I held a funeral service for my wife on her birthday. It was a burial at sea, done from a sailboat. My wife was an Episcopal priest. I am just an ordinary priest of God – a common priest without any pedigree – so I borrowed her Book of Common Prayers and followed the guidelines for a Rite One Burial. (There was no “burial at sea” liturgy in the book.) I chose the readings from the recommendations and at the point where the book said a homily could be read, I wrote a forty-minute speech (slowed by some tears). I did not read a Gospel and there was no priestly things done. It was my version of a Rite One Burial of the Dead at sea service. As I wrote, my wife’s picture looked down at me. It is a picture of the two of us on the same sailboat, little more than a month before my wife passed.
I practiced reading the speech out loud, to my wife’s picture. I edited it and printed it out; and then I drove to the seaside on my wife’s birthday. As I was reading the speech, I reached a point where I began to explain what was in the urn, along with my wife’s ashes. Just as I reached that point the wind picked up and the captain had to tack the boat. As he was doing that, the wind caught the camera’s microphone and nothing I read out loud could be heard over the roar of the wind. In the speech I had written: “I wish the camera could capture your soul that is with me now.” That was not heard; but not a sentence later the wind died down and I could be heard again. However, as I continued reading out loud another burst of wind caught the sail and the captain had to steer quickly, which caused the tripod and camera to fall over. When it fell, the part that secured the camera to the tripod broke and the camera came off. No parts went overboard, but I had to pause reading and retrieve the camera and tripod before they could slide into the water. When I found the camera would no longer stay attached to the tripod, I decided to hold the camera in one hand and the script in the other. I thought the fall knocked the camera’s focus out, because it was blurry and I could find no focus mechanism. I recorded about five minutes of the speech and some prayers, before I put the camera in its bag and began to read without video as I placed flowers in the water and then the ashes. I ended with some prayers from the prayer book. I wasn’t until Monday that I watched the video and found the place where the sound went out and came back on. With it being so soon after I said, “I wish the camera could capture your soul that is with me now,” I realized the blur was my wife’s “soul captured in the camera.” She was there and letting me know she was with me and was listening to what I read. She answered my prayer (wish) that people could see she supported my words written and stated. I do not offer this here as some attempt at proof of my wife making my camera blurry during her funeral. It only has meaning to me, so what anyone else thinks has no bearing on what I know. However, I will state this was not the first “strange happening” I have experienced, which I credit to my wife’s soul.
On the evening of my wife’s death, after the home nurse from the hospice said she was showing signs of end of life, I was trying to do things around the bedroom where my wife laid in a hospital bed. I went into the bathroom and turned on the light switch and the light flickered and went out. I tried it again and the light again flickered and then went out. A third and fourth time found the light switch no longer worked. I put a new bulb in and that did nothing to make the light work. I checked the circuit box and nothing was tripped. There was no way I was going do any more than that and it was too late to try and call an electrician. After all, that same light switch had been repaired by an electrician only a couple months prior. I left the light for another time to worry about it.
About six hours later my wife passed. After the call was made to the nurse and she came and the funeral home came, I was cleaning up things in the bedroom. I went into the bathroom and flipped the light switch and the light worked fine. In the almost six months since, the light has done nothing like it did that evening.
I have come to realize that my wife’s soul entered the electrical system, choosing a light switch she knew had just recently been replaced and worked, and she sent me a signal that she was about to die. Her soul was already out of her body, but she was not going anywhere. She just wanted me to know she was there, still with me.
Since I got back home, I checked the camera and it has no focus problem. It works fine now.
Because that event with the light in the bathroom took place, I know the camera blur was also my wife’s soul. Again, it does not matter if anyone else believes that.
Comments