An unforgettable sign from Heaven

After her grandmother passed, Erin T. Hives was heartbroken…until she got a message of hope from above

As I arrived home from school one afternoon, I could hear my grandmother calling out to me. “Come and see what I found today!” My “Nan,” Kathleen, had lived with my mum, my sister and me ever since I was a baby.

I raced to her bedroom and found that she was holding something small. “I found this today,” she said. I saw a decent-sized four-leaf clover in her hand. She explained how very lucky it was to find one with four leaves. Nan, who was into good-luck omens and was very superstitious, seemed pleased with her find. She felt the safest place for it was her prayer book, which she took to church every Sunday.

From time to time, I would ask to look at the four-leaf clover in the prayer book. It was something special that we shared.

When I was 25, Nan passed away at the age of 89. My mum and I went to pick up her belongings at the nursing home where she lived then, and we were saddened to be handed a garbage bag with all her belongings thrown in it, including the prayer book.

A couple of weeks later, I asked my mum about Nan’s things. She said that she kept some stuff that was worth saving as a remembrance, but had to throw away some things as well. The prayer book was full of religious cards that looked like bookmarks. “I have taken out all the religious cards. The book is water-damaged and ready to be chucked in the bin,” Mum said.

“Is the four-leaf clover still in there?” I asked hopefully.

“No way. That four-leaf clover would be long gone. It’s definitely not in there,” Mum said.

I flipped through the pages of the prayer book just to be sure, hoping to see a glimpse of green, but Mum was right. It was empty.

“Do you want the book anyway?” Mum asked as I looked down at the damaged book. It had certainly seen better days, but I couldn’t throw it away, so I kept it.

Over the next few years, I would often take out the prayer book and flip through the pages, hoping to see the four-leaf clover. I even pressed a rose from a dear friend’s funeral in the prayer book.

Fast-forward 10 years. I was 35 and going through a very depressing period in my life. I would often come home alone and spend the night in tears. After a particularly bad night of feeling down and crying myself to sleep, I woke the next day with the feeling that I needed to check the prayer book. But I had to rush off to work, so I left it out on the kitchen bench. On returning home that afternoon, the prayer book caught my eye as I entered the house. This time, a strong feeling came over me, and I started to check every page. About 1,000 pages in, something caught my eye. I couldn’t believe it! My hands started to shake as I spied the fourleaf clover. I called my mum straight away. We thought it was a sign from Nan, right when I needed it.

Weeks later, the signs continued. The preschool where I worked started to grow a small patch of clovers in a little garden bed where we were trying to grow grass. I explained to the children that it was lucky to find a clover with four leaves on it. Over the next three weeks, the children and staff members found almost 30 four-leaf clovers! The children thought it was amazing and fun. The staff members who needed the most luck—one whose dad had just passed, one who lost her mum, one who was having pregnancy troubles and one who needed help with her studies—were the ones who always found them.

As for myself, I found 17 four-leaf clovers over three weeks. I couldn’t believe it! Nan was sending me luck, and my life started changing for the better. I am so happy I didn’t throw out that old prayer book.

—Erin T. Hives

“I couldn’t believe it! My hands shook as I spied the fourleaf clover”