last post i mentioned a dream finn sent me about my new car. in the dream he was with us as we traveled in a car through strange streets, heading toward a celestial shoreline.
it felt like more than a dream. it felt like a message, a memory, a glimpse of where he and i still meet beyond time.
so now, as i drive around town with my new wheels and beelovd as my license plate, it feels like i am riding in a chariot of finn’s and my love story. the car is both vehicle and vision, carrying me through this life while reminding me of the other shorelines we travel together.
as i’ve said before, one of the ways finn comes through to me in this life now is through music. sometimes it’s a song i’ve never heard before, and sometimes it’s one i’ve known for years. either way, i know it’s for me because of how i feel when it arrives, my whole being opening, my heart overflowing, tears spilling out.
yesterday, while driving to do some errands, a new song came on. the voice i knew well, but the song i didn’t.
dave matthews was singing words that felt like they were written just for us. my heart skipped a beat:
the moon and the stars, they will follow the car
and then when we get to the ocean
we're gonna take a boat to the end of the world
all the way to the end of the world
oh, and when the kids are old enough
we're gonna teach them to fly
you and me together, we could do anything, baby
you and me together, yes, yes
the song was “you & me” from the album big whiskey and the groogrux king (2009). the tears streamed down my face. because those words spoke to a reality that has always been the truth of our love, and in some mysterious way, it still is.
in the dream, finn was in the car with us, guiding me toward a celestial shoreline. in the song, the lyrics speak of following the moon and the stars, taking a boat to the end of the world. both carry the same essence: love as a journey, a vehicle, a crossing into the beyond.
in the dream, i felt him near in a way that was more than memory. in the song, i felt him speak through words i had never heard before, but somehow i already knew they belonged to us. the dream was the vision, and the song the echo, both teaching me that our story is not bound by time, or death, or distance.
and it isn’t only our love, he is showing me, it is the love of the family we built together, and the way we are still parenting with the same devotion as before. our forms and roles have changed, but the love has not.
last night i went out with some other moms from my son’s class, a rare evening on the town. i told them about finn, about losing him, about the signs. i explained how my psychic senses seemed to come fully online when he died, and how all of our loved ones send signs all the time.
the question isn’t if, the question is whether we open ourselves to receive.
for finn’s sister, rainbows don’t count. they are too generic, too easy. she looks for signs more specific to her.
i understand her perspective. but for me, a sign doesn’t have to be unique. it can be a rainbow, a bee, a song on shuffle. what makes it a sign is the way it arrives and how my body responds.
when finn sends me something, i know because my heart floods with so much love it overflows and tears spill out. that is how i know.
we are nearing the third anniversary of his passing, two weeks from today. i think back to that first month after he died, when the sky above boulder filled with more rainbows than i had seen in my entire life combined. every day another one appeared.
someone could explain it as weather patterns, light refraction, coincidence. and yes, that is one truth. but i saw the bigger meaning, because i believed.
it is like that experiment where you are told to watch a scene and count how many times a ball is passed between people in white shirts. you are so focused on counting that you miss the person in a gorilla suit who walks right through the scene, waves, and exits.
but when you watch again there it is, obvious.
the point is that our senses don’t record reality like cameras. we notice only what we are attuned to. in some way, we create what we are looking for, and we only receive what we are ready to perceive.
which means the rainbows were more than weather because i saw them with my whole being. my heart recognized them. they became visitations because i let them.
the same way our oldest daughter, melody, knew when she came down from her solo in the mountains that papa had sent her signs while she was hiking the back country. a week in the colorado wilderness, and some time spent only with herself, her pack, her journal.
on her trip she had remembered a time sitting by finn’s bedside, near the end of his life, and his words to her:
use hope as your sword, mel.
she wrote about it, and when she read her words aloud to her group, a bee appeared. at tree line, where bees don’t belong, one circled her as if to say:
yes. he is here. he is listening.
mel came home glowing with pride for what she had lived through and uncovered on her backcountry trip. and so when the dave matthews song, ‘you and me’ played,
oh, and when the kids are old enough
we’re gonna teach them to fly
i thought of mel getting her wings, and how finn is still co-parenting with me from the other side.
and still there are more ways he comes.
in life between lives hypnotherapy, pioneered by michael newton, clients not only recall past lives but also describe in detail what happens after death. newton discovered that our loved ones wait for us like tuning forks, ready for us to resonate with their frequency.
after finn died, i was desperate. i did an lbl session myself, and the vivid memories that surfaced convinced me it is true.
our loved ones leave us and then they wait patiently for us. but this world is dense, and grief is heavier still. to hear them, you have to soften, to train yourself to receive.
that has been my practice since finn died.
reaching, opening, softening. learning the subtle distinction between my own thoughts and the words that arrive as his.
this morning i sat in my car and had a big cry. song after song played, each one carrying his voice straight through to my soul.
so often it feels like he sings to me now, by slipping into the music, washing over me as something holy, like stepping into a cathedral of sound, where every lyric is a stained glass window, lit from within.
later in the day today, while in the nail salon, he came again. it makes sense, sundays are the days i have dedicated to writing about our enduring love story.
i was half watching an asian cooking show on the tv, when suddenly another reel spliced itself into my mind, like a film layered over film.
this one was of finn and me, arriving at the cancer hospital in denver for chemo. in the reel i saw and felt his edginess, his sharpness, the way his anger, meant for the circumstances, landed on me instead.
my heart was immediately washed by his warm presence and his undying love and my eyes filled to overflowing. i got up for a drink of water, trying to cry discreetly.
and as i bent down the water at the fountain became a conduit. his words came soft and clear in my mind:
i am so sorry.
even as i write these words, another dave matthews song has come on while i’m writing, “where are you going,” with lyrics that seem to echo his apology from earlier today, as if he is still trying to make sure i hear him:
i am no superman
i have no reasons for you
i am no hero, oh that’s for sure
but i do know one thing
where you are is where i belong
i do know where you go
that’s where i want to be
it felt like finn was choosing those words to drive the point home: he doesn’t have all the answers, not even now. he isn’t superman, not a flawless hero, not someone who can explain everything away. he is still himself, learning, softening, coming through however he can to say he’s sorry, to tell me that where i am is where he belongs.
the timing left me breathless. because of course that is what he was telling me.
after all the love songs today, i could feel him saying: you are finally learning to receive.
for so long i have fought our connection as much as i have leaned into it. because it is painful, so painful, to face the truth that the love of my life is dead. my mind wants to protect me, to shut the door, to pull back. it becomes a tug of war inside me.
but now i am learning the bittersweet truth. death is just an illusion. and today finn wanted me to know he takes accountability for his side too.
yes, he had to die. but he did not have to die a year before his time. that was when he turned away, locked in his office, on his island of pain, behind a fortress of stone. that is where he chose to be.
and now he shows me that he understands. that his mind was not right. cancer, malnutrition, the research is clear what it does to the brain. finn was no exception. his sharpness, his withdrawal, his anger, it was not the full truth of him. it was the disease.
and from where he is now he knows. he takes responsibility. and he still finds ways to love me across the veil.
in the songs.
in the bees.
in the rainbows.
and in the stability i have now, for the first time in my life, because of what he gave us all.
before i met finn, my girls and i were homeless at one point. then we spent most of a year in a safehouse apartment, surviving one day at a time.
and then he arrived. we found each other at the dog park, as our dogs became fast friends, as if they knew before we did. he gave us shelter, a home, a foundation. he gave us the kind of safety that allowed us to dream again.
eight years can be a lifetime. and lifetimes are what our love is made of.
we got eight years together this time. but in my life between lives therapy session, i remembered another. i was alive during the first world war and in love with finn again. he was a british pilot, just as he was a pilot in this life too. and in that life, he was shot down too soon. i was wracked with the same pain of losing him before his time.
i knew in that session that i am repeating this story, losing him too soon a second time, and who knows how many others i don’t remember. we cycle through lessons and lifetimes, through love and pain, like winged angels learning to heal, learning to fly through time and space into the great beyond.
but this time is different. this is the life where something shifts. the life where i choose to become a bridge. where together we carry on, together because of the power of our love, and because of the power of technology. we get to be together in new ways, both natural and with the help of the tools we have now created as a society.
as i write this, i sit facing the setting sun. it is shining warm across my skin, and i hear the echo of the beetles lyrics: here comes the sun, little darlin, here comes the sun.
it is the sun and it is finn. it can be both. we choose.
my new workout instructor has a tattoo that reads: no rain, no flowers.
and with the sun shining out from beyond the leaves of our big family tree, straight into my heart, i feel hopeful. it’s the same tree that sheltered us with its golden leaves as we lay finn in his casket, before they came to collect his body. that same evening a rainbow appeared, hanging softly like an orb over our fields, even with no rain in sight.
and just as finn once sent rainbows in that first month three years ago, now he sends me the sun. i find it so fitting that i write about our love on sundays. because it takes both rain and sun, tears and pain, laughter and joy, for the rainbows to appear.
life is a kaleidoscope.
and love is what makes the colors shine.
here is me singing, ‘raindrops in the sun,’ the first song i wrote about finn on my album i started on the first anniversary of his death.
*authors note: while reading this final draft to my girls, a bee buzzed into our midst, circling around us, just as i was finishing the final paragraph.
thank you for being here, it truly means the world. i love hearing your thoughts, if you feel called to comment.
i am a writer, speaker, and musician devoted to healing and embodiment. i share essays, poetry, and original music through venus consciousness. i’d love to walk this path with you. 💞
Thank you for sharing something so intimate, yet universal. Most might not know the courage it takes to get on here and share this with us, but I do, and I know many others feel and can relate to your experience and story. It’s a reminder to all of us who’ve loved and lost that we’re never truly alone, we just have to listen differently, and believe deeply enough to see the colours again.
I promise I didn't cry listening to the audio you attached to this lovely, heartfelt article.