After my Mother's death in December of 2002, I experienced a series of synchronicities, some would say "signs" or "messages," whose emotional resonance was very compelling. For three years in a row, among them was a message I seemed to have gotten from an unlikely source, my Mickey Mouse watch. Let me explain.
My mother's nickname all while she was growing up was Mickey, because she loved to draw Disney characters. My Uncle Bubby dubbed her Mickey, and it stuck. Years ago, when she took my brother, Mark's, kids to Disney World, she bought herself a Mickey Mouse watch. About six months before her death when she was no longer able to run her own errands, she asked me if I would go to the mall for her and get it a new battery. I did. She wore the watch about a week, and then she asked me if I wanted it. She knew I had a watch collection. I said, Sure, and that Mickey Mouse watch turned out to be the last gift she gave me.
I wore the watch for a while, and then I stopped wearing it, because I was scared to death that I would lose it. But on March 3, 2003, my first birthday after her death, I wore it to school. The watch has several knobs. My mother didn't have the instruction booklet anymore, so I really have no idea how the alarm works. I fiddled with it enough to learn how to set it, but I never could figure out how the alarm works. That day the alarm went off all day long! There didn't seem to be a pattern to it. It just sounded all day long. I went over to my sister, Sherry's, to tell her about it, and it sounded right in the middle of the story, so she heard it, too. I put the watch back, and it remained silent on March 4 and for many months thereafter.
Then, one day I wore it, and I tinkered with the alarm. I don't know what the hell I did, but for months and months, it fell into a pattern of going off at 9:15 AM and 9:15 PM. I just supposed that I somehow set it for those times. It was funny. I could hear it, sometimes faintly, sometimes not, depending on where I was in the apartment at 9:15 during the day.
I wore it on my birthday again on March 3, 2004, and, as I was putting it on, I told my mother out loud that I did not expect her to do with the watch what she had done the last year. I was just wearing it for sentimental reasons. I expected the alarm to go off at in the morning at 9:15, as it had for many months, and, sure enough, it did. I knew it wasn't my mother, but I thanked her anyway.
I have an ingenious way of celebrating my birthday while working. I buy myself a sheet cake and bring it into school. Believe me, I can get a lesson out any kind of food, and I do! From simple requests in German I (I'd like a piece of cake, please.) to the conditional in German IV (If it weren't my birthday today, you wouldn't be eating cake), I can milk food for everything it's worth. Do you know the traditional German birthday song which is more like For (S)He's A Jolly Good Fellow! It goes, "Hoch soll er leben, Hoch soll er leben, Dreimal hoch! Then you repeat the verse. The kids all know it because I make them sing it whenever a classmate has a birthday and I give them a Glückscent, a good luck penny. Anyway, I started singing the song changing the pronoun to ICH. I had to sing it about five times before the smartest kid in class even noticed what the hell I was doing. "Mr. Matalucci, you're singing ich, not er or sie Isn't that like singing, Happy Birthday to me?" "You got it, Holger," I said. At 11:05, I was singing Hoch soll ich leben with great gusto, and the alarm went off! I mean exactly as I was singing ICH. I couldn't believe it!! It had been in the same pattern of 9:15 AM and PM for many months, and in the middle of a song wishing myself a Happy Birthday, the pattern broke and it went off. Then it started going off all day long again! So, for two years in a row I got a message from Mickey on my birthday.
Sometime two summers ago after I got back from Tuscany, I picked up the watch, and I noticed that the battery had died. I figured that I had plenty of time to get another one before my birthday. Well, guess what, I didn't! I picked up the watch several times and the time remained the same. Well, I wore it again last March 3, anyway. I certainly didn't expect my mother to defy natural law and sound the alarm again on a watch whose battery had died, but I wore it, because I will always wear it on my birthday.
I was proctoring the S Tests, and the kids were writing their little fingers off, as I sat at my desk working on my lap top.
I finished my school work and then went on line, where I opened up an e-card Michele Miglino, my mother's roommate and best friend in Florida. Michele is my age and became like a daughter to my mother. She was very good to her while my mother was in Florida, and the last couple of years she was down there, Michele also became her primary care giver before we were able to talk my mother into coming home, and Sherry and Robin flew down there and got her back here with her children where she belonged at that stage of her life Anyway, Michele's card featured a Chinese guy, and the last thing that came up was Happy Birthday in Chinese. Just as the Chinese came up, the alarm sounded! The first noise the watch had made all day. As I watched in awe and wonder, getting both goose bumps all over my arms and tears in my eyes, the watch set itself to the proper time, I swear to God! When I was at Wake Forest, I wrote my Mom a letter when I was taking Chinese. At the bottom of the letter, I said, "Mom, I can now tell you I love you in seven languages, and I wrote them all, including the Chinese characters I had just learned." She was touched by the letter, of course, and mentioned it several times over the years. Well, I get a birthday greeting from Mickey just as the Chinese characters for Happy Birthday come up on the screen. It was amazing. By the way, the watch is still ticking, and the time is correct. Perhaps the battery wasn't dead, perhaps it just needed to be jarred, but I have no explanation for the watch setting itself to the proper time.
The last Mickey Mouse synchronicity did not include the alarm's ringing on my birthday. One evening, I picked up my mother's girlhood drawing, that I had had framed, of Mickey Mouse. I figured that I would pay money to have her "signature character" framed. She has also given me so many signs from "Mickey" that I wanted to have it framed professionally. I hung it next to that picture of her, that I had commissioned, reading in a celestial garden and surrounded by all the things I used to gently tease her for believing in, unicorns and fairies and tree gnomes. I put my Mickey Mouse watch on and wore it Wednesday and Thursday. I was thinking that maybe the alarm would go off like it had done for three years in a row when I wear it on my birthday. It didn't. I really was half-way expecting some kind of sign like a light flickering when I hung the Mickey Mouse picture up. None came. As I speculated in my first note, when I go looking for synchronicities, they don't happen.
Friday night, I went to the theater in Philadelphia with guests from Vermont. As my company and I entered the theater that evening, the ticket taker had a Mickey Mouse watch on with the same band as mine. I almost didn't say anything to her, but I did, "I have a Mickey Mouse watch like that, too." "Oh, you're lucky, " she said. "Mine plays Happy Birthday!" It took three days, but I got the sign that I was no longer expecting to happen. I didn't know any of those Mickey Mouse watches played songs, let alone Happy Birthday! I would have been a little impressed with just the watch with the same band, but when she volunteered that hers played Happy Birthday, I was really taken aback. Why would she tell me that? Why would I say anything to her? I never make small talk like that with ticket takers and ushers when I know that all they want to do is get the crowd into the theater and seated as quickly as possible. It just all sort of fit together to produce the sign. I got my birthday greeting from Mickey about a month early that year. It was the last synchronicity connected to the watch, my mother's last gift to me.
Mom's signature character, Mickey Mouse, drawn when she was 15.
Several pictures of Mom, a piece of Turkish carpet, a gift my from good friend, Betty Moore-Hafter, a reproduction of a Hittite wine decanter, that I bought in Turkey, and a picture of Pan, drawn by Mom. During my trip to Turkey, there was one synchronicity after another on one particular day. Pan, Bugs Bunny, and Disney characters all played roles.
The Mickey Mouse watch featured in this note. It is in a Palekh box that I sent Mom from the Soviet Union for Christmas of 1987. Mom lost the lid!! I moved six years ago on the first anniversary of my mother's death. It just worked out that way. At the end of the moving day, I went through the apartment one last time to see if I missed anything. I noticed this tiny shiny thing in a far corner of the living room, where a curio cabinet had been. I walked over and was stunned that it said, "Happy Birthday." I don't think my mother put it there. I have no idea how it got there. But it was a synchronicity and amazed me.
My mother's nickname all while she was growing up was Mickey, because she loved to draw Disney characters. My Uncle Bubby dubbed her Mickey, and it stuck. Years ago, when she took my brother, Mark's, kids to Disney World, she bought herself a Mickey Mouse watch. About six months before her death when she was no longer able to run her own errands, she asked me if I would go to the mall for her and get it a new battery. I did. She wore the watch about a week, and then she asked me if I wanted it. She knew I had a watch collection. I said, Sure, and that Mickey Mouse watch turned out to be the last gift she gave me.
I wore the watch for a while, and then I stopped wearing it, because I was scared to death that I would lose it. But on March 3, 2003, my first birthday after her death, I wore it to school. The watch has several knobs. My mother didn't have the instruction booklet anymore, so I really have no idea how the alarm works. I fiddled with it enough to learn how to set it, but I never could figure out how the alarm works. That day the alarm went off all day long! There didn't seem to be a pattern to it. It just sounded all day long. I went over to my sister, Sherry's, to tell her about it, and it sounded right in the middle of the story, so she heard it, too. I put the watch back, and it remained silent on March 4 and for many months thereafter.
Then, one day I wore it, and I tinkered with the alarm. I don't know what the hell I did, but for months and months, it fell into a pattern of going off at 9:15 AM and 9:15 PM. I just supposed that I somehow set it for those times. It was funny. I could hear it, sometimes faintly, sometimes not, depending on where I was in the apartment at 9:15 during the day.
I wore it on my birthday again on March 3, 2004, and, as I was putting it on, I told my mother out loud that I did not expect her to do with the watch what she had done the last year. I was just wearing it for sentimental reasons. I expected the alarm to go off at in the morning at 9:15, as it had for many months, and, sure enough, it did. I knew it wasn't my mother, but I thanked her anyway.
I have an ingenious way of celebrating my birthday while working. I buy myself a sheet cake and bring it into school. Believe me, I can get a lesson out any kind of food, and I do! From simple requests in German I (I'd like a piece of cake, please.) to the conditional in German IV (If it weren't my birthday today, you wouldn't be eating cake), I can milk food for everything it's worth. Do you know the traditional German birthday song which is more like For (S)He's A Jolly Good Fellow! It goes, "Hoch soll er leben, Hoch soll er leben, Dreimal hoch! Then you repeat the verse. The kids all know it because I make them sing it whenever a classmate has a birthday and I give them a Glückscent, a good luck penny. Anyway, I started singing the song changing the pronoun to ICH. I had to sing it about five times before the smartest kid in class even noticed what the hell I was doing. "Mr. Matalucci, you're singing ich, not er or sie Isn't that like singing, Happy Birthday to me?" "You got it, Holger," I said. At 11:05, I was singing Hoch soll ich leben with great gusto, and the alarm went off! I mean exactly as I was singing ICH. I couldn't believe it!! It had been in the same pattern of 9:15 AM and PM for many months, and in the middle of a song wishing myself a Happy Birthday, the pattern broke and it went off. Then it started going off all day long again! So, for two years in a row I got a message from Mickey on my birthday.
Sometime two summers ago after I got back from Tuscany, I picked up the watch, and I noticed that the battery had died. I figured that I had plenty of time to get another one before my birthday. Well, guess what, I didn't! I picked up the watch several times and the time remained the same. Well, I wore it again last March 3, anyway. I certainly didn't expect my mother to defy natural law and sound the alarm again on a watch whose battery had died, but I wore it, because I will always wear it on my birthday.
I was proctoring the S Tests, and the kids were writing their little fingers off, as I sat at my desk working on my lap top.
I finished my school work and then went on line, where I opened up an e-card Michele Miglino, my mother's roommate and best friend in Florida. Michele is my age and became like a daughter to my mother. She was very good to her while my mother was in Florida, and the last couple of years she was down there, Michele also became her primary care giver before we were able to talk my mother into coming home, and Sherry and Robin flew down there and got her back here with her children where she belonged at that stage of her life Anyway, Michele's card featured a Chinese guy, and the last thing that came up was Happy Birthday in Chinese. Just as the Chinese came up, the alarm sounded! The first noise the watch had made all day. As I watched in awe and wonder, getting both goose bumps all over my arms and tears in my eyes, the watch set itself to the proper time, I swear to God! When I was at Wake Forest, I wrote my Mom a letter when I was taking Chinese. At the bottom of the letter, I said, "Mom, I can now tell you I love you in seven languages, and I wrote them all, including the Chinese characters I had just learned." She was touched by the letter, of course, and mentioned it several times over the years. Well, I get a birthday greeting from Mickey just as the Chinese characters for Happy Birthday come up on the screen. It was amazing. By the way, the watch is still ticking, and the time is correct. Perhaps the battery wasn't dead, perhaps it just needed to be jarred, but I have no explanation for the watch setting itself to the proper time.
The last Mickey Mouse synchronicity did not include the alarm's ringing on my birthday. One evening, I picked up my mother's girlhood drawing, that I had had framed, of Mickey Mouse. I figured that I would pay money to have her "signature character" framed. She has also given me so many signs from "Mickey" that I wanted to have it framed professionally. I hung it next to that picture of her, that I had commissioned, reading in a celestial garden and surrounded by all the things I used to gently tease her for believing in, unicorns and fairies and tree gnomes. I put my Mickey Mouse watch on and wore it Wednesday and Thursday. I was thinking that maybe the alarm would go off like it had done for three years in a row when I wear it on my birthday. It didn't. I really was half-way expecting some kind of sign like a light flickering when I hung the Mickey Mouse picture up. None came. As I speculated in my first note, when I go looking for synchronicities, they don't happen.
Friday night, I went to the theater in Philadelphia with guests from Vermont. As my company and I entered the theater that evening, the ticket taker had a Mickey Mouse watch on with the same band as mine. I almost didn't say anything to her, but I did, "I have a Mickey Mouse watch like that, too." "Oh, you're lucky, " she said. "Mine plays Happy Birthday!" It took three days, but I got the sign that I was no longer expecting to happen. I didn't know any of those Mickey Mouse watches played songs, let alone Happy Birthday! I would have been a little impressed with just the watch with the same band, but when she volunteered that hers played Happy Birthday, I was really taken aback. Why would she tell me that? Why would I say anything to her? I never make small talk like that with ticket takers and ushers when I know that all they want to do is get the crowd into the theater and seated as quickly as possible. It just all sort of fit together to produce the sign. I got my birthday greeting from Mickey about a month early that year. It was the last synchronicity connected to the watch, my mother's last gift to me.
Mom's signature character, Mickey Mouse, drawn when she was 15.Several pictures of Mom, a piece of Turkish carpet, a gift my from good friend, Betty Moore-Hafter, a reproduction of a Hittite wine decanter, that I bought in Turkey, and a picture of Pan, drawn by Mom. During my trip to Turkey, there was one synchronicity after another on one particular day. Pan, Bugs Bunny, and Disney characters all played roles.The Mickey Mouse watch featured in this note. It is in a Palekh box that I sent Mom from the Soviet Union for Christmas of 1987. Mom lost the lid!! I moved six years ago on the first anniversary of my mother's death. It just worked out that way. At the end of the moving day, I went through the apartment one last time to see if I missed anything. I noticed this tiny shiny thing in a far corner of the living room, where a curio cabinet had been. I walked over and was stunned that it said, "Happy Birthday." I don't think my mother put it there. I have no idea how it got there. But it was a synchronicity and amazed me.
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