Anniversaries usually represent happy times. But the latest anniversary in my life was not a celebration. It was a remembrance of my mother’s passing.

I had sought a sign from her last year. Something that indicated to me that she was somehow still around.

It was night and nothing.

I was putting my then 4-year old daughter to bed when she suddenly turned, stared at the ceiling and said, “Whose face is that?”

I didn’t see anything, except maybe lint.

“I don’t know, Mimi, whose face is it?”

“Grandma Rae,” she said. Rae is my mother.

I smiled. I had my sign.

This year I was so busy that though I was aware of the date and sad, I didn’t really think about receiving a sign.

I had a meeting that day with my daughter’s teachers to discuss her progress and to ask for advice on how to get her to do her homework.

Since she loves art, they suggested that she draw a picture and then write a sentence describing it.

In the evening Mimi drew a picture. It was a unicorn with a rainbow below it.

“We need to write a sentence and sound it out,” I explained.

“The unicorn flies over the rainbow,” she said.

My mother’s favorite song was Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

I smiled. I had my sign.

Though my mother and daughter have never met, I somehow get the feeling that somewhere, some place, they have.

By Dawn Yun

Labels: anniversaries, By Dawn Yun, celebration, mother's passing, sign, Somewhere Over the Rainbow

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