Today’s guest blogger is Stephanie LeFante of Manahawkin, New Jersey. When Stephanie’s grandmother passed away in January 2017, she was devastated.
But, as it turned out, her grandmother had a special way of making her presence known to Stephanie even after she passed away.
Here’s Stephanie’s incredible story…
Do you believe in miracles?
Rainbows have always been special to my grandmother and me. Growing up, one of my fondest memories was spending time at Grandma’s house in Staten Island, New York. Grandma would take my brother, Mike, and me outside to her closed-in patio, and we’d make chalk drawings all day long. I always drew a rainbow. Grandma thought it was so funny that I stuck with the same design time and time again. Even years later when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, one of the things she never forgot was my rainbow drawings.
Grandma passed away this past January. Since then, I’ve asked her to send me signs that she’s still with me. On more than one occasion, I asked for a rainbow and Grandma delivered. One appeared on Easter, the first holiday my family celebrated without Grandma. Another appeared after a family barbecue. Yet another on my brother’s wedding day. And, most amazingly, over July 4th weekend. An hour after my husband and I visited her grave, the sky opened up and it started to pour. I saw not just one rainbow, but two. A double rainbow!
I wanted to thank Grandma for the double sign of her love. So I drew a double rainbow and left the drawing on her grave the weekend after July 4th. I stuck it behind a statue so that it was pinned in place. But a storm came and when my aunt returned to the grave that week, she told me that the drawing was gone.
Three months later, I was at the elementary school where I work as a teacher’s assistant. I took my students out to recess. It was a beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in sight. There were about 50 kids running around the playground. I walked to the middle of the field to monitor the kids and stepped onto a wood-chips covered area. I looked down at my feet. And there it was.
It was ripped and a little beat up, but there was no mistaking it. The drawing I’d made Grandma!
I picked it up, stunned. The playground was 30 minutes from Grandma’s grave, more than 20 miles away. It’d been three months since I left it there. We’d had storms, heat waves and rain showers since. How in the world did it survive and end up at my workplace, right at my feet, with all those kids running around?
I miss my grandmother every day and think about her constantly. But I know she’ll never leave me, even if I can’t see she’s there.
I have proof.
