They only came in November, no other month, just late November. Maybe it had something to do with the cold weather or the bleakness of the skies. Always there seemed to be charcoal gray, billowy clouds hiding the horizon. The trees were bare of leaves and the flowers had left for the season. Squirrels had hoarded away acorns and pecans for the time of year when nothing grew except snow banks and boredom. Rain became black ice on slick streets that caused cars to swerve and crash for no apparent reason.
“Mommy,” resounded through the house as the front door banged shut. “Mommy, I lost a tooth! It’s stuck in my apple.” Shelly laughed as she held the apple out in front of her and offered it to her mom with a wide tooth-missing grin.
“We’ll just have to pull it out and put it under your pillow tonight for the tooth fairy!” Shelly’s mom was smiling too, it was Shelly’s first tooth to lose and this was going to be fun.
Shelly crawled into bed that night, pulled the covers up close to her chin, and ran her hand under the pillow to make sure the tooth, encased in a small lacy pink pouch, was still there. Her mom had made the pouch. Somewhere in the middle of the night, she awoke with a start. As she rubbed her eyes and looked around, Shelly saw something sparkling beside her bed. Her mouth formed a huge O as she sucked in her breath preparing to scream—but she didn’t scream. She felt a sense of peace and lay her head back on the pillow and was instantly asleep again. When morning came and she threw her pillow off the bed, she found her pink tooth case and it had shiny silver dollar tucked neatly inside.
“Mommy,” she squealed. “Mommy, the tooth fairy came! I think I may have seen her too. Oh Mommy, she was so pretty, all glittery and sparkly.”
The hall phone interrupted their conversation. When mom came back, she was crying. Her father, Shelly’s granddad, had passed away during the night. It had been a long and painful battle.
Now they had to meet grandma at the funeral home. Black dresses, black shoes, and black moods bantered around the room looking for a plausible place to land but merely bounced from sad face to sad face in a never ending circle. As they walked into the parlor where the body was, Shelly couldn’t help asking her mom, “Where’s his feet? Why can’t I see his feet?” Exasperation showed in her bright green eyes.
The somber-faced man who had opened the front door for them when they entered the building now walked silently towards the casket. He lifted a gold latch and raised the bottom half of the lid and showed Shelly her grandfather’s feet.
“Mommy, why isn’t he wearing shoes?”
“Shoes weigh them down too much on their flight to heaven sweetie,” the smile in her voice eased Shelly’s fears.
This was Shelly’s first experience with death.
Shelly lost more teeth throughout the next few years but she didn’t see the tooth fairy again. There was always money in her pink tooth pouch the next morning, but she didn’t wake up when it was delivered. As time wore and waned towards winter each year, the dark clouds of November grew, just like the new teeth in Shelly’s mouth—pushing themselves through soft pink gums. Ominous gray hues replaced the pink tints of the sunsets that Shelly loved to watch late in the evenings.
By the time Shelly was thirteen, several older yet distant family members had died. Each death came in November and brought with them the visions Shelly had first seen at six years of age. Shelly related the sightings to her mother on each occasion and always with questions about what it was. Finally, in exasperation, Shelly’s mom resorted to a therapist for Shelly.
“Do you see these things often,” asked the bearded man with low riding glasses slipping off the end of his nose. “What do they do or say?”
“They only come in November,” she replied for about the fifteenth time, “only in November and they never say or do anything!” she retorted with exasperation in her pubescent voice.
Shelly quit telling her mom about the visits after that. She didn’t like that man’s attitude and surely didn’t like his repetitive questions. Always the same, over and over until she learned how to tune him out. She told her mom that she was only doing it to get her attention. Then mom started spending more time with her. That would work for now. They went to the movies, on picnics, and long weekends at the lake. They went to family weddings. They went to family funerals too.
All the way through junior high and high school, the visits continued. They didn’t come every November but they did come. Shelly started noticing the pattern of family deaths and ghostly visits. As this became clear to Shelly, the sparkles and glitters took shape and form. She realized these images came to her for a purpose.
After graduation, Shelly moved out. She needed her own space because she felt cramped in her room, where every November the ghostly images floated just out of her reality. It would have been okay if her mom had only understood. Or even tried to understand. Late October of the same year she got a call from her mom.
“Shelly, I need you. I don’t know an easy way to tell you this.”
“What mom?” exasperation bleeding between her teeth, this wasn’t the first phone call like this. Grandma had been sick with emphysema for years. She had been dying for years and mom had done this for years.
“Shelly, it’s Grandma. They put her on a respirator.”
It was late November and the moon was hiding behind black clouds as they both dipped towards the horizon. Leaves played tag across the front lawn, blown in a whirlwind path to nowhere in particular. Rain began to beat a lilting tune against the window where Shelly sat. Her cheek caressed the cold glass pane and let the rhythm of the rain against the window bounce off her skin. It was then that she saw him. She was stunned, it was the first time one of them had actually taken such recognizable form. He just sort of appeared out of nowhere and this time she was unprepared for it. His bald head was smooth and his cheeks were rosy. The angry radiation marks were gone from his chest and neck. He was breathing without oxygen attached to his face and he was smiling. Oh my, was he ever smiling. Shelly felt her heart race as her face heated with the thrill of seeing him.
“Shelly-poo! How’s granddad’s girl,” he asked.
Shelly fainted dead away. Twenty minutes later she was jerked back to real time with the insistent ringing of the phone echoing in her head. It was the hospital. Another death, another funeral.
Standing in the funeral home brought back memories of granddad’s death. It had almost killed her mom when he had died. Shelly understood more about death now than she had at seven. A somber man dressed in the inevitable black suit and white shirt led her to the back left corner of the funeral home’s visitation area. The scent of fresh flowers assaulted her nose before she even stepped through the open doorway. A walnut stand holding the white book and pen for visitors to sign beckoned to her. Deeper in the room, the open casket, closed at the foot, had Shelly reeling between childhood and the present—between her vision and reality. She had to know though.
“Would you please open the bottom half for me,” she asked the somber faced man who never seemed to speak. No shoes. Grandma wasn’t wearing shoes either but mom had said they weighed them down too much on the flight to heaven. Since Grandma had been in the ICU she hadn’t needed shoes or anything else really. The click of the machines and the steady in and out of the one that breathed for her were all the facts that had existed in the tiny curtained cubicle that had been her temporary home. Even though everything was white, it held no candle to the light that had surrounded Granddad. Once they crossed the line, she knew she would never see her grandfather again on this side; she knew that eventually, Grandma would make a return visit to her. Granddad had come for her, to walk her across the brilliant silver line into eternity.
In February of the following year, Shelly’s mom was diagnosed with cancer—leukemia, children’s leukemia at that. The treatment would be experimental and very harsh on Shelly’s mom. Shelly moved back home. Her mother’s beautiful black hair had fallen from her scalp in handfuls. Shelly found it every morning, laying on her mother’s pillow. Shelly cried. Her mom’s deep brown eyes had faded to a murky color somewhere between dirt and ashes. Again, there was always the constant sound of ticking machines. Eventually, the artificial breath of a ventilator was added to the menagerie of sounds—slowly, raising her chest and then letting it gently fall back again and again. The disease raped her body from the inside out—finally, her flesh succumbed to the trauma. It was late November.
Shelly knew Grandma would come first, then mom would appear, and then they would both walk across that boundary. She had seen it before but only recognized the images when Granddad had returned. It amazed Shelly with its beauty and grace. Grandma was robust as she walked Shelly’s mom across that indefinable line into the land of no more pain. Shelly planned to take no shoes to the funeral home for momma. They would be too heavy.
Christmas came with snow piled high outside the window. The low lying gray clouds shoved all warmth to the other side of the world. Shelly stayed. The house she had grown up in was all she had left—she had visitors almost every November.
As time slid by, Shelly finally met a man who made her feel secure. He didn’t question her late year visitors when she told him about them. He just accepted them as a part of her. Their first child was born on a brisk November night. Beautiful auburn locks covered her perfectly formed head. Shelly was truly happy.
Bright silver lights filled her room at 2 a. m. and Shelly knew another family member was crossing. She had grown to relish in the uniqueness of her position. Once the ghostly images were gone that night, she found herself looking at her own mortality. Asking herself who would come for her and who would take over for her. Maybe her daughter would have the gift, she really did consider it a gift, and be the next in line.
“Shelly,” the voice on the other end of the line asked. “Is that you baby?”
“Yes Aunt Clare,” Shelly smiled into the phone. “It’s me. How are you?”
“Baby, it’s Uncle Paul,” blurted out the elderly aunt. “It’s his time and I knew that you would want to know. Uncle Paul told me for years to let you know first, you were always his favorite you know.”
“Thank you Aunt Clare, I’ll be there,” tumbled from lips that had already told him goodbye.
After losing her grandmother, Shelly had questioned her own life and even though she accepted her role, questions of why me had blown through her thoughts. After losing her mom, Shelly felt honored to be able to tell each one goodbye. She knew her role now.
“November, why was it always then?” Shelly asked the question to no one in particular as she stood at the graveside service of Uncle Paul. The snow fell in loose, exquisite flakes on the day of the funeral, softly lining the gaping hole in the ground where they would lower the casket.
There had been other strange events in Shelly’s life, people would come up and start conversations with her. She didn’t know them but it didn’t matter. The strangers seemed to need something, she never knew quite what but, they found it in her. They always found her; they found her in stores, on street corners, and in wrong number calls that turned out to be just what they needed after all. They told her their problems or life stories and stared deep in her eyes like they were looking for answers that she held. She didn’t understand but she was always there for them. Maybe they saw something that she didn’t see. Maybe they needed a channel.
She wondered how long this would continue for her and sometimes she still wondered who would take over for her, if anyone, when it was her turn. Shelly wondered if her daughter would have the stamina to hold up to this special job. It had really been pleasant, being the one picked to channel these souls to the other side. It had been a good ride.
When the bright light appeared in her room again, Shelly was prepared to see one soul.
Why did she see all her family members who had already gone across? Granddad was smiling with his arm draped lovingly over Grandma’s shoulder. Momma had her arms spread wide, as if waiting for Shelly to jump into them like she did when she was a little girl and Uncle Paul was close on her heels, grinning widely. Shelly was very confused, nothing was making sense. She thought perhaps this was a side effect of her cancer medicine. Maybe the fever that was broiling her internal organs caused the hallucinations. Shelly had been sick for five months. They diagnosed her bone cancer two weeks after Uncle Paul’s funeral.
“Is this some kind of reunion?” she half jokingly asks the nearest member of the group.
Shelly had never seen more than two images at one time—the one coming to lead and the one leaving earth’s boundaries. It’s wasn’t even November now, it’s spring, her favorite time of year. The cardinals were singing outside, she saw the brilliant reds of their feathers as they perched on the limb of the old oak tree outside her bedroom window. Marigolds were springing forth in orange and yellow hued blossoms. The grass was never this green nor the sky so unbelievably clear. It was actually an azure hue and the sun shone brightly.
Momma took her hand as everyone else surrounded her with light. She realized that she knew all these souls. She had walked them all across the channel when they went, now they came for her. November’s spell was broken.
Invite participants
Share at Facebook
Share at Twitter
Share at LinkedIn
Reference this page