I can only share my experience with my wild Irish Mother. Mom was the Heart and Soul of our family, beyond the Glue, she was the whole package. My siblings and I are all so very different. I am only close to 2 of the 5 siblings, if I never ,ever hear from them again I would be okay with that. Just one of those things. My Father, well I will be kind and say i get reports every now and then that he is still alive. I normally manage to duck phone calls from him. We are not and never have been close. I am okay with that as well. But Mom... Now that was a different story.
Mom married at 14 , she had been a ward of the state. Born into a depression time and family the kids were all shotgunned out into the relatives, Mom ending up with her Maternal Grandparents, She was a handful and non of the other relatives ever knew how to manage her. Her father was a Dynamiter and her Mom a flapper devoted to her husband. There were 5 kids born to them, Mom was the middle kid. He maternal Grandparents adored her. And Mom was left with them until her mother's death and her fathers remarriage to a woman she hated. The whole family was gathered together and Mom was expected to help raised the younger two. There was no more spoiling and reading to her, school was soon to be a boy's thing and she was being made to miss more and more. So she ran away enough they made her a ward of the state.
Mom always swore she was born on Lady's Island South Carolina. Of course all of us accepted her stories of how wonderful the area was and how she missed it. Our family was poor. My father a young sailor and mom had 10 pregnancies with 6 surviving kids. She raised all of us while helping my father advance in the Navy , she dealt with his infidelities and alcoholism until he got mean with we kids then with her 7th grade education she went out an lied her way into a job that eventually bought our home and put all of us through college. Quiet and accomplishment for a woman who ironed clothes for 10 cents each to keep food on the table when dad forgot to send the child support or alimony because the girl friend du jour had kids who wanted stuff too.
Mom was devoted to my daughters, I was her namesake, and my first born also carried our name, My second born carried my second name. Mom felt the world rose and spun because of her grand babies. Somehow the world can be unbearable cruel and at 59 she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. IT was aggressive and by the time Mom was 67 she no longer remember any of us. ( Except my stud dog BO , but that is another story..)
My youngest daughter was shattered by the loss of their beloved Mum, She passed away 2 weeks after Crystal's 18 th birthday. Crystal became self destructive and there was no reaching her. My older daughter broken hearted went to Mom's memorial service in San Diego, I wrote the Obit and sent 500 white balloons to be released in the Park where it was held, I did not go, Mom was not there so there was no reason for me to be there. Within 5 months of Mom's passing my Wild Child began to collect Elmo's. An Odd, Odd thing as my kids were not raised on Sesame Street. But she was fascinated by them and in turn the rest of he family began finding them everywhere. Brand new toys and toys at thrift stores in excellent condition, scarves and socks, t shirts ... the collection just seemed to have a life of it's own ! It was not exactly a total surprise when I looked at my husband one night and said "You know she is pregnant?" He was shocked and asked when she had told me, , She hadn't I confessed I just knew. So the next time she rolled through I had pregnancy tests waiting for her to take. She defiantly took them, accusing me of never having trusted her and being judgemental, when they tested positive I had three more for her to retry until she would be convinced as well. She agreed to move back home and put an end to her drugging and partying, she even tried to cut back on her smoking. Now the Elmo's things seemed to have a purpose and we re decorated her old room painting in a lovely blue with a huge Elmo on the wall, I found material and made a crib coverlet and pillows , found sheeting material and borrowed an old antique crib, a small one from friends. The Elmo's were bright and cherry and she seemed to be settling in to her pregnancy. The National Specialty for our Breed was in Colorado that year but it was a full 10 weeks before she was due so we arranged to drive out to compete and return in plenty of time for me to be there for she and the baby's birth. I fretted the entire time and my husband refused to speak with me many times because of my obsession over the whole baby thing.
Sure enough the last day of the Specialty I get a phone call, She is going to drive herself the hour and a half to Women's and Children's Hospital for the High risk deliveries ...WHAT !!!???!!!! Well her blood Pressure was through the roof and she was in preeclampsia .... calling a good friend I begged her to get there to assure my daughter would not be alone and then broke camp... we were stranded on top of this rotten mountain in Colorado until dawn all of the roads were closed, I was up and weeping till we could hit the road, My husband drove like a man possessed stopping only for gas and to allow me to buy the baby a going home outfit at a Target we spotted in Texas off of the Freeway, the only thing in a preemie size available was a couple of Elmo outfits !! I called our florist and requested the most beautiful bouquets of blue arrangement to celebrate my tiny boy's arrival he was barely 4 pounds and they knew I wanted Blue and white flowers with balloons, something for the door to her room, ( in the South Mom's get large silly bows in the birth color with rattles and sillies tied into them) and a basket of fruits... we had borrowed several cell phones which we would be mailing home to the owners so that we could keep in constant touch. Bob had me there in slightly over 30 hours, this is stopping only to gas and walk dogs and buy the going home layette he fought exhaustion and we pulled the RV into the hospital parking lot and ran all the way to her floor and room. I swear I had not thought about Elmo my focus was 100% on my girl and being there for her and the baby. We stopped long enough to be disinfected and gowned and in we went, first thing we saw was a huge bow, Blue and Red with Elmos tied into it... !! What the heck I said almost upset , the other doors were strictly Blue and white or Pink and white... this seemed almost gaudy and I was tired enough to be disappointed... once in her room there were the flowers a huge bouquet blue and white as requested with ELMO balloons .... by NOW I am almost too tired to be cranky... my girl was okay and the baby was perfect. Obviously Biracial and that mattered not one teeny tiny bit he was Ours and I met him with great love and introduced myself. He looked at me and smiled, the Nurse swore it was his first smile. In his crib was a tiny Elmo, a gift from my friend who found it, the last baby toy for a preemie in the hospital gift shop.
Tristan was home on day 8 and on day 12 was at his first dog show. Less than 4 and a half pounds he went everywhere with us and was the center of our world. We nearly lost him on New Year's Eve, the RRs alerted when his heart monitor did not go off, he was smurf blue and had stopped breathing a significant amount of time before, I managed to get out of the bandages that had me bound up after my breast cancer surgery and did CPR on him until my husband could rush the 4 of us to the hospital where Crystal and Tristan saw the New Millenium in together.
So how on earth does this have anything to do with the signs you received from your beloved Grandfather??? About 3 months later I had been doing our family Genealogy, driven by , I am not really sure what. You can imagine our family surprise when we could not find Mom's birth records in South Carolina, she had said a few times the church where she was baptised and the hospital with her records had all been damaged and the records had been lost. But Surely some where I would find what I needed !! It was on my birth certificate, and on my siblings some one must have something right ????
As I as beyond frustrated and felt I had hit a brick wall, mom's long over due Death Certificate arrived in the mail. My mother's place of birth was listed from very, very old court records as Elmo Missouri.... I was able to find all of her records there, including the burial places for the rest of the family and her ward of the state documents,,,,, You can never convince me she was not looking out for our wild child.
Since then on a day when my daughter's wild past had caught up with here and she knew by turing herself in on outstanding warrants that she would most likely be going straight to jail I used my cell phone and sent her a snap shot of a favorite picture of her beloved Mum, She said she was talking to some people who were trying to convince her to run, she had been working the road survey crew and when she walked back to the place she'd been standing for 30 + minutes saw a card on the ground. On one side was a eulogy, the other an Irish Blessing, she knew then if she ran an eulogy was all she would ever have to look forward to, but if she stayed and out her faith in a higher power.... that Irish Blessing could not be a mere coincidence..... our tflon kid is finally getting it and all along the way there have been signs,,,,
I believe your Grandfather is telling you he is at Peace and that you will always be able to find sign when you need him,
Bonita of Bwana