Do you believe in signs?

I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes
I saw the sign
Life is demanding without understanding
I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes

A few days before Christmas, my friend and colleague Bonnie McGrath died suddenly. We wrote together at the now-defunct ChicagoNow site. I met her for the first time at a group holiday party. Although I wouldn’t call our friendship close, whenever our group had a gathering, we made sure to spend some time together.

Her sudden death shook me up. It’s far from the first time this has happened to someone in my life, but these always seem to send me reeling for a couple of days. I always have a hard time dealing with the here today and healthy—suddenly gone tomorrow aspect of this. I’m not sure I’ll ever figure this out, no matter how often I talk about it in therapy.

After hearing of her death, I was checking out her Facebook page and saw that a few days earlier, she had gone out with some friends. They left it with ‘let’s get together again after the holidays’—like many of us do. And then poof—suddenly gone with no explanation.

A day after hearing of her loss, I was running some errands. I pulled up at the first stop light. The car in front of me had a license plate holder from The McGrath Auto Group. Maybe it was a coincidence, but my first thought was that this was a sign.

I believe in signs. I feel like they are trying to maybe lead in a particular direction. I don’t necessarily follow that lead, but I do acknowledge it. I truly felt the car at the stop light was trying to get me somewhere, but I wasn’t quite sure where it was.

Last week I was watching The Sugar Bowl football game. One of the sideline reporters on the broadcast is named Molly McGrath. That’s the same name as Bonnie’s daughter. Was this another coincidence, some Twilight Zone shit, or a sign?

I don’t have what I consider a lot of extremely close friends. The number is between five and ten—and it’s probably closer to the former number. I recently acknowledged to myself that I don’t see these people as often as I should. I’ve gone three years or longer without seeing a few of them. It made me wonder if we were still actually friends.

In the last few months, I’ve tried to rectify this. After long absences, I’ve seen a few of them and I’m also in contact with a couple of others. Although I don’t say this to anyone, the reason for doing this, besides that I love these folks, is we’re all getting older and I don’t want to have any regrets if something tragic happens. There—I’ve said it and I don’t feel bad about it—at least not too bad.

The sudden death of Bonnie and the two following signs reinforced what I was already starting to do. Maybe it will even make me faster on this quest—that’s still to be determined.