Before-bed read

After her beloved father passed away, Monica A. Adermann was struggling to find her way through the maze of grief and sadness…until, to her surprise, she got a beautiful sign of comfort from Heaven

Ihung my jeans in the closet at the top of the stairs as I half-listened to the television droning in the living room below. I bent to scoop up several pennies that lay on the closet f loor. They must have fallen out of my pants pockets, I thought absentmindedly as I closed the door.

Normally, I would have done my chores to the sound of the radio or one of the CDs from my collection. That day, though, I didn’t have the heart to listen to songs, upbeat or otherwise. The man who had nurtured my appreciation of music—my dad—had passed away only the day before.

Our shared love of music had started early when Dad taught me my first tune on the piano. If I closed my eyes now, I could still see him transcribing an old folk song into an arrangement easy enough for me to play as I eagerly waited by his side.

Through the years, music was the one thing that bonded us. It seemed that, though we were devoted to one another, we didn’t always agree on much else. But when it came to music, we were both on board. We enjoyed the same artists, shared facts and fascinations about them, and often sat together, listening and commenting on instrumentation and arrangements. When I sat down to play the

“For me, there could be no surer sign. After all, music was always the way Dad and I connected best”

piano, Dad would invariably comment at the end of my performance. “I really enjoyed that,” he’d say, even though my level of skill was nowhere close to his.

During the two years of Dad’s health decline, I cared for him in his home with the help of some wonderful aides. As I puttered in the kitchen, I often heard him in his bedroom down the hall singing along with the radio or tapping out a beat on the table next to his bed. When he had enough energy, he would come to the keyboard and entertain us with his favorite selection of jazz standards, swing tunes and oldies. It seemed that there, he was ageless. Those were bright moments in a dark time.

How long, I wondered now as I climbed back up the stairs, will it take before the world seems bright again? How long before I enjoy a song again? I opened the closet door and hung a few T-shirts on hangers. I thought I had gotten all the pennies off the floor earlier, yet there lay several more. I grabbed them and put them in my pocket before returning to the first floor, the television still droning out the sounds of some old movie. As I reached for the remote to change the channel, I noticed another pair of jeans to be put away. I certainly didn’t feel like going up those stairs again, but I grabbed the pants and made my way back to the second floor. I opened the door. Was I losing my mind, or was that closet growing pennies? This time, I scooped up a handful of coins.

My friend Elizabeth would have called these “pennies from heaven.” Having lost her dad only a few months earlier, she told me how, each time she went to visit his grave site, she never failed to find a few pennies there.

“It’s a message from my dad,” she explained. “He’s telling me he’s still watching over me.”

Well, I knew about pennies from heaven, too, but in a different context. I knew it as the title of one of my favorite songs from Dad’s repertoire. While I would have liked a sign, too, a bunch of coins strewn in a public place or even in my closet hardly qualified as a message from beyond as far as I was concerned. I closed the closet door once more, determined not to climb the stairs again that evening.

Now, where did I put that remote control? I wondered as the sound of the television began to irritate me more and more. I had just laid hands on it when a song began to play. I recognized it instantly. It was “Pennies from Heaven.”

Now there was no denying it: Dad was sending me a message. For me, there could be no surer sign. After all, music was always the way Dad and I connected best. I smiled as I jangled the coins in my pocket. Thanks, Dad, for the music. For the pennies. For the sign. Thanks, Dad, for everything.