CARD OF THE DAY

UNITY
You understand that the love shared with another is amplified and has a ripple effect across the Universe

When love is given and received reciprocally, it is the strongest force in the Universe. It is the energy in which your soul thrives and of which it is comprised. Loving yourself and others is important, but when love is also returned to you, the energy is magnified. You are aligned with another soul—human or animal—and that bond is eternal. Connections of love that you create while in this physical dimension are never broken, whether the other soul is currently incarnated or not. Never entertain doubts that the love you enjoyed on Earth survives death or believe that it is diminished just because you are separated physically from your loved one. It is a soul-to-soul connection, it is everlasting. You continue to receive love from the Spirit realms through bonds you created since time immemorial. You are loved more than you can imagine. 

7:50 am

I forgot about my father who passed away when I was 6 for a very long time. I grew up with my step-father since the age of 12 and didn’t feel the void of my biological father; even though my connection with my step-father wasn’t strong. I at least had a father figure in my life. It was when my mother broke up with my step-father that I realized I don’t have a father and I was already 20, an adult at an age where it’s more normal to lose your parents.

Sorrow and sadness came over me, not because I lost my step-father but because I had forgotten about my real father. It was weird to feel sad all of a sudden looking at a father and a daughter on a stroll holding their hands. I started missing my father. I looked for his pictures, asked my mom about the stories about him, and tried to remember my memories with him. I looked at my father’s kind and warm face in the old picture for however long; his face looked familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I couldn’t tell if he was sad or happy when we took the picture like Mona Lisa. He looked like he was smiling at me, who’s missing her father she lost a long time ago. Moments later, he looked sad that he couldn’t be here and comfort me.

My mom told me how she used to find me and my dad lying down and crying together, reading a sad comic book and how he always poured love and kisses onto me. He used to take the young me on a drive. He loved coffee and maybe that’s why he had stomach cancer. But I loved going on a drive and watching him get coffee; I liked the aroma of coffee lingering in my dad’s car and the fact he always kept a bear coin purse to keep his coins for buying coffee.

I always wondered how I enjoyed going on a drive my dad so much because I get car sick now. Maybe going in a car was just different after he was gone. A lot of things have become different ever since he left us. I became shy and introverted after I found out kids at my school were calling me ‘a kid without father’. The warmth and laughter in our house were never the same after we sent his cold, stiff body away from our home to the mountain where we spread his ashes.

My grief and longing for my long-gone father were getting more intense as the years passed and as I transitioned into my adulthood. At my friends’ weddings I realized that my father isn’t here to walk me down the aisle.

I needed something to remember him. I visited my grandfather in South Korea and asked him to take me to the mountain, where we released the small remaining part of his body back to the earth. I thought that was the end until I started missing him again. In fact, I never had looked into my grief.

The mountain in the wintertime was barren and dry. I started sobbing as soon as I saw where he is now. He’s been waiting for my sister and me in this cold, lonely place. As my grandpa insisted, we followed the old Korean ritual of burning the stuff we wanted to give him and treating him food and alcohol. We prepared nice clothes for him and food and soju he used to like.

My grandpa poured some soju onto the ground. After saying sorry, his words were choked with tears. My sister burned the long letter she had written for him and looked at the ground. I frantically looked around with blurred vision with tears as we went through the ritual, hoping he would show up. I didn’t care if it was a ghost or my hallucination, I just wanted to see him. And I wanted to know that he’s still with us.

I didn’t see any moving thing except for a black butterfly that was hovering around which is odd to see in the wintertime. And I remembered my grandma saying that dead people sometimes come back in a butterfly form when they miss the loved ones they left on Earth. I wasn’t sure if that was my father or if he is really somewhere listening to his daughters grieving him after a long time long after he passed away. But that day changed something in me. I decided to believe that he is somewhere looking over us, caring for us, and loving us.

As my spirituality grew, my belief became stronger and stronger, and I know our connection is not over. I know his love didn’t leave me. His love is still stored in my heart. The heart ultimately stores memories through combinatorial coding by nerve sells. The cell memory phenomenon, which still not considered 100 percent scientifically-validated, is still supported by several scientists and physicians. 

I read some stories of heart transplant surgeries and organ transplant recipients remembering the donor’s memories or habits. My heart still remembers my father. The love I received from him is still there. When I see the love and warmth in my husband’s eyes, it reminds me of the love in my heart I received from my father as a child. I am loved more than I imagine.

This transformed my life. I no longer blame God or my dad for making me a fatherless kid. I have an angel caring for me and protecting me. It’s my father. I’m not afraid anymore, knowing that I am so loved and protected.

You are never alone and Love never dies.