Today, my daughter called to tell me that she had something of a message for me.

She’d been cooking, she said. She and her daughter herd the phone ring, and my daughter thought, ‘someone’s trying to get hold of me’. As she moved to answer, though, she realized that she didn’t have a phone (because someone else had her cell for the day), and that the one they’d just herd sounded ‘old fashioned’.

A short while later, she said, her toddler son was playing with a musical toy when it played a song that wasn’t part of its limited repertoire, and that she said sounded vaguely familiar and ‘Spanish’.

At that point, apparently, she realized that whoever was trying to reach her might not be able to use usual methods, and dug out a pendulum I’d made for her years ago. (A pendulum is a tool used in divination.) Between it, and her intuition, my daughter said, the best she could figure was that it was my deceased father… who’d played guitar and often picked in a classical Spanish style… and that he wanted me to know that he’s still around.

Having herd what she had to say, I thanked my daughter, and told her it was ironic that she’d called when she had because I’d been thinking about my father. The day before, it’d kind of ‘hit’ me that it was January… the month of both his birth and death and one that’s usually difficult for me… but that I’d been so wrapped up in life that I hadn’t bothered to mark it, and felt a little guilty.

Of course, we talked a while about similar experiences from our past, I mentioned my belief that spirits use songs, movies, words people speak, and other such ‘signs’ to communicate, and I ended the conversation by asking her to let me know if anything else like this happened.

Then, I finished some chores and, while its not my habit lately, decided to put some tv on and do a little yoga before bed. I chose ‘Borgia’ on Netflix (S3E8) and was only paying partial attention to it when I thought ‘better pay attention’, and put my glasses back on.

As I did, the scene changed to a moment after Lucretia Borgia’s wedding, and focused on a conversation between her and her father, Rodrigo (the Pope). In it, he tells her how much he loves her and wants her to live her dreams, and he swears that whether he’s alive or dead, he will always do anything in his power to support and protect her. ‘Go…’ he says, ‘and don’t look back…’

Was it a ‘coincidence, I wondered(?) After all, it wasn’t like I didn’t normally watch the show. But, even as I thought that, I knew that that scene could have been written quite differently, with Rodrigo and Lucretia talking about her brother’s involvement in her most recent husband’s death, or about her father’s incestuous desires for her. Yet, Rodrigo was saying exactly the sort of thing my father might have said to me…

My mind shot back to the months before my father passed away, and to the conversations we had about his inevitable death. I remembered him telling me the same sort of thing Rodrigo was telling Lucretia… that he loved me and wanted nothing but the best for me… that, alive or dead, he would always be with me… and that, if there were a way, he would communicate with me from beyond the grave.

Then, Rodrigo told Lucretia to ‘go’ again, and not to ‘look back’. She turned and, fighting tears, said ‘I’ll always look back, papa’…and I cried.

A few moments later, however, I was calm again and had decided that, coincidence or not, I would accept the odd events of my day as a ‘message’. Dad still loved me. He was still with me. And… gosh darn it!… he had found a way to ‘communicate’… again!