The First Sign I Received After My Son’s Death
It’s at 700 pm when I normally receive my daily call from my oldest son, Justin. However, on January 5, 2016, it was his father who called me on my way home from work using Justin’s cellphone. All he said to me was, “Justin is gone.”
I knew my life would never be the same after that call. Justin had an asthma attack, and the hospital could not revive him. He was such a healthy kid! He was a football and basketball captain and had dreams of becoming a federal agent just like me. But he sometimes had those allergies that triggered his asthma, especially when the weather changed.
My legs buckled as I parked the car and tried to walk back into my apartment. I was a single mom with two other kids, Crystle was only 9 and her brother Cameron was 15. They were both home, and I only had a minute to walk up the stairs to my apartment, wondering how I would tell them. I tried finding the keys, but my fingers wouldn’t work with me. I walked into the apartment while both Crystle and Cameron were doing their homework on the dining room table, and I just fell to the floor and started crying. I was a mess.
My kids ran to me and hugged me, all three of us on the floor trying to deal with losing Justin.
My employer, working back in the 1980s for the federal government, informed me to take the time I needed with family and not worry about work. I then took the first flight out to New Jersey from Minneapolis.
As I boarded the plane to New Jersey, the flight attendant came to me, and she knelt before me and the kids while we were crying. Apparently, word had gotten around about my son’s passing, as I used to work in the airline industry. The flight attendant said, “You see this necklace of mine, this is from my daughter, who passed away when she was 13. You know she sent me the signs, so I am sure your son will send them too, and all your questions will be answered.”
Signs, I thought? What is she talking about? I looked at the kids, who were in tears, and they were looking at me for answers, I shrugged, told them I didn’t know what the flight attendant was talking about, and hugged them. At that time, all I could think about was losing my 18-year-old baby, who had such a life ahead of him.
We landed, and all I wanted to do was go straight to see my son Justin at the hospital. Apparently, I arrived too late, and I was directed to see him the very next day at the mortuary at 6 a.m. I stayed awake until 5.00 a.m. and started to drive to the mortuary, arriving at 5.30 a.m. It was still very dark in the parking lot. I looked at my watch and started to walk towards the mortuary entrance with my head down and tears rolling down my face.
As I drew near the mortuary doors, I looked up, and that’s when I saw him. I saw a 17- to 18-year-old kid in jeans and a T-shirt, I looked around the parking lot to see if he was parked, but I did not notice him parked there, I also looked around to see if he had been dropped off. There were no other cars around, and the parking lot was still very darkly lit, and there did not seem to be any other car around, nor did I hear a car drop this kid off.
He looked at me, and we stared at each other. He then asked me, “Are you Justin’s mom?”I replied and asked, “How did you get here?”
“Are you a friend of Justin’s?” I asked.
He then replied once again, “Are you Justin’s mom?”
I answered, yes, I am, where did you come from? How did you get here, are you a friend of Justin’s?
He asked me for the third time, “Are you Justin’s mom?”
I looked at him, hugged him, and said, “Yes.”
He then asked me, “Do you have Justin’s wallet?” I replied, “No”, “Why?”
He then replied, “When you see him, look for his wallet.” I replied, “ok…Uhm, why?”
He then replied, “Your son wanted to have a tattoo on his back, his entire back, did you know that?”
I replied to him and said, Uhm, no?
Well, he said, make sure you look at his wallet, there is a receipt with the tattoo artist’s name, your son wanted angel wings on his back, with one wing clipped because he couldn’t fly yet”. I tried to understand what he was trying to tell me, but when I looked up, HE WAS GONE!
And that was my first sign…I knew where my son was, he had a greater calling. And I knew I was going to be okay.
There are hundreds of signs after this first one, I had journaled them with the dates and times I received them. Because of this experience, his brother and sister also started to receive their signs, and we were all then able to cope with his passing.
If you have love in your heart, your loved one will continue to send you signs, are you receiving them? Start with love each day, remember your loved ones, and ask them to send you their signs.
This is LOVE and thank you for reading my story. This is my first attempt at writing here at Medium. Please forgive me for the grammar, paragraph and sentence structure. I thought it would be best to send this RAW version without edits to feel the story. It took me a year to have the courage to write about Justin and the hundreds of signs he has sent me in the last 16 years. I have a lot of emotions come up when I do write about them, so bare with me, I hope to share hundreds of them.
If you would like me to write more stories about the signs I have received from Justin, let me know at [email protected]. I do want to know if these stories resonate with you.
Have you had similar experiences?
This is for Justin.
#Love
Here are more Signs I received from Justin, if you’re interested.