The rosary

Michelle's recent blog about orbs made me think about the night I lay awake talking to a rosary.

It's crazy inside my head sometimes. Truly, it is. But grasping at straws becomes second nature when you're so lonely for someone you miss so much.

I should clarify that I don't think Michelle is crazy. I know most orbs are probably dust or reflections, but I don't doubt that it's possible that some of them are glimpses of other worldly entities; of realms we will never fully understand until we become part of that other world.

But I do think it was probably crazy to be talking to a rosary.

My Beloved was asleep when I crawled into bed that night. I rolled onto my side to grab a book off my night table and saw the rosary that I have hanging from Thomas' framed hand and footprints swinging back and forth, all by itself.

It was a gift from my sister, the rosary. She brought it back from St. Patrick's Cathedral when she visited New York City last summer. The best place I could think for it to go (lest it get shoved to the back of my night table drawer with my other woefully unused rosaries) was hanging on the frame, and that's where it had been for months and months.

I'd never noticed it moving before. Ever. Not when the window was open, not when the heat from the heat register below the window was blowing - never. The thing just hung there quiet and motionless.

But I swear to God it was moving that night. That windless, winter night.

So of course I assumed it was Thomas trying to contact me. I was tired and sad and it was comforting to think he might be trying to reach me - to let me know that he was close.

I watched it for a long time, and then I started to talk to it - to Thomas through it. I whispered for it to stop swinging if it was him - and it slowed down almost to a halt before picking up speed and swinging again. I swear it - it did. It really did.

At least I think it did. At some point I'm pretty sure I drifted off (mumbling to the dangling rosary) and so I don't actually know what was real and what was a figment of my grief-stricken imagination.

I dozed, mumbled and watched the rosary until it finally occurred to me that what I was doing was truly walking the razor's edge, and at that point I shut my light off and went to sleep.

I admit that I'm probably just crazy. But the thing is, I haven't seen the rosary swinging since - not even on the windiest spring days. Not when the vent is blowing. Never.

But I know it was swinging that night. I don't know if it was Thomas, or God himself for that matter, but since I have no other explanation (and don't particularly want one anyway) I'm going to carry on thinking it was Thomas.

No one ever dreamed he'd die. It was inconceivable - not even remotely within the realm of possibility. But he did. So it doesn't seem that strange to me to think that maybe he can reach out to me when he wants to - when I need him too.

Anything's possible these days.