December is the month of magical lights and miracles.  I just learned recently that the Hanukkah candles symbolize the miracle of a lamp that ought to have burned for one day, glowing instead for eight days.

The Christian nativity story is filled with one miraculous sign after another; dreams, premonitions and – my favorite – the mysterious bright star that hovered over the wise men and lit their path to where Jesus was born.

The divine, the transcendent, the world beyond – call it what you will, it communicates with us in the language of signs and miracles.  We just need to attune our senses to experience it.  You might think by now, I’d be getting the hang of it,  with all the signs and paranormal activity that Laura and my mum have sent since they passed.  But sometimes I can’t see for looking.

For a couple of months, two lights in my apartment (one by my bed and a quirky tall tilting floor lamp in the living room) have been flashing away trying to get my attention.  They succeeded.  I quickly concluded they were in dire need of repair. I bundled up the more portable lamp to take it to be rewired. But before I got out the door, the handyman/electrician in my building popped by to fix something else and I asked him to check the wires in the walls and look at the lamps.  After much testing, he concluded they were fine. ‘Nothing wrong, Works perfectly,’ he said with a shrug.

Since that day, the little bedside light has gone quiet. The living room one still flashes, occasionally, just once or twice like a wink or a nod. ‘Hello,’ it says.  ‘Mum here, dear.  Watching over you and always near.’