nightlights and faith

I was just talking to the bathroom nightlight.

It started blinking as I walked in the room, as it so often does, even though the lighting in the room hasn’t changed a bit (it is light-activated). It had been in our hallway at the old house for years. We’d always take it with us when traveling. Not a single time had I ever seen it blink.

Until Pete died.

It’s usually in the kitchen, which, because we are living in a studio apartment right now (somewhat appropriate, since Pete and I first lived together in a studio no larger than this), is simply across the room from my bed. After we moved in here, I noticed that it would often blink on and off once or twice late at night, always when I was lying in bed at night scrolling on my phone when I should have been sleeping. Pete was always reminding me to go to bed when I would inevitably say I was exhausted and heading to bed and then get caught scrolling my phone on the couch for three more hours. So from that first blinking encounter, it felt so much like it was Pete reminding me to go to bed.

I often say something out loud to him when it happens. Something quick; a “love you” or a “goodnight, baby” or a “miss you.” Sometimes I cry. But I always feel like it’s Pete making it blink.

I recently had to move it into the bathroom so Axl could see if he needed to go in there at night. I can’t see it from my bed anymore, so I haven’t noticed it blink in too long. But tonight, as I was popping into the dark bathroom, it flashed quickly as I entered.

I was thinking to myself, do I really believe that is Pete? I’m exploring a lot of different possibilities as far as where I believe Pete is now and to what extent we can communicate with each other from wherever he is, but I draw the line at believing he can read my mind. As I completed that thought, it blinked once more.

I immediately started crying. Out loud, I told him I loved him. 

Blink.

After several sobs, “I miss you.”

Blink.

Again, more sobbing.

“Are you happy?” Blink.

“Are you proud of me?” Blink. Blink.

Then my sobs turned into heaves. The light stayed off as I cried. And cried. And cried.

Trying to compose myself, I told him–out loud: “I have to *sob* go do *sob* work.”

Blink.

I placed my palm on the gently glowing light and felt the faint warmth from the bulb. I whispered to him that I just wanted to sit here all night and stare at this stupid nightlight like an insane person.

Blink. Blink.

It’s like I could hear exactly what he would say to me. Telling me to go do my work, go about my life, not sit here in the bathroom sobbing when there were so many other things I needed and wanted to be doing. But I couldn’t walk away, it felt like I was walking away from him. So I asked, again out loud, again like an insane person, if he would come to the living room with me.

Blink. Blink.

“You promise? Really?”

Blink. Blink.

And here I am. Furiously writing this down so I don’t forget it later. The same way I’ve been meaning to write down all sorts of other things I want to remember–like the dragonflies and butterflies that keep following me around. The uncanny things the boys do that are exactly like you. “King” the stray tabby cat that showed up at our doorstep. I know you are sending us things all the time, and I’m only just now (after seven months) learning how to be brave enough to look around for them. Now I have to get into the habit of writing them down, because I never ever ever want to forget. I never want the boys to forget. I want them to always know how much you’re still out there; I want to teach them how to mine for the pieces of you that are embedded in everything we do, in every fiber of the three of us. 

For years and years and years it was Pete and I alone, conquering the world. No local family, never hanging out with anyone but each other, each happy as shit to get to spend every day in the home we bought, with the kids we made, entrenched in the life we built together. Doing the dishes and playing with the kids and working in the garden. We were satisfied by the simplest of things and I think we were both incredibly grateful for the life we had. Once we had kids, we also had these physical manifestations of all the best parts of both of us. Each a little mirror, reflecting back at us the most rewarding and difficult lessons we’d ever faced. We only got to parent together for four and a half short years, but the foundations of our parenting were built so f*cking strong that I’m confident about every parenting decision I need to make without you. I know exactly what you would want, and exactly the conversations we’d have. I even seem to know exactly who would win, because I make many decisions based on what I know you would say or want. Even in death, we’re still somehow a team. We’re still compromising and rationalizing, and imagining your voice in my head helps me work through any answer I need to know.

Is this what god feels like?

I keep wondering that.

I’ve never in my life believed in capital-G God. I’ve dabbled in lowercase “god” as an abstract, spiritual concept pertaining to how the universe has a greater purpose for us all. But as far as heaven and hell go, as far as baptisms and holy water and praying to a man in the sky? Not my thing. Not even after losing my husband and father-in-law suddenly this year, and preparing for the loss of someone else very dear to me. Maybe even especially after going through this. God is worthless to me. God as everyone wants me to believe in him just seems like a cruel, cruel motherf*cker. I don’t like feeling that way. I don’t like feeling like terrible things happen because some stupid Sky Daddy said it must be so.

And yet. I find myself aching to go to church. Because my faith (which, to me, doesn’t have to have jack shit to do with religion) is at an all time high. The inner peace I have, even despite all that’s happened, is… honestly shocking to me on a daily basis. Nothing feels all that scary. I feel almost fearless; sure with every bone in my body that what’s meant for us won’t pass us by, and what slips through our fingertips was never ours. I believe in Pete, in the honorable father he was, in his imperfections but demand for things to be just and fair and done right. I’d seen him help elderly women cross the street, help a pregnant friend install a window AC, help another build a bedframe from scratch. He could be stubborn, but he was reliable to a fault and he was a protector who you knew you could trust. All qualities I’m pretty sure most church-goers would tell you Jesus was reported to have. 

So, in a way, I understand the whole blind faith thing. I understand the tranquility that comes from putting your destiny in the hands of something greater, of believing that life is a journey you’re on and your only job is to follow the path laid out before you while also doing good in the world. I believe that all these “dreams” of mine that are coming to fruition since Pete died are merely things I was always meant to do, and I could feel it. Maybe I could see glimpses of the path ahead, little shimmers of light, tiny constellations to follow that were drawing out a map all along. After years and years of wandering around, searching for my purpose, my husband dropped dead on a random Monday for no reason, and for some bizarre f*cking reason, my whole self went “Oh. There it is.”

And now here I am, talking to nightlights. How is that really any different from talking to God? I’m just another person constantly seeking signs from someone that everything is going to be okay. But I don’t need or want them from God. I need and want from from Pete. And I think I’m getting them, all around me, constantly. So I think I might get along just fine with the church crowd. I think I want to make casseroles and chat with little old ladies over donuts on Sundays. I might want to sing in the choir or play ukulele during the services. I might want my kids to learn about God, so on the drive home we can talk about how God can be a metaphor for Daddy. If they can be taught about what a good man God is, maybe it can help them understand what kind of man their dad was.

Does all this sound crazy? Am I crazy?

I mean. I’m talking to blinking nightlights. I’m clearly not the sanest.

But tonight it just felt good to choose to believe. And it felt even better to feel like Pete was talking to me. And I am learning that the only medicine for grief is faith in something.