TiVo as messenger

As I was watching TV last night, I said, "I want you to come home, please." I issue some variant of that request many times a day, whether I'm despondent or ecstatic or somewhere in between. I don't usually get any obvious response.

As usual, I was fast-forwarding through commercials, but I noticed them as they buzzed by on the screen. And then the screen froze. Text on the screen said I hate the way things ended.

A year ago, we were on vacation, unaware that the ending
had already begun. A year ago this morning, we woke in
Pendleton, Oregon, and Sandy worried about going any farther
with her unpredictable pain, nausea, and leg twitches. But we
hadn't seen anything yet, so we agreed to press on at least to
our first "sight." The next day, we toured Craters of the Moon,
a bleak but captivating landscape. We marveled at how
plants and animals adapted and sometimes thrived even
amongthe destruction left by lava.

Puzzled, I wondered whether the broadcast had been disrupted when the show was originally recorded, or what might have happened to freeze the screen while TiVo was fast-forwarding. Then I looked more closely at the screen and saw that TiVo had been paused. But not by my hand.

I, too, hate the way things ended. Hate that they ended. Hate that her life ended. But I was delighted by her apparently opportunistic use of the media to communicate. Bewildered and amused, I rewound to see the commercial that had put the words on the screen. I watched it a few times, not for the commercial but almost to prove to myself that it didn't just automatically stop on those words, that it had been unusual for those words to stay on the screen, that TiVo wasn't programmed to pause there.

A few nights ago, I read more about communicating with the dead. There was a check list of sorts to help you determine whether strange events in your life might be communication from the other side. One of the questions was about electronics turning on and off without human intervention. At the time, I thought, no, that hasn't been happening. But maybe my reading about it gave Sandy a sense of her own power — and a desire to try it.

It seems so small, really — a goofy commercial pausing at a particular moment. But through such small events come strong sentiments and a continuing feeling of connection. I hope she keeps exploring her own potential and sharing her thoughts with me and all the other people she loves.