When my mom was in her last week, she told my sister she'd come back as butterflies. (Of course, I don't believe in that.)
At the time, there was a single sprig of milkweed near my mailbox. Since then, the milkweed has exploded.
I can't bring myself to trim it back, because every time I look at the milkweed I think of my mother's statement. Of course, it's magical thinking on my part.
My mother said similar things before her death, and I accepted them with love while privately dismissing them. But since then I've softened a little. I still don't believe in those ideas in a literal, empirical sense, but they have emotional value for me anyway.
I guess I'm trying to say that, at least for me, it's been more pleasant to entertain these ideas as comforting fantasy, and I don't think that small personal allowance has eroded my more practical abilities elsewhere. Not struggling so much against this kind of thinking has freed me in a certain way.
As a quite skeptical and secular person, I have been spending a fair bit of time and energy reflecting on what is precious / miraculous in recent years. An idea born in her now passed mind still reaches you across time and me across the internet, and is capable of touching both our hearts. That's not magical thinking, that's _magic_ <3.
At the time, there was a single sprig of milkweed near my mailbox. Since then, the milkweed has exploded.
I can't bring myself to trim it back, because every time I look at the milkweed I think of my mother's statement. Of course, it's magical thinking on my part.