On the day of Tara’s sixth birthday we had an impromptu celebration with my sister, Maria Elena, known to the kids as “Nina” and her daughter-in-law, Karen, known only to me as “Sister-Golden-Hair. We were literally three adult women, one four year old boy, Ronnie, and the princess-for-the-day, Tara. We actually had plans for a day at the park with friends, family and a piñata scheduled for the following Saturday, but my sister and Karen couldn’t come. Not a problem. We got cake. We waited for the birthday girl to get home from school while we made centerpieces for the upcoming party. Eventually the little yellow bus parked out front and our beautiful little guest of honor emerged. We greeted her on the sidewalk in front of our house. Once all the hugs and kisses were collected the festivities began.
We all knew Tara couldn’t blow out the candles by herself and twenty years later we still join in to help her. With that in mind, we placed the cake at the corner of the checkered table so we could all assist. The colorful candles were lit and we began singing the birthday song. Tara wrung her hands together in sheer delight. As we positioned ourselves in a semi-circle behind her chair, our intention was to join our breath with Tara’s to extinguish the tiny flames, but we witnessed what could only be described as an invisible force on the opposite side blowing toward her. The candle flames were literally flickering horizontally as though being blow from across the table where no one stood. The six little candles remained like that for a few seconds and all of a sudden the flames died.
“What was that?”
“What just happened?”
“Did you see what I saw?”
We all looked at each other in disbelief, admitting that what we had experienced was an impossibility. We tried to make sense of it and finally came to the conclusion that grandma was with us in spirit. She was the “invisible force” that came to help our birthday girl on her special day.
While my mother lived, she would close her eyes as she held my babies, take a deep breath and hold it. Then she would say,
“My soul is being fed.”
She loved my kids so much as she did all her grandchildren. Cancer took my mom fifteen months before Tara’s sixth birthday. I believe wholeheartedly that she looks in on us from time to time, because unlike the flames on the birthday cake, grandma’s love never died.
1 Corinthians 16:14 Do everything in love.
