six-mile walk along the harbor that morning and at the end of the journey encountered a doe and her white-spotted fawn. I knew that was a wonderful omen for the ceremony that would take place later in the day. Then, an otherwise cool-ish, cloudy/foggy day miraculously cleared to temperate sunshine just half an hour before the ceremony. Finally, one of my most poignant experiences of the afterlife and our connection to those on the Other Side, as recounted in my book in the story Mavis’ Ladybug (pg. 76 excerpted below), came back to revisit me.
Mavis’ Ladybug
I was blessed to know a phenomenal woman named Mavis Vitums
for more than a decade. There were more times than I could count
when I saw evidence of her doing the work of angels in people’s lives,
my own included. She was the most giving person I think I’ve ever
known. In her sixty-eight years on Earth, she had fostered dozens
upon dozens of children and later gave homes to adults in need of
foster care, including my stepfather Leonard and his mentally
retarded brother Benjamin, who both lived quite happily in Mavis’
home until their deaths in 2001 and 2003, respectively.
After years of battling numerous forms of cancer and heart disease
— after even having died twice in the ER and been resuscitated — she
finally chose to let herself stop fighting and truly transform into the
celestial being I knew she always was on the inside.
However, while she was in hospice care in her nursing home
room, a few days before she died, I had said to her, “Mavis, we have
to work out an important detail. What are you going to send me as a
sign that you’re around and doing all right once you pass? I want to
be able to recognize it.”
She thought a moment and then said with a grin, “A ladybug.
Red with black spots. I think they’re classy.”
Well, she died on September 19, 2007, and I was to perform a
wedding ceremony on September 21. I’d gone into the ladies’ restroom
at the golf course clubhouse in Shakopee, Minnesota, for a
final freshening up before the ceremony was to begin, and when I
reached into a basket of paper towels to dry my hands, I stopped
short because there, atop the stack of towels was a red ladybug with
black spots!
The members of the bridal party who’d been gathered there waiting
for the big moment said they’d seen it earlier and just thought,
“Oh that’s nice. It’s good luck.”
I told them of Mavis’ promise to send me a ladybug, and they
promptly cursed me out for making them all cry before the ceremony.
I put the bug on my left palm and ran around the party room, showing
as many of the 250 guests and/or wedding party members as I
could find. The ladybug just contentedly sat on my hand, occasionally
stretching its legs and preening but otherwise never budging. I
picked up my note cards and decided I would perform the ceremony
with a bug on my hand. The wedding went off without a hitch; I can’t
imagine where my newfound confidence could have come from!
My husband took a Polaroid picture of this as untampered-with
photographic evidence.
After about an hour of holding my palm turned upward, though, my
hand started to cramp. I said to the ladybug, “I’m going to have to have
you climb up on my dress, okay?”
As if it understood me, it began crawling toward my chest when I held
my hand next to me and wound up positioning itself on my dress approximatelywhere a brooch would go. It sat there for nearly another half-hour then got a little bit “antsy,” pardon the pun, and crawled along my collar.
I said to it, “Oh, I get it. You have to go now, right? I’ll take you
outside.”
I placed the bug back on my left palm, where it sat, pouting, legs
tucked in and unmoving. My husband, Anthony, and I went outside
to near the waterfall beside which I’d just performed the ceremony.
The ladybug remained motionless until I said, “I see some impatiens
in the rocks over there. I’ll put you there, okay?”
The instant I’d said that, the bug began crawling up my palm to
the tip of my index finger, just like a trained flea circus performer. I
placed my finger next to a leaf on the purple impatiens plant, and the
ladybug readily climbed onto it. I turned for just a second to hug my
husband and say tearfully to the heavens, “Mavis, you rock!”
When I turned back, the ladybug had disappeared.
Later on, as we were leaving, I saw Stacy, a.k.a. the new Mrs. Jake
Adelmann, racing across the parking lot like a runaway bride, only
she was running toward us. She called out, “Tell your friend how
grateful we are she came to our wedding!”
Back to the present-day wedding. After we spotted the two deer that day, I had said aloud to my husband, Anthony, “Now all we need is a ladybug to make this wedding perfect!”
After the ceremony, Anthony and I were assigned seats at the table with the groom’s parents, grandparents and other family friends for the reception dinner. Later on in the evening, I was chatting with one of the family friends about my book, because she and her husband are animal lovers and she’d shared that her own neighbor had just lost her young chihuahua who’d been hit by a car, and for some reason I’d just started sharing the “Mavis’ Ladybug” story when my eye was suddenly drawn to the table’s centerpiece (made, I later found out, by the bride’s mother). Earlier on, I’d seen two ceramic mushrooms standing in a bed of succulent-like ground cover, thought it was a lovely arrangement but investigated it no further. When I took a closer look, however, chills broke out on my arms and I squealed in delight.
Set in the center of the table’s decoration was a vintage-looking box with the word and a picture of a LADYBUG. In its open slot was a ceramic ladybug itself! This was the only design of its kind in the whole room, and I was seated next to it! I took a photo of the arrangement as evidence, yet again, that Mavis was watching over me. (Double click on the photo to see it enlarged for detail.)
If all this weren’t twitterpating enough, I learned the reason the bride’s mother had chosen this particular item was because when her daughter was a teenager, her nickname was “Ladybug”!! (When she saw me totally spazzing over it, the bride’s mother kindly agreed to go to the store where she’d found this one and send me one of the ladybugs as a memento. Anthony gave her the money to cover the purchase.)
Then, she topped all this off by my telling me that she and her husband had seven adopted children and, over the years, 19 fostered kids—giving homes and love to those who need it most—just like Mavis had!!! Don’t hand me “coincidence” here. This is what miracles are made of in my world!
Mavis, you continue to rock, nearly three years after your passing from this physical plane!! The afterlife connections continue, and I am forever grateful!
Goodgriefpetloss's Blog 