I don’t know what happens when we die. My thoughts exist somewhere between the unshakable belief in an afterlife/Heaven of many of my family and friends, and that held by Kevin that once our brains stop thinking and our hearts stop beating, nothing more happens.

The feelings are complicated and involve faith, cultural mores, and now, experience. Shortly after Kevin’s death, I posted on his Carepages blog that I had received many “signs” of his presence and I chose to believe in them because Kevin’s spirit and soul--when they were here on earth, manifested in his body-- were so strong that they couldn’t possibly just end. I still believe that. I believe that love, a fierce desire to go on living, and a fate that ends that life too early, all make for an active afterlife.

Since Kevin’s passing, I have been visited by many signs. They bring me comfort and hope, not only for Kevin, but because this entire experience is nothing if not a daily reminder of my own mortality.

The morning after Kevin passed away, someone poured me a cup of coffee, which I took out to our front porch. It’s a large space, that porch. Our builder had to revise his cost estimate after he realized how big it would end up being; it was really an outdoor room. I sat on the porch where our family ate most dinners from May to October, and stared out into a void. Quite soon, a hummingbird ducked under the roof of the porch and came to me. It hovered just above my knee, as though preparing to drink nectar from the red flower on my pajama bottoms. I smiled. We had many hummingbirds around the yard, and Kevin would sit and watch them for long minutes. They battled over territory and a spot at the many feeders that Kevin and our daughter kept filled through the summer. I now have a hummingbird tatooed on my ankle and you'll notice a hummingbird on this blog.

A friend later told me that Native Americans believe hummingbirds carry the soul of the deceased to the afterlife. I’m ok with that.

I’ve had owls hoot as I sat in our hot tub, but they only come and make noise on special dates: our anniversary, my birthday.

In the year after Kevin’s passing, I saw fourteen shooting stars. Fourteen. In twelve months’ time. Whenever I would sink into despair about things done or not done, things left unsaid, or silly arguments I now wish we hadn’t had, I would ask Kevin to let me know that he was ok, that we were ok. Almost without fail, a star would shoot across the night sky. It brought a flood of tears, along with a sense of comfort that nothing else could bring.

Once, a snowy owl, maybe two-feet tall, landed in the road just in front of my car. I hit the brakes, the owl didn’t flinch.

It took a great deal of strength for me to venture into the garden that Kevin and I had worked so hard to maintain. I finally headed out one day, maybe a month after his death, and began pulling weeds, the act becoming a release for much of my pent-up anger and sadness. I cried the entire time I sat among the vegetables and flowers. Soon I noticed a hawk circling above me. My first thought was that an animal carcass must be nearby. But the hawk never lighted anywhere; it just kept circling and circling in the sky above my head, floating on the currents. I began talking to Kevin, giving sound to the angry, depressing thoughts, the unanswerable questions. Realizing that I couldn’t wipe my tears with muddy gloves, I gave up and returned to the empty house.

As I walked into our bedroom, a feather lay on the floor next to our bed. I wondered if the cat had somehow gotten out and the rest of the bird was under the bed. But no, no other sign of any wildlife was in the room that day, just a large, brown feather that I still have in my bedroom.

There have been other signs, too:  things gone missing that turn up in odd places, rainbows, a note that had never come to light despite three moves suddenly appeared in a room that we were clearing out to paint, as though it had been lying on the floor in that room for the past twenty years; the re-appearance of an old, deleted text message that showed up on my phone as I was delivering my Master’s thesis reading.

Some signs I plan to never tell, but to keep just between Kevin and me. There have been fewer in recent months, which causes me to wonder whether I was seeing what I wanted to see in the throes of grief. Or perhaps there is a settling of the soul in some place after which contact with the living lessens. I must live with the fact that I just don’t know. I know the strength of our love, our partnership. I know the force of his determination, and the strength of his wish to never be forgotten. I believe those things will continue to manifest themselves in my life. I hope they do.  They do not solve the mystery but they do ease the pain.