Slowly, slowly life is coming back to normal. But there are so many unexplainable happenings which of course we all attribute to Maria. Laura went to see a psychic who told her that Maria would come to me in flowers in strange places. First of all soon after her death I saw an early violet growing out of the gravel in the driveway. Then my Christmas cactus began to bloom again (it still has blooms). A heavy late frost killed all the wisteria buds on the Bird's Nest deck, but the wisteria that had climbed the nearby maples survived, and wisteria filled the trees. Now a clematis is blooming high in the apple tree, one plant with two completely different flowers. The day that Maria died, as we were all waiting in our cars in her driveway, a piliated woodpecker (the big bright red headed one - like Woody Woodpecker) casually flew from tree to tree right near the driveway. They are usually shy and not often seen. Then as Sabra drove us to Rachael's graduation, a piliated woodpecker landed next to the road, just as we drove by. Now, I have a piliated woodpecker smashing up an old stump in the back yard. Yesterday, I got within a few feet of him. He was throwing dirt and sawdust all over and I laughed out loud at his antics. Laura was also told that sometimes unusually large "critters" are seen after a death. Hers was a giant spider "big as a mouse, Ma" and when Sabra was at the grave a robin had a worm so large, that Sabra had to go and check to see what it was. Also, electronics have been affected, especially with Sabra...computers, her printer, her telephones and even her dining room light. My sister Maureen has a stuffed toy dog that says "I love you" and it began repeating the phrase (with no one turning it on) when I phoned her a few weeks back. She said it hasn't done it since. Today, I can't open my e-mail....and I just told Maria to go back to flowers for me - I want to read my mail.