JAN'S TALES...Buttons, Bracelets, and a Bible

Buttons, Bracelets, and a Bible

(The author Notes: During the months of, February and March of 2005, some even more extraordinary events unfolded here at my home. (At times I feel like San, here at Guardian Tales, is graciously keeping a diary of my life. Hopefully she, as well as you the readers, will never tire of these stories, as I’ve come to enjoy the peace it gives me to write them all down, even as they continue to happen. If they indeed help just even one of you out there to understand some of the own happenings in your own life then I know there was a purpose as to why they happened in my own. To share with others, and help them cope with their own paranormal activities, seems to me like a spiritual companionship between us all. Life…we are all in this together.)

It may have actually began at the end of January, I can’t recall the exact day that the first button appeared, but I simply reached down and picked it up off the bathroom rug and placed it in a small basket on the sink counter that held extra rolls of toilet tissue. My first thought was that someone had lost a button off their shirt while in the bathroom or it may have fell off while I was attending to the laundry, which I do in the same room. I made a mental note to check everyone’s shirt buttons in the future as I did more washing.

The very next day, especially early in the morning, I walked barefoot into the bathroom and stepped on something small and cold. Another button. This time it was a white one; the first had been a black one, and again, it went into the basket with the other. The next day, a red button was lying on the floor, in the same spot. ‘What the crap?’ I thought to myself, ‘what’s with all the buttons all of a sudden?’ My first instinct was that one of my German shepherds had got into my sewing supplies and was dragging out buttons for some reason. I went to check and found everything in order; everything was still put up behind cabinet doors and inside separate containers. What was even more puzzling was that the buttons I was finding didn’t match any I had in sewing storage, nor did they match any of the clothes we had in the house. Day by day this continued to happen; one single button was found in the bathroom floor every morning and this continued for several weeks. They were all black, white or red. Some had small curves in them, some had bumps, and some only had one hole in them instead of two or four (how they sewed that on a garment I’ll never know). Some of the black buttons even had little anchors on them, like the Navy uniform symbol. So far, to this day, there are 31 buttons in all, plus two extra ones that are of odd mixed colors. Everyone in the family swears they weren’t pulling a prank on me; in fact it was other members of the family that found a few buttons themselves on early morning trips to the bathroom. The ‘button caper’ ended around the end of February or the beginning of March after I did some more thorough investigations as something was nagging at the back of my mind. Those buttons looked familiar after all.

I have a special box put away, actually a plastic storage container with a tight lid, that contains some very unique items I have kept that belonged to my departed grandma Lola. Inside this box includes a few of her hairnets, one of her hairbrushes with some of her hair still in it (On certain melancholy occasions I inhale the scent to bring back memories and for a sense of comfort that only the hug of a grandmother can give.) a pair of her white church gloves, some head scarves, other personal items and a small baby food jar of buttons. It was this last item I was interested in when sorting through other containers that were put on top of this one in the closet. After finding the correct container, I took a deep breath and opened the lid. The jar was still inside with a scarf wrapped around it for protection, but it no longer held a collection of buttons; there were only a few left in the bottom of the jar. Inside the small glass container was one black, one red and one white button. All the strange little buttons that appeared in the bathroom had come from this jar somehow. Was my grandma trying to contact me? Was she around the house for some reason? Or was she just teasing me in her own little way?

Although I tried several times I just couldn’t make contact with her. All seemed quiet for about two weeks after the last button was found on the floor. Then on March 17^th, something totally unexplainable happened, and I thank God that my son, Josh was standing right beside me in the bathroom fixing his hair for school while I was brushing my teeth, as without his own witnessing of the event I really don’t suppose anyone would have believed me. Several days previously I spent the entire Sunday afternoon making bracelets out of rubber bands. It’s the newest craze down here for all the kids at school to wear. (I’ll see if San will insert a few photos along with this story so you can get the big picture of what I’ll try to describe.) You sort of use a crochet hook and just connect them to each other, but you use the tiny colored rubber bands that most girls use to secure the ends of their braids with not the larger beige colored ones that are used in offices. It takes about 20 to 30 bands to produce one bracelet, depending on how small the bands are, and how large the wrist is that will go around them. I bet I made over 25 of them that day and then some for me to wear as well. The ones I made for myself, 9 in all, took about 25 bands each, plus I made myself a necklace out of some, and I don’t know how many it took to do that; well over a 100 I’m guessing. I placed the 9 bracelets and 1 necklace on a jewelry tree I have on the counter in the bathroom along with several other pieces of jewelry I have hanging from the wooden pegs on that Sunday evening. Later in the week, on Thursday, the 17^th, after brushing my teeth, I reached for one of the bracelets to put on; it was the first time I had touched any of the jewelry on that stand all week. The bracelet, totally disintegrated into a pile beneath the tree; it was in small tiny pieces, as if each and every rubber band and been snipped into two or three sections, and it had been just hanging there a second before seemingly with no damage at all.

“Look at that!” I said aloud to Josh, “ Did you do that? Did you cut up my bracelet?” This time my tone was a bit harsh but he looked as surprised as I was and investigated the pieces lying there.

“Mom, I swear I didn’t do anything to your bracelets!” he retorted, still pushing the tiny bits around with his finger, along side my own. I reached for another one that was hanging. Again, there was a cascading of rubber bands, trickling downward like miniature shredded confetti, falling apart at the touch of my fingers. Josh reached for one himself and it too mysteriously fell apart. We looked at each other totally befuddled, eyes wide with wonder and awe. I went to pick up the remaining ones off one peg and sure enough, they all crumbled together, falling down to mix with the other cut up pieces. The necklace was last, which I didn’t even try to pick up, I just merely flicked it with my fingers and it too broke apart in shreds. Now there was a colorful pile of rubber band bones on the counter. We both picked up several tiny lengths and stretched them to make sure they were what we were seeing I guess. I was making sure they weren’t dry rotted or brittle for some odd reason (Not that they could have gotten that way over a mere four days since I had made them. They were never in contact with any soap, cleaning solutions, etc…either.) They were all springy and didn’t show any wear or damage other then being cut into halves, thirds or fourths. There were no jagged edges where they looked like they may have been pulled apart; they didn’t smell like anything chemical, only like rubber bands usually do. “Go check your bracelets I made you.” I asked Josh, and he went into his room and came out with his and they were all fine. Even the ones I was wearing since Sunday were fine, as well as the ones Josh was wearing. The other jewelry on the tree was inspected and everything checked out ok. We couldn’t waste much time on this mystery as he had to go to school and I had errands to run, so we left the pile sitting there.

Later that day, while having a conversation with my mother about the buttons and the rubber bands, an epiphany hit her; she remembered something I use to do to grandma Lola that irritated the crap out of her, something that would make her get back at me even if it was to be from the ‘great beyond’. I use to, as a joke, stab her tomatoes that she had sitting in the kitchen and leave the knife sticking out of one of the victims. She in turn would have to make (my favorite) tomato and potato soup in order to use up the damaged tomatoes before they spoiled. This little act (selfish to her, amusing to me) of mine went on for the couple of years we lived at the duplex next to her. Sometimes I’d actually do it twice in one month, and boy would she ever get aggravated at me at times, especially if they were fresh picked from her garden and not store bought ones during the winter time. Many times I had to eat sliced tomatoes with dinner or on my sandwiches instead of her going to the trouble of making homemade soup. The day I moved away from there to come down to Kentucky I had bought a package of white plastic picnic knives and, well, you guessed it…I placed one in every one of her tomatoes that were in her garden as a farewell marking of my wickedness. I never heard the end of it. She had to can most of them, and others she stewed and put up in freezer bags. Every time we came up to visit my meal consisted of everything with tomatoes in it. Even at the holiday times she prepared a special place just for me at the table along with tomato soup, casserole with tomatoes, tomatoes and macaroni, and tomato juice. So, this sudden idea from my mom about her own mother reaching from the other side to play Texas Chain Saw Massacre on my rubber band bracelets seemed quite believable. Revenge is a dish best eaten when cold…or so I’ve heard.

Again, after the bracelet incident I tried to contact my grandma but with no response or results. Was it really her playing little tricks on me? Was she observing my own frustration over the bracelets and buttons and laughing instead of responding to my invitation to a conversation, teasing me further? I would just talk to her out loud, letting her know I wasn’t angry, but rather tickled at her antics. Even though I got no response from the various ways of divination that was tried, I knew in my heart that she could hear me and let her also know how dearly she was missed and how loved she still was.

There was several times during this period of time that I would awake in the middle of the night and see a dark, short shadow standing by the bed looking down at me. It was something I never feared, for it was a gentle presence, and the smell of roses more then once left whispers in the air around me at those moments. (She always used a rose lotion on her skin from the famous door-to-door cosmetic sales lady. It seems like all grandmothers wore this at one time or another…smile.)

The following week, on yet another Thursday, the 24^th of March, something else happened and this time it made me actually take a step backwards in shock. I had come home in the afternoon after spending the day helping my mother and immediately went to the back door to let the dogs out. I opened the door, the dogs ran out, I shut the door, turned around and my mouth dropped open in a gasp. At the same time I took a step backwards in disbelief at what I saw laying in the middle of the floor. Right in the path I had just taken, and not 6 foot away from my feet. It took me several moments to comprehend what I was seeing, and several more to try and understand how it got there. Right there in front of me, lying on the carpet was a green Bible. It was the one my grandma had given to me when I was very young. I had just recently seen it while cleaning out a spare bedroom closet (Not the same place the container with my grandma’s personal belongings were in, a different closet.) a few months prior; it had been in a cardboard box with some other stuff I kept from my life in St. Louis; old report cards, juvenile love letters, scrap books, etc…just some junk most people can’t let go of for some reason. I kept the box on the top shelf of this particular closet.

Anyway, there I stood staring at the book on the floor, in awe over how it just appeared so suddenly by itself! I finally got up enough nerve to walk over and bend down to pick it up. Just to make sure, I flipped open the front cover to read the inscription of the date it was presented to me back when I was 11 years old, by my grandma Lola. Shaking my head in disbelief, all I could do was laugh out loud at this book appearing from out of nowhere in a matter of mere seconds from walking across where there had been nothing there before. I immediately had a private conversation with Lola, then went and called my mom and told her all about it. We both shared an amusing wonder over the whole ordeal.

But the story doesn’t end there. On April 7^th, I went and visited Tina, from the Husband House, at their new home that is being built and is almost finished. They were having a birthday party for her mother, Rachel. (See the story ‘The One Thing’, as this will tell you in what condition Rachel is in. She’s in her 8^th year of having Alzheimer and has the mind of about a 5 year old now.) After most of the festivities were over, Rachel wanted me to sit next to her for a while. We sat there holding hands after sharing a few hugs and then she started patting down my hair with her free hand, like a mother does her young daughter. Her eyes were shinning, her face was glowing and her mouth was in the gentlest of smiles. Then out of nowhere she said, “Your grandmamma has been trying to tell you something, Jan.” My eyes met hers with curiosity and mild shock, then she continued, “My angel told me to tell you that she says everything is OK, she understands now, and that she’ll see you soon.”

I couldn’t do anything but start crying softly while still smiling. We hugged each other for a long time then she said it was time she laid down to take a nap. When I left I was in a state of silent revelation. I don’t even remember the drive home, which was right down the street, nor entering my own home. A particular memory had totally engulfed my mind, and it was if I was living it all over again. It was back in December of 1992, the family had been called in to say their goodbyes to Lola as she lay dying in the hospital. She had been hooked up to a lot of medical gadgets and had tubes up her nose and down her throat but was conscience of the people around her. One by one each member of the family came to her bedside to hold her hand, share their love, make their peace, and say their goodbyes. We each had our own special and private moments with her. When it was my turn, and at the end of my oral memorial of love, I whispered in her ear that we would all meet up in Heaven again. At this she turned her head away from me, tears were coming from her eyes and she proceeded to pull her hand away from my own and push it aside. She shook her head back and forth in a, ‘No, no, no’ pattern. I knew what this meant; coming from her, and it struck me hard upon my heart. She was telling me, ‘No, you won’t be there.’ Her religion, a major one in America, taught that if you weren’t a member of their church then you couldn’t enter the kingdom of heaven, and she believed this with all her heart and soul. She had told this to every one of her children and grand children and warned them repeatedly about the consequences over not being a member of her religion. Even those of us who went to churches of our own choice would be judged for what we followed, but that was between us and God, she would say, maybe we had a chance, but to those of us who didn’t attend any type of church on a regular basis, well, there was no hope for us at all. On her deathbed, she rejected me. And as I found out later, she did the same thing to my own mother.

This whole ordeal had haunted my mom and I for years, even though in our hearts we knew better. I’m not going on a deep discussion about religions and beliefs, for this isn’t the place for it. Bluntly put, my mother and I are non-denominational; we are what you would call ‘home schooled religion’ and we have never felt any doubt over our choices. Only the pain from Lola’s choice of rejection as a deathbed judgment lay heavy on our hearts. We never expect to hear such a statement from our own family members, especially in their final moments of life.

So, Rachel’s message that, ‘she says everything is OK, she understands now, ‘ really hit home. I truly believe that Grandma Lola has found out after all that you don’t have to belong to a specific church or religion to go back home to our Creator. And I believe that she was trying to reach me in a humorous way with all the buttons, shredded rubber bands and the Bible to tell me herself, that I fact, everything was OK. Even though I forgave her in my heart years ago, I said it aloud this time to let her know it was all right.

The only thing that still kind of bothers me is Rachel’s last statement, ‘and that she’ll see you soon’. Let’s all hope that ‘soon’ is a long time in coming.

After that, everything went back to normal around here, for a while…

-Jan Thompson.