Owl Always Love You

I met an angel at Walmart. I know how unlikely that sounds. But it’s true. Her name is Vicki and she deserves a raise and a hefty bonus.

Let me start this story by sharing with you part of the tribute I gave at my grandfather’s funeral:

This is the story of a very young girl, just a toddler around 2 or 3 years old, she has gone to visit her grandparents at Cereland park where they are camping, upon arriving at the camper she notices brightly colored owl lights that have been strung around the awning. She reaches for them, and seeing her desire to touch those owls, her grandfather picks her up in his strong and loving arms and raises her up so that she may have her heart’s desire.

There is also an ugly rumor about how he let that little girl walk around on the top of a picnic table but there is no proof of that…

As most of you know, or may have guessed, this story is about me, and my grandpa…Ralph. It’s a story to me, because although I do not remember it, my grandfather did, and he told me this story often...in fact almost every time I saw him. It was one of his favorite memories of me and him. I love this story, because not just now that he is gone…but many, many times when he told me this story, I felt that it embodied my grandfather. He was always raising others up:

Raising up his family, four children and 5 grandchildren and countless great grandchildren and step great grandchildren.

                                        Raising others up in prayer

                                        Sometimes raising others up Indeed

                                        Raising spirits when someone was down

                                        Raising those he loved in care

                                        Raising many in loving thoughts

Just as the raised that little girl up to reach her heart’s desire of playing with the owl lights

Stay with me, I promise this will tie into the angel I met at Walmart…

Last week, the week after the funeral, was a hard week for me. I was alone after having people around me constantly and I cried…A LOT. One day I cried from sunup to bedtime, and I wish I were exaggerating, but I’m not. My grandfather was my person. From the moment I was born I healed a wound that had been created by my conception to an unwed 17-year-old daughter and her 16-year-old boyfriend. By the time I was born, they were wed and even though they had their own home by then, I went home to my grandparent’s house with my mom for a month. I have here in my house, the tiny rocking chair my grandmother rocked me in. As time went on, that love grew and that wound began to heal. It also formed a bond between me and my grandparents that has been the cornerstone of my life. At the center of that, my Grandpa Martin. I miss him in way I did not know was possible to miss someone. I dreamed the other night that he called me and said “Shug, can you meet us at Gray Brother’s for lunch?”. And I said, “Grandpa I don’t know that you should be driving that far”. And he said, "I’m going anyway, meet us there at noon tomorrow”. Just like the real-life conversation we’d had 100 times. Anyway, in one of those agonizing moments of missing my gpa (as I often called him in text) I wondered if he would send me a sign like my Grandpa Bud did with the red birds. I sort of laughed to myself and thought, it’d be funny if he sent me owls. I reminded myself to not look…I wasn’t looking for red birds but still they came. So, I forgot about the whole thing and went on about my grieving.

But then…on Thursday I went to an appointment at lunch and during that appointment someone told me about a lady they had just had in there and she shared with them about her best friend passing of cancer. This friend had told her before she passed that she would send her an owl to let her know she was ok, and sure enough…she had a video of an owl swooping into an outdoor dining area and landing on a rafter just above where she was sitting. AND THEN, I’m leaving that apt., and a coworker reaches out and asks if I can talk and say yes. She calls me and lets me know she’s been thinking of me. We talk about her loss of her dad and how hard it was on her and she says…” don’t worry, he will send you signs that he’s around you…my dad sends me owls”. And now I am starting to think…can this be coincidence? Maybe. So then Friday comes and I must go over and get medicine for our dogs but before I go do that, I decide to string some lights around our tree that are supposed to work with music…like music makes then blink in sync. They take three AA batteries, we have one. So now I am super annoyed but figure, I am going to the vet for meds, might as well stop at Kroger and get batteries. Problem is…I started crying in the car. I heard a song that made me cry and now the floodgates are open. The vet assistant brings meds to my car on account of a serious virus going around in dogs and they don’t want me coming inside since Porter is a baby…so I get through that one. But I go into Kroger crying. I’m hyper focused on getting batteries. I’m sad, I’m bitter, I am not ok and right there inside the automatic doors on the shelf in the floral department…a snow owl planter with an air plant in it. I stop. I start to go. I stop. I pick it up, I get the batteries, I pay, and I leave. I’m starting to think this is not a coincidence.

Enter my trip to Walmart on Sunday. I’m browsing around looking for…nothing. I keep asking myself, why are you looking in the Christmas aisles? I don’t know. I’m walking down the aisle with tinsel and wrapping, and I look up to see a snow man head tree topper. I think that’s cute and snow men always make me think of my Grandma Patty because she loves them, and I remember she had that topper until my parents got her a red bird topper and I’m just sort of enjoying that train of thought when something fuzzy catches my eye. It’s an owl tree topper. I pause. I look at it. I reach up and take it off the shelf. I look for other ones, there are none…only one. I put it in my cart. I’m close to tears. A woman comes by and sees me putting in the cart and comments how beautiful it is. The tears are close to spilling. I move on and finish my shopping. And then I end that trip at checkout number 1…with Vicki as my cashier. There is no one in line ahead of me. I ask if she’s open, she is wearing gloves and cleaning her area, she says, “Oh yes, welcome to my line!”. Already, this is different than my usual check out experiences. She comes around to help me unload my cart. What? That’s never happened at Walmart. She sees the furry owl topper and sort of jumps back and exclaims, “I thought that was a puppy!”. We both laugh and I show her it’s an owl. She gets a bit misty and says, “you know, my dad got me this owl before he passed away a few years ago and it has a little banner that says Owl Always Love You”. She looks at the owl closely and say, “this is sort of odd, I’ve not seen any of these come through my line, I have seen the snow men head toppers but not his owl”.   I smile at her and tell her this owl might be a sign from my grandpa who just passed a couple weeks ago. I tell her how he was 92 but still driving and the sole caretaker of my grandmother with significant dementia. She says “Oh my! He was doing all that?”. I say, “Yes, he was a hero”. We talk then about her mom who passed in July, and she wants to take candy to the ladies at the nursing home she was at but just can’t do it this year, “maybe next year” she says. I tell her my gma is in a long-term facility and she impresses upon me how important it is to check on her a lot and visit and that it doesn’t hurt to bring the nursing staff candy. I feel it important to note this…There is no one in line behind me, the noise has gone down a bit…it feels quiet and insular as we talk. I agree with her and share with her how we visit often and take goodies to the nursing staff, and she nods in approval. I say that I don’t like going out in the world very often right now and she seems sympathetic to that but then she says, “But God worked this out today, so we could talk”. And I say, “I think so, yes”. She helps me pack my items into the cart and as I’m leaving she says to me “Take care of yourself and remember about the owls…Owl Always Love You”. I can’t explain this other than to say it felt like magic. I looked back and there was still no one in her line. She went back to cleaning her area and she was smiling. So rare in a Walmart employee.

I cried all the way home. When I got there, I took the owl topper out of the back of my Jeep and handed it to Chris. He looked at it, at me crying and said “We’re gonna have a house full of owls, aren’t we?”. I simply nodded yes.