"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." — Albert Einstein

Early this morning I caught a glimpse of the pumpkins on the steps of our front porch, a thin layer of snow covering one side of them—the contrast of colors, striking. Coastal Maine leapt brazenly this past week from an extended aura of summer into the arms of winter’s chill.

I look around noticing the people now bundled up in defense of the cold. Some are lamenting the rapid change in weather along with the clocks turned back—driving home from work daunting in the evening shadows, looking out for the nocturnal creatures venturing out earlier than before.

For others, the shift ushers in a deeper inhalation of brisk air, a feeling of aliveness rising up in them. There is an invitation in the ethers this time of year toward a more inward journey—enhanced by the element of fire burning hotly in woodstoves and fireplaces.

This is the season of candle lighting and a time for absorbing the few remaining bursts of color present in the foliage hanging—just barely—onto the branches of deciduous trees.

I missed the brief flurry of snow yesterday, tucked into a hospital bed and then under my own down comforter at home for much of the day. Even in minor surgery, there is a seriousness—an almost reverence—presented by the various players. It got me thinking about how in some ways our culture reflects an immense value on the preservation of and care for life. In some ways, it clearly does not.

One by one various medical staff came and talked with me.

Their mantra, “We are going to take good care of you.”

The surgeon took and squeezed my hand gently after explaining again the procedure then leaving to prepare herself. I wondered if this was her way or something she had been taught to do. It translated to me, “I care.”

I was in the prep-room for quite some time and found myself thinking about the idea of calling protection to my body. I imagined the people who I have loved—though now departed—surrounding me.

It is typical for me to linger one-part in the tangible aspects of the world while another part of me interlaces with the vast landscape of the unseen. Perhaps it is my Gemini— twins—nature that compels me in this way. Perhaps it is the distinct impression I have that nothing ever truly ends or dies—we just go on in a different way, in a different realm.

At first, I saw them in the forms they inhabited here on earth.

My grandmother on my mother’s side held her purse under her arm—there was sure to be a little bag filled with mints inside it if I needed one. I could see the steel blue eyes and grin of my paternal grandfather. My father once said of him that he left everything he touched better than he found it. I count this as one of the ways I aspire to be.

There were others, too. I imagined who they all were beyond their physical bodies— releasing them in my mind from that which had been so defining when they had lived.

Throughout my childhood, a wooden, adorned, mantel clock chimed throughout the day in my maternal grandparent’s home calling out the hours and marking the steady rhythm in which they lived. Its song warm and cheerful, like them.

It was the ubiquitous Westminster Chime that rang out in my presence for so many years of my life. I remember sleeping near it in the living room as a young girl on a pullout couch and waking in the night to the coppery tone of twelve gentle beats.

It took three tries to get an IV into my arm. I have tiny veins that want to roll away when poked. The anesthesiologist intervened and finally got it himself. I noticed a difference in the way he approached it. It seemed there was no way he wasn’t going to get it done. It made me think about the times when I have been sure that there was no way I wasn’t going to get it—something—done.

Taping the IV down tightly, he’d said, “You’ve earned this, I don’t want there to be any chance that it will come loose.”

“I’m going to take good care of you.”

There were two heated blankets covering me while I waited. I had no idea what time it was. I was hungry from fasting. I was growing tired of waiting.

Suddenly, I heard the chiming of a clock—a sound you would find in a home—not in a surgical hospital. It rang out a song that was warm and cheerful and familiar. It was the Westminster Chime announcing itself there in the medical building.

I asked the nurse about the clock and she said it had been moved there from another facility. It had lived for many years on different parts of the campus and now it was there, just outside my little room—one of the few places close enough to experience its calming, exquisite song.