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I’ve titled this store and city sign photos series: “Missing Al”.

And the photos of the card: “Alice IS in Wonderland”.

They’re part of my album that I’ve titled: “Signs from my Sister”.

The story behind the photos follows below. It’s long and personal and I’m not a writer, but I wanted to share it here with the photos:

It’s been 6 months since my sister Alice unexpectedly passed away from cancer, but some days my grief is so strong that it feels like it was just yesterday.

She passed away in January. She had recently found out that she had cancer and then just a week later, she was gone. There was no time to say good-bye. My birthday was 5 days before she died. She’s 13 years older than I am and this was the first time that she had missed wishing me a Happy Birthday. She was too sick to remember my birthday this year.

After getting the call from my sister Elaine on the morning of January 23rd letting me know that Alice had just passed away, I went over to my mom’s to be with her and on my way home that night, I had the feeling that I should stop at my Post Office Box to pick up my mail. I was tired and just wanted to go home, but the feeling persisted, so I stopped at the Post Office.

It had been a horribly long and emotionally draining day for me and after picking up my mail, I called my mom to let her know that I got home okay and to check on her to make sure that she was okay and while I was on the phone with her, I opened a birthday card that I had gotten from a friend and his mother.

I was expecting the card, because I had gotten a message on my answering machine on my birthday letting me know that it was going to be late, but I was not expecting what I saw when I opened the envelope. As soon as I saw the front of the card and even though the figure was in black and a silhouette and not drawn out in detail, I recognized her immediately and exclaimed “It’s Alice!” and started to cry. I explained to my mom that Alice in Wonderland was on the front of my birthday card! I looked at the back to be sure and I was right, it said “Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland”.
After hanging up with my mom, I sent out a thank you email to my friend and his mother letting them know that I thought that I wasn’t supposed to receive that card until that night, even though my birthday had been on Sunday, because Alice in Wonderland was on the front of it and my sister’s name is Alice and she had passed away that morning.

After I sent the message, I started wondering if maybe this was a sign for me to let me know that she was okay. I wasn’t doing too well dealing with my grief. I didn’t get to see her or say good-bye to her, because she’s in Ohio and I wasn’t there when she died and I wasn’t able to see her body to say good-bye to her either since I was here in California and that was weighing very heavily on me right then. I was going to ask her to send me a sign letting me know that she was okay, but I never got a chance to. She passed away too quickly.

I looked more closely at the card and wondered to myself: Why would Hallmark put a black silhouette of Alice on the front of a birthday card? And not a colorful, cheery looking Alice? Why black? That’s certainly dark and the way I was feeling and black is the color that represents death. I read the card again and thought about what it said. The front of the card read “Unexpected. Unbelievable. Unlike anything you’ve ever experienced” And I thought that that was odd too. The inside read “Have that kind of birthday”.

Well I thought, I was certainly feeling what the front of the card said, but if this is a sign for me to feel better, I don’t get it. My sister Alice liked “Alice in Wonderland”, but if this is a sign, what does it mean? So I went to bed not feeling any better about it and couldn’t sleep, so I got up the next morning and checked my email and there was a response to my thank you email from my friend. The subject line read “Alice in Wonderland…” And after the first sentence saying sorry for my loss, the next sentence my friend had written said: “She is for sure in a better place!!!!” And it finally clicked! And I thought “NOW I get it!”

“Unexpected. Unbelievable. Unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.” Those words are describing “Wonderland”, a better place than here! And that is where my sister is! And when I looked at the front of the card, I should’ve realized that Alice IS in Wonderland. And I wanted to believe that she was visiting with my dad right then, because as I was looking at the back of the card again, I realized that what the back said is a sign for me too, because above “Alice” it says “Walt Disney’s” and my dad’s name is Ewalt, but lots of people called him Walt instead. He passed away in 1981 at the age of 63 and my sister Alice had just turned 64 on her birthday on January 4th.

My sister Elaine told me that when the chaplain came to see Alice on the day she went into hospice, which had just been late in the afternoon the day before she died, Alice had told the chaplain that she knew that she was going to a better place than here. So maybe this really was a sign for me after all.

I still had my doubts though and after taking photos of it, put the card in a special place while I was packing up all of my belongings to move into storage. And I put the card out of my mind as I continued to grieve.

Neither Alice or I went to church and I’ve never read the bible, only parts of it, but I do believe in “God” or a “higher power” and like to hope that there is something out there beyond this life we have here on this planet, but have difficulty dealing with death and things that happen in this world that I don’t understand.

Then a couple of months later, during a period of time when I’d been missing her like crazy for a week or so and it felt like it had been just a couple of weeks ago that she had passed away instead of a couple of months ago, I had been feeling her presence so strongly and I felt that she was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t help her and I felt so frustrated and powerless. I couldn’t shake it and would just burst out in uncontrollable sobs. I saw in my mind that she was crying and I was hugging her. This was a feeling and not a memory and then I saw her crying again and me hugging her and this time it turned into a memory of the last time I saw her, which was also the last time I hugged her, when we said good-bye just over 3 years ago now at my mom’s 90th birthday party when she was leaving California to move to Ohio. Then I saw her in my mind when she was in hospice right before she passed away. Even though I wasn’t there with her, I often picture her in my mind there.

These 3 visions persisted and were stuck in my mind for a few days. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong and that she was trying to tell me something, but what was it?! The feeling wouldn’t go away, so I called my sisters in Ohio, Elaine and Evelyn, and left messages, since I didn’t reach either one of them.

When Elaine called me back, I told her what I was feeling and that’s when I found out that they had just taken Alice’s truck to the dealership to be sold a few days before and had moved her belongings that were in a storage unit there from the storage facility to Evelyn’s garage that very day, so maybe this was the reason that I was feeling the way that I was. Alice loved that truck and it represented so much to her and she had so many beloved possessions in her storage unit, including her collection of antique dolls, most of which she had hand-crocheted outfits for over the last several years. I don’t know what she wanted to tell me now and wasn’t able to say. It’s so frustrating and I miss her so much. Is she upset? Was she trying to say good-bye to me now, because we didn’t get to say good-bye to each other before she passed away? Is that why I saw her crying? Is that why I was feeling her presence so strongly? What did my visions of her mean?

We had been very close for many years and there were times that I would feel something was wrong and call her to see what it was, because I always knew before she told me or the phone would ring and somehow I would know that it was her. We had a powerful bond that I never thought would be broken, but over the last several years, our relationship became strained and we had become distant and we argued and feelings were hurt. We barely talked after she moved to Ohio.

The last time we talked was when I called her on Christmas Day and we had a good conversation and I did get to tell her that I loved her, but when I called her on her birthday, which was on January 4th, she wasn’t able to talk, because she wasn’t able to breathe easily enough to speak. I wasn’t there when she passed away. I didn’t get to say good-bye and she didn’t say good-bye to me. So I was questioning whether or not she knew that I loved her or how much she meant to me and whether or not she had still loved me.

On the day that I took these store and city sign photos, I tried to push my visions and feelings aside, because I had to get money orders for the security deposit and first month’s rent to bring to my lease signing appointment that was scheduled for the next morning. I was without a home of my own at the time, because I had to move out of my previous place due to hazardous electrical issues and even though I didn’t like the place I would be moving to, I wanted to take it, because it was affordable and I just could no longer cope with trying to find a more suitable place to move to.

I had planned on visiting a friend in Lafayette that day which is where I’d lived for the past 8 years and getting the money orders at the Safeway over there after taking my mom grocery shopping in Concord where she normally liked to shop, but plans changed and my mom and I didn’t go shopping until later in the day. I didn’t bring money along to purchase the money orders when I took my mom shopping and just planned to get them in Lafayette after I took her home, but by then it was getting late, so I didn’t go visit my friend and decided to go to the Safeway in Pleasant Hill near my mom’s to purchase them instead.

It got later than I had planned to go out and when I finally got to the Safeway store, I wasn’t able to purchase the money orders there, because they quit selling them at 7 p.m. and it was after 7 p.m. already, so I was told that I could go to the Safeway store 2 miles down from this one, because they sold them there until 8 p.m. I asked if they knew anywhere else that sold them closer and I was told that Rite Aid did, which was in the shopping center and parking lot right next to this one that I passed on my way there.

So I went to Rite Aid and purchased my money orders and then looked around at all of the Easter candy and decorations for sale. I saw some things that I knew my sister Alice would’ve liked and I decided to buy a couple of little wind up toys, both the same, just different colors, but both to keep for myself, since she wasn’t here to give one to. By now it was dark out and not very crowded, since it was a week night and getting late, so when I left the parking lot, I was the only car that was at the exit and light to make a left hand turn onto the street to go back to my mom’s to spend the night there. The light was red.

As I waited for the light to turn green, I was looking at the lit up, “Pleasant Hill” city sign that was arched across the street directly in front of me that I would’ve driven under if I went straight out of this parking lot instead of turning onto the main street and I noticed that some of the letters were burned out. I felt that I was missing something while looking at it, but my mind was back to worrying about my lease signing appointment that was scheduled for the next morning.

Something kept telling me that I was supposed to be seeing something. And then I noticed that some letters on the store sign on the building next to the arched city sign were flickering off and on and hadn’t burned out yet. It was the Hallmark store sign and the letters “al” were blinking off and on and then it hit me as the light turned green. I always called my sister “Al” when I talked to her and wrote her name in cards! I never called her “Alice” unless I was talking about her or introducing her to someone! The “al” was “missing” from the Hallmark store sign! “Missing Al”! I was missing my sister and I felt her and that she was sending me a sign and I knew I had to get my camera at my mom’s and go back and take photos!

My mom’s was only 5 minutes away and when I arrived there, I ran inside and told my mom what happened and that I had to go back and take photos. I told her that the “Pleasant Hill” sign had missing letters too! I grabbed my camera bag and jumped in the truck and on my way back to the parking lot, I was wondering if any of the letters that were out in the Pleasant Hill sign had been an “A” and “L” too and I had just missed them, because I had been so distracted by other things that I was worrying about! I prayed on the way over that it was the “A” and “L”, because then I would know that it was really a sign from my sister!

As soon as I parked and got out of the truck with my camera, I kept saying “Please, please be the ‘A’ and the ‘L’ ” and sure enough the only two letters in the Pleasant Hill sign that were out were the “A” and the “L”! And they were in the right order to spell the name “Al”! There are two “A”s in “Pleasant Hill” and three “L”s. and the second “A” and the second “L” were the ones that were burned out! Wow! I was in awe! I took photographs and went back to get my mom. She had to see this in person!

I didn’t ask my sister Alice to send me a sign, but this time I got not one, but two signs! And the signs were literally signs! And right next to each other too! Just in case I missed the first sign, which I did, she sent me another one that was flashing off and on, so that I would get it! And I finally did, but don’t think I would have if it wasn’t flickering off and on!
What are the odds that 2 signs right next to each other would spell out “Al”, my nickname for my sister?! This had to be more than just a coincidence!

I picked up my mom and drove her thorough the parking lot and again was stopped at the red light and when she saw it, she was in awe too and said “God is letting you know that Alice is o.k.” and “It’s a miracle”.

The next morning after thinking about it all night, I realized that my birthday card with “Alice in Wonderland” on the front of it that I received late, which was also the day she passed away, was a Hallmark card! The sign with the “al” flashing off and on was the Hallmark store sign! So it had to be from her! That would be too much of a coincidence otherwise! Maybe she remembered my birthday after all and the card that I received from my friend and his mother on the same day that she had passed away was really a sign to let me know that she was okay!

I had to be coming out of this parking lot to see the signs, because I never would’ve seen the burned out and flashing letters if I had been driving by and not looking straight at the Pleasant Hill sign and this is the only place that you look at the sign straight on! And it had to be dark for the signs to be lit up!

If I would’ve gotten the money orders earlier in the day and my plans hadn’t kept changing and if I would’ve purchased them at the Safeway next to this parking lot, I would’ve never been in this particular parking lot, because I didn’t think that Rite Aid would sell money orders, and I wouldn’t have been there at this time of night, because I don’t like doing errands at night that often, but I didn’t have time to get them in the morning before my appointment, so I had to get them that night!

I was in the right place at the right time to see the signs! I asked myself: What does it mean? Is she trying to tell me that she knows that I love her? Is she trying to let me know that she still loves me too? Did I see the signs and think “Al is missing” or that I’m “missing Al”, because the letters are burned out/missing from the signs and she was trying to tell me that she knows how I feel? That she knows that I miss her terribly?

I believe that things happen for a reason, even if we don’t always know the reason at the time something happens, so maybe I was supposed to be without a home for awhile too, so that I could be with my mom. No one at the age of 92 expects to outlive a child.

Maybe Alice could hear me and knows how much I love her. Maybe she was telling me that our bond wasn’t broken as I thought it was and is still strong and has transcended death. Sending not one, but two literal signs as a sign for me to know that she’s o.k. would be something that she would do! I could almost hear her shouting at me to believe that it’s really from her this time!

I like to believe that my sister Alice was letting me know that she really is in a better place and even though she’s not here anymore in body, that she’s still here with me in spirit and that she’ll always be with me here in my heart.
I went back several nights to look at the signs since the first night I took these photos and some nights the letter “L” in the city sign would be on and sometimes it would be out, but the “A” was out each time. Finally, one night, both the “A” and the “L” were both lit up again, but the “al” in the Hallmark sign is still flickering off and on. I took my sister Donna there one night to see the signs after I first saw them and she said that the flickering “al” was like a heartbeat, like Alice was still here with us.

Oh, how I wish she were.

Tags:   Signs from departed loved ones signs from above Signs from angels Signs from deceased loved ones more than coincidence

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