Signs

During the shock and numbness of the early days and weeks, the constant thing on my mind was 'where is she' I still worried about her, the same as I did when she was alive and was late getting home or whatever and even more so for the year that she had the bike.

So where was she now, can she see me or hear me, is there life after? Something Alison didn't believe in, as far as she was concerned there was nothing after. So I even worried on that score, if there was life after, would she be pissed off, it would have to be very special for her not to be.

Everyday I looked for signs that she was around, I placed things in her study, so I knew if they were moved. Getting up in the morning, I would immediately make the bed and smooth it out, she loved to lay on the bed with her laptop! But nothing ever moved, never any ripples on the smoothed out quilt.

That said in the few days following her passing, strange things did happen, not just to me and possibly things that cannot be put down to coincidence.

The first strange thing involved ginger cats, a day after the accident, Alison's mum was out walking in the fields near her home, a ginger cat appeared from nowhere and like some cats do walked around her feet purring. The next day, I was invited around for coffee to one of Alison's friends . On leaving I bumped into another of Aly's friends who I had not seen for over a year, she had parked right next to my car, the chance of ever bumping into her was remote, but she was one of Aly's closest friends, until she moved on. We stood their chatting with tears, suddenly again from no where a ginger cat appeared and walked around our feet.

Two days later my neighbours had been round one evening for a drink and on leaving and opening the garden gate, right in front of them, just sat staring was a ginger cat, it didn't move!

The second strange thing, happened at Alison's celebration, one of her friends was so over come with emotion, he left the service before the end. He went outside and sat on a nearby wall. Head in hands, he was startled enough to jump, when someone sat next to him. Turning to see who it was, there was no one there!

Finding white feathers is a classic sign of a deceased love one, letting you know they are with you. Well it is only recently that this happened to me. I have never noticed any feathers in our garden, let alone pure white ones.

But during one of my really bad days of tears, in fact it was the day I went to see my doctor about being prescribed some pills to help me through.

I got home and with more tears I poured myself a large G&T. I would normally just go and sit on the patio chairs, but instead sat on a little bench that Alison used to always sit on.

Sat down and then directly in front of me a saw a pure white feather, I looked in disbelief, it was in between two paving slabs that Aly had put down as steps over the grass, I picked it up and put it on the bookshelf with Aly's photo's. Two days later another white feather appeared in exactly the same spot.

I haven't seen any since!

So is this all coincidence or is there something after?