Transistor Radio and Death

What does a transistor radio and death have to do with one another?  Lemme 'splain.

My brother-in-law died in a car accident three years ago leaving behind my sister and her two kids.  My sister and her husband, I knew, were the love of each others' lives.  They were born exactly 4 months apart.  They went to junior high school and high school together and were 'best friends' but never dated, nor were they romantically involved.  They each dated other people.  In fact, they each ended up marrying somebody else and my brother-in-law was a groomsman in my sister's first wedding.

Where I'm going with this is that he had a very unselfish love for her and WAITED decades, sticking by her through boyfriends and a marriage, to declare his love for her and getting finally marrying her.  Soul mates. 

Anyway, he ended up dying in a car accident at the end of the road that led from their house to the highway.  That morning my sister had a weird feeling something was off as she works at nearby elementary school and heard the ambulance sirens.  Somehow, she just know.  She tried to call and text him but he did not respond - he couldn't respond - as he was already pronounced dead at the scene.

That very same day here in Sonoma County I had to drive to San Francisco for a meeting.  I was thinking of my brother-in-law's engineering genius as he had very opinionated ideas on a certain car, and on that particular morning there were more on the road than I thought usual.

When I got home that evening there was a box at the door.  It was a Christmas gift from my sister and brother-in-law.  It was making a strange noise so I decided to open it up rather than wait for Christmas morning.  It was a decorative little Christmas tree that lit up and sparkled.  Somehow, it had turned itself on during transit from Minnesota to California.  I thought it pretty so I placed it out in the living room for display thinking how nice it was for my sister and brother-in-law to send it to me.

It was about that time the phone rang.  It was one of my brothers calling to tell me that my brother-in-law had died that day.

Fast forward three years.

I had a dream the other night about my brother-in-law.  It was soooooooo real and I knew he was dead, but there he was plain as day.  He was very, very happy.  In the dream I could hear my sister in the background shrieking with joy.

I jolted awake and grabbed my iPhone to text my sister to tell her about the dream.  She replied that she, too, had a dream about my deceased brother-in-law.  In her dream he told her that he can hear everything that we are doing.  He told her that it's like sitting next to a transistor radio.  He can hear everything, and all we have to do is talk to him -- he hears.

I can't make this stuff up, people.