After Mom died suddenly in July of 2004, while we were all back home arranging the funeral, I noticed that the windchime that hangs in her livingroom would occasionally chime a single, soft, gentle tone. It seemed to me that these tones would frequently correspond to times when I felt the most sad, or was the furthest into a deep melancholy memory. It was as if she was telling me gently that she was right there.

After Dad died in December of that year, at the hands of a tired semi truck driver, I would often look up at the night sky at the Big Dipper. Dad and I had talked about that constellation when I was a kid, how it would appear to angle in the sky differently depending on where in the world you were. Later, when I was an adult, he was in Costa Rica, and he told me after that trip how the Big Dipper looked so different from down there. I wonder now if it looks different from heaven.

Tonight I spent considerable time on the phone with our attorney talking about things that different people in our family are working on, trying to make a difference in the trucking industry; to help prevent more of these tragedies. After the call I took the dog out for her final evening walk in the snow. As she went about her business I glanced up sadly, with tears in my eyes. There was the Big Dipper. As I gazed at it and thought about Dad, somewhere from across the street on a darkened porch, a wind chime called out, a single, gentle tone. “I am right here.”