Midsummer magic...

A week ago I drew a card telling me that my ancestral spirit guides were offering me guidance now and to pay close attention to signs and omens from them.  Three things have happened in the past week that seem like signs to me...

One morning my sister, who lives with my father, called and was quite upset because when she went in to get my father up for the day, he seemed to be disoriented and asked her to go get my mother, who died 18 years ago.  He had seen her and was convinced that she was in the next room.  And he totally refused to get out of bed that day.  My sister didn't know what to do.  But I'm thinking he probably did see my mother, as I sense that she's been around since my doe visited me in November, and had recently begun to think that part of the message she may have been trying to deliver to me was that she would be taking care of my father now.

Another morning my sister gave me a letter that had turned up out of the blue while she was cleaning house.  It was written by my grandfather to all of us, and was postmarked 25 days before the day my mother died.  It was a creative story about his model train village and what was going on there, written probably to cheer up my mother, his only daughter, who was dying of cancer.  He couldn't come to visit her because he had to care for my grandmother, who had dementia and was not yet in a nursing home.  It made me realize now how torn he must have felt between caring for his wife and his daughter.  Perhaps even similar to the way I feel now, torn between helping to care for my frail father and staying home to support my husband, who hasn't had a chance yet to fully recover and change his lifestyle since his heart attack a year and eight months ago.  It's been a painful choice to make, but I think now my grandfather helped me to make it, and I'm happy to report that my husband and I are now getting walks into our routine and pills taken on time.  His doctor has referred us to a dietitian, too, and I know none of this would have happened if I was still running up to my father's several days a week.

Yesterday, another sign.  My sister and I are excitedly planning our third annual Scandinavian-style Midsummer party in her garden.  Last year a Luna moth made an appearance for the event.  This year I thought we might try a frozen vodka.  (You freeze a bottle of vodka in an empty milk carton surrounded by flowers suspended in water, which should look pretty when removed from the carton...)  I went to the package store to get a bottle of vodka and there, to my surprise and delight, all by itself on the shelf, was a blue bottle (my favorite color and I collect blue bottles) of Christiania vodka from Norway.  I am most drawn to my Norwegian heritage and our 5th great-grandmother's name was Christiania!  (She was born about 1748 in Brevik, Norway.)  Maybe in time I will understand if Christiania has a message for me too...