I took some time off during the winter break, to spend with my children, relax, and get away to nature. I have some vitamins I take regularly because they help me sleep, and I realized I was running low on them and should order more, but I was busy preparing the big meal for Christmas, and didn’t do it. I remember taking the last one and thinking, ‘I’ve got to order more of these.’ And still didn’t do it.
Then, I was packing to go stay in a cabin for a few days where we could play in the snow, go cross country skiing, and build snowmen. I told myself I would stop at Bi-mart on the way out of town and buy some there.
I got half way to the snow and realized I hadn’t stopped to buy them. I then told myself I would ask my son, who was coming to join us in the snow, to pick some up on the way.
I slept poorly that night in the snow. I had forgotten a second vitamin and managed to remember to ask him to bring the second one, but still forgot to ask him to buy the first one. I felt like kicking myself when he arrived and I realized I hadn’t asked him to stop and buy that vitamin. I wouldn’t be able to order any while I was gone because the internet was too weak out there. We could text, but no internet, and no phone calls.
We had a great time out in the snow, even with less sleep than usual. It was rustic, quiet, and alive with nature sounds. Out back was the creek, nearly a river, gurgling as it raced by. In front and to the sides were trees and snow, the nearest neighbors probably a hundred yards away at least.
We are always glad to get home again, to our beds, to our animals, and to our comforts, though. I was putting everything away, thinking that right afterwards I would order vitamins, when, lo and behold, I found a bottle of the vitamins. They hadn’t been there when I left and they were not the brand I regularly ordered. They were not even the size I usually ordered. This was a better quality, more expensive brand, with fewer gel-caps to the bottle. My husband had gone to L.A. and hadn’t returned yet and no one had been staying in the house while we were gone. The only person I could think of who could have provided me with the vitamin I had been thinking about, was the one person I love who does not exist in the physical world, my deceased son. He has given me so many gifts.
When I thought of him, and thanked him for the vitamins, I saw an image of him in my mind’s eye, with this seventeenth century outfit on. He touches his cap, bows his head slightly, and puts his heal forward. It’s a sort of an ‘at your service’ pose…