Special anniversary

I was going to write about Lebanon, Illinois, and my trip this weekend to that wonderful city and the great time I had on the ghost tour, but that’s going to wait. I want to share what I believe to be a special experience that happened today.

I really do believe my father-in-law called to wish my husband and I a happy 30th anniversary. Why is this experience so special? He’s been dead for more than 30 years. I’ve written before about how I believe he’s stopped in every now and again to visit us, usually when something good or big is happening in our lives.

Flashback: When my niece was confirmed in the Lutheran Church, my mother-in-law and I were sitting in her living room and my hubby was in the kitchen of her home. He couldn’t see us, so he didn’t see this happen. My mother-in-law said she wished my hubby’s dad could be there to see his granddaughter confirmed. Just then the lamp sitting on the table flickered twice. The lamp was one that turned on and off with a tap (a touch lamp). It flicked off and on, very quickly, twice.

My mother-in-law and I looked at each other. We didn’t say anything, but we looked at each other. I told my hubby about it later.

I honestly thought at the time that it was him saying, “Hey, I’m here!” It was his way of letting us know that he wouldn’t miss such as big event in his granddaughter‘s life. For the record, I’d never seen that lamp do that before, and I haven’t seen it do it since. It stuck in my mind because I thought it was very cool.

Flash Forward. Today (Oct. 3) was my husband and my 30th anniversary. I had been at work for a while and my hubby was at home. All of a sudden, my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my purse and looked at the display. It was my hubby’s cell phone calling, and I was kind of surprised because I couldn’t figure out what he wanted, since he’d left not too long before.

I opened the phone to answer it (no, I don’t have a smart phone, but my hubby does). At first, I didn’t hear anyone on the other end, but I answered it. There was no answer to my “hello.” I looked down and saw that the connection was there, and said “hello” again. This time, my hubby’s voice came over the line.

He’d been holding his phone, but he hadn’t called me. He heard my voice coming over the phone and answered, but he hadn’t “dialed” it. His phone called me. He said “I swear, I didn’t call you, my phone did.”

I started laughing and said, “Your dad called.”

It’s a smart phone. It operates with a touch. Kinda like the lamp?

I know there’s plenty of people out there who are going to pooh-pooh what happened, and while I will acknowledge there are possible natural explanations for it, I believe it was him, getting us on the line as a way of saying “happy anniversary” to both of us. And I know he’s smiling down at us and laughing at how clever he was, using our technology to call on our anniversary. I won’t be the least bit surprised if it never happens again.

Sometime, someday, we’re going to meet again, on the other side, whatever the “other side” is, and he’s going to look at me and say, “You got it!!”

Remember, it’s the little things. A special happy anniversary.

Thanks, Bub. I got it.