Something strange and totally unexplainable happened to me the other day. My day was very full ... it's been more than a few days ago so I really don't recall what was filling my day but I know I was away from home, had stopped to get myself a latte at Starbucks, happened to see a little sports car with a rag top ... You know how one thought flits through your mind and unexplainedly blossoms into another and then another sort of like dreaming while awake? I saw the little sports car and my mind tripped back to a little green Austin Healey I had ridden in perhaps four times about 40 years ago. In between marriages I met this young man and we dated maybe four times ... mostly going for cokes, sitting in drive-in restaurants where we chatted and listened to music on the radio ... barely getting to know one another. He was possibly a few months younger that I. It was nothing serious at all. I really didn't know him well, but I remembered his name... Asher (that was his last name) and his first name started with an A ... not Aaron, not Adam, but Adrian? It was Adron Asher, maybe 5'8 or 9" (tall to me at just under 5'), slender, blond, curly haired, attractive and outgoing. All of this just flitted in and out of my mind as I drove out the back entrance to the Johnson Creek shopping mall and out onto Otty Road headed up to Mt Scott and out to Clackmas by way of Happy Valley. (It was a beautiful day, a little overcast, but not rainy. And a beautiful drive.) I wondered what had happened to Adron Asher in the past 40 years.
I had married. Become a mother twice over. Worked 25+ years and retired. Become a mother-in-law and a grandmother three times over. Become a widow. I wondered again ... what had become of Adron Asher?
That very night on the late night news I was startled to hear that the body of a man had been found by the Willamette River (the river that flows through the heart of Portland, Oregon). The body had been determined to be that of 62 year old Adron Asher. Cause of death was pending but suspicious. Police were seeking any information residents might have concerning Mr. Asher. It was known he had been living in the area very recently. The photo of Adron shown on television was of poor quality, but he wore a happy smile, a bit of a scruffy white beard, a colorful baseball cap covered his hair. He had a ruddy rather outdoorsy complexion. It could have been taken after a day of boating, camping, fishing, or some other outdoor activity. I've heard nothing else about this since.
I hadn't thought of Adron Asher in 40 years prior to his flitting across my mind while driving the old Battin road to Otty road change ... Was that Adron coming to say a final goodbye to someone (me) who remembered him fondly from long, long ago? The experience is totally unexplainable to me, but I do believe our souls continue and we are all eternal energy ... and this is true no matter what your faith, no matter your religion, no matter who you believe your saviour to be ... I have my personal Saviour ... and you may have yours ... that's not the issue here. The point is ... just like the haunting song in Titanic ... "that is how I know you go on ..." and isn't that the most comforting thought of all ... "that is how I know you go on."
God bless you Adron ... "near ... far ... wherever you are" ...
And thanks for traveling with me gentle reader.♥
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