A Pleasant Distraction

Since Daniel passed I have been trying to listen to the things that we sense sometimes, you know what I mean. The second year our daughter was driving, she was on her way home from work and was about five minutes late. I told my husband that Stephanie had had an accident and that he needed to retrace her way home from work. Of course, he thought I was completely mad. We were arguing about the necessity of doing this when Stephanie drove up in our minivan with the engine overheating, the result of a bad front end accident. The minivan was totalled when she was driving up a dark country road and hit what must have been a large buck, but she said it looked more like a moose than anything else ! The animal left the scene, but the minivan was badly damaged. It took a day or two to realize that Stephanie had two fractured ribs. These took a long time to heal as it could not be splinted as would normally be done, because she has an insulin pump which uses that area. I KNEW that Stephanie had been frightened and was hurt, and I knew it involved the car. I did not know much else. Strangely, I did not have effective enough intuitive ability when Daniel died, or I would have surely avoided the outcome.
Anyway, on Friday I took Stephanie to the internist and afterward for a little shopping. We were tired and I really should have gone home, but I noticed a sign up at a very very good antiques dealer which said, "Retirement Sale. Owner Retiring....Best Deals". Having inherited antiques from aunts, great aunts, in laws and others, I need nothing. I am simply the family antiquities keeper, the steward of family artifacts until our children establish homes, and then they can have what they like. I love beautiful things, yet I am not materialistic. Does this make sense to you ? I knew this was a very good shop, but my feet hurt and I didn't want to go. A voice pushed me. You should go, said the idomatic and non-descript push.
Stephanie and I went and it was quite something. Many of the antiques were purchased in England, and are unusual items for this area. Stephanie looked for an extended period whereas my aching feet led me to sit near the owner after a time. She began to tell me about her many years in the antique business, and then, all the things she is planning as soon as she retires. She had the lovely aura of someone who doesn't care if you think that something she is saying is bizarre in any way. Without knowing our own history, she told of being guided by a beloved aunt in her purchases, in her journeys to England, and ultimately in her trips to Maine to the aunt's home which she inherited following her dear aunt's passing. I think she expected me to be surprized or to question, yet I accepted this easily. After Stephanie finished talking to a woman she met in there, we began to get ready to leave. The antique shop owner said, "You know that it was not an accident that you came here today. No one ever dies. They never cease to be. Why I can't WAIT to go myself !" she said with the same glee a child might when discussing a vacation ! The woman was not elderly. She was a cultured attractive blonde woman with a bright smile. The antiques were not the best feature in the antique shop that day, the people were.