Angel in the Backyard

Randall looked hard at the beautiful young woman standing in his backyard. It had been four months since his wife died, and he continued to experience sleepless nights, bouts of depression and loneliness. But at 7:45 am on a Wednesday morning gazing out the kitchen window, he was as clear and alert as he had ever been, and that woman looked way too much like his departed and beloved wife.

Leilani and Randall were very much in love. When she came into hospice with incurable breast cancer, Randall began to detach from the outer world, spending all of his time with her. Leilani’s death, though long expected, was a stunning shock to him. His two sons were worried about their father, as his grief was overflowing into his family and work life.

Randall blinked twice, but the woman did not disappear. Finally, he got up the courage to walk out the back door and into the yard. For the first time, he noticed that the couple’s dog of 13 years was barking up a storm. Apparently the dog aptly named Bright Eyes saw the visitor as well. Randall’s walk toward his wife seemed to be in slow motion. Her whole faced smiled, seemed to glow, as he approached. It was Leilani! Leilani from 40 years ago, in the prime of her youth and beauty. Just as he had done thousands of times, he leaned over to kiss his wife. Surprisingly, she stopped him with her right hand, bending down instead to snuggle the now ecstatic Bright Eyes first. The couple then embraced and walked together toward the house.

Randall no longer questioned what was happening to him. If this were a dream, let it last forever, he thought. It was as real to him as the entire sixty years of his life on earth. As they stood in the couple’s living room, Leilani smiled and said, ‘Thank you; you finally fixed that picture frame.’ Indeed, with time on his hands and an overanxious mind, Randall had finally recrafted a wall hanging she had asked to be fixed over a year ago.

She stared into her husband’s dull eyes. ‘What’s wrong hon, you look so sad?’ ‘I’m worried, Leilani; I’m not doing well, the bills are not getting paid, and I can’t find work.’ She broke into the biggest smile he had ever seen. ‘Don’t worry my love, I guarantee that your problem will be resolved very, very soon.’ He nodded in disbelief. As Randall then moved to open the door, wanting to show Leilani some work he had done in the front yard, he turned to find himself alone in the house.

That Wednesday was strange and unsettling for Randall. He didn’t tell a soul about his experience. He wanted to relive it again and again in his mind before coming to a solid conclusion which he might then dare to tell others. He fell asleep on the couch after midnight. The phone rang early Thursday morning. A very happy voice on the line practically yelled to him, “Hey Rand, our troubles are over! I found us some good work. Our luck has changed my man!’

The first and perhaps the only person Randall saw on that Friday morning who he dared to share such a strange experience with was Leilani’s hospice nurse Cindy. By chance, he ran into Cindy at the little Seven-Eleven down from his house. It was the first time he had seen her since his wife’s death. When Cindy heard his story, she smiled knowingly and said, ‘I believe you Randall.’

That same Friday my friend Cindy shared Randall’s true story with me. I too had met his angel Leilani in her final days on earth, had seen the special glint in her eyes, had felt an unusual connection to her at first sight, and had been unsurprised to hear of her return. Cindy and I had heard these visitation stories before, when the love of those living and those ‘dead’ seems to break through the so-called reality of this earthly world.

I do believe. I believe that love can violate the laws which have violated the law of love.