It all began with glimpsing a cloud in the sky that, even to the dullest brain, absolutely resembled a duck: beak, head, neck, body, and tail, sticking up, the way a floating duck will wiggle its tail feathers after dunking its head for a bit of dinner into a pond.

“It’s a nice duck,” I said to no one in particular, as I returned my gaze to the road as I was driving home from the feed store, “but I’d have rather seen a terrier.”

“So I asked Bonnie to send me a sign,” I mentioned to Paul, as I came in the house.

Paul smiled indulgently but said nothing, so I continued.

“And then I was thinking I hope she’s playing with Mom, so I asked her for a sign, too, that they’re both together and alright.”

“That’s a lot of signs,” Paul replied.

“Yeah, I know, but I only asked for one, specific sign – a green tennis ball, since she was obsessed with them and always followed us around with one in her mouth.”

“Your Mom?” Paul asked.

“Yeah,” I said, dead panning, “Mom. And the ball was always covered in drool.”

Asking for signs from the dearly departed have always been, I felt, a normal way of dealing with the grieving process. On my former radio show, I once devoted two entire segments to ‘signs,’ asking people to call in with their personal experiences they might like to share. The lines were jammed and the stories, whether coincidental or not, were varied, fascinating, comforting: a specific butterfly that had been the favorite of a deceased mother, lighting upon the shoulder of the weeping daughter during the funeral…a son, on several occasions, finding a ‘wheat penny,’ long collected by a departed father, turning up on a side walk, parking lot, or street…even Sean Lennon, the youngest son of murdered Beatle, John Lennon, described during an interview long ago that years after his father died, he, Sean, missed him so badly on one occasion that as he climbed into his car he began to sob uncontrollably. After a few minutes he composed himself, turned on the radio and the Lennon song, ‘Beautiful Boy,’ written expressly for Sean, was playing.

So I didn’t feel too goofy for asking for signs from Bonnie and Mom.

There are no tennis balls left on the farm, so I knew I wouldn’t find any there and besides, I told myself, signs don’t come when you’re looking for them. They always just sort of pop up, unexpectedly.

A few days later, bored that my broken wrist was not yet healed enough to ride, I decided to give the upstairs bathroom a thorough scrubbing, which then put me in a further mood to tackle our adjoining bedroom. The night before, I had placed Bonnie’s cremated remains, which reside in a lovely, little teak box, on my bedside table, but that table was groaning under a stack of books that keep me company along with my longtime companion, Mr. Insomnia.

I removed Bonnie’s box from the top of the stack and as I gathered up an armful of books to return to the bookcase, I carefully placed it on top of a couple of magazines that had lain beneath the pile for who knows how long. Determined to dust and polish the table, when I returned to clear the rest away I gave a little gasp, and then a chuckle, as the magazine upon which Bonnie’s box rested was an old 1999 copy of a weekly one I had long subscribed to from England, and boldly dated on its cover, November 18 – my mother’s birthday.

Even Paul agreed that was a pretty amazing coincidence and it gave me comfort, I told him, as if mom was signaling, “Don’t worry, Bonnie’s with me.”

I was still feeling warm inside as Paul drove me to the medical rehab wing of our local hospital for my weekly session to improve flexibility in my wrist. As we parked and walked to the entrance, it was blocked by an elderly woman who was bent over and seemingly struggling with her aluminum walker which was lying sideways on the ground.

“Here, let me help you,” offered Paul, always the gentleman, “Has a wheel come off?”

“No,” replied the woman, flushed with heat, and straightening her back, “It’s one of those darned balls they put on the back legs- it popped off and I can’t get it back on!”

Even Paul, now kneeling, struggled with it for a few moments, twisting and pushing the purposely punctured ball to fit over the foot of the walker’s right leg. I also stooped down, trying to stabilize the leg with my good arm as he gave a final shove. Success!

“Paul,” I said, as it suddenly occurred to me, “It’s a green tennis ball.”

Paul stopped, his eyes widened, and he laughed. “You’re right!”

Pretty coincidental timing, we both marveled afterwards, that a woman in distress with her walker had just happened to be blocking our way in at the very moment we walked up, obliging us to stop and physically grasp the green tennis ball in hand, as if quite demanding our attention.

Call it what you will, but I will treasure these little moments and trot them out whenever I feel the need, should I be a bit blue and missing loved ones. Come to think of it, I have three beloved horses buried here at the farm – maybe I’ll ask for a sign from them?

That’s gonna be one, huge, carrot….