I had just stepped out of my car and taken about three steps toward the hospital on my way to an orthopedic appointment. I was a bit started when she spoke to me. She looked vaguely familiar; I want to even say she had a bohemian look about her, although there is absolutely nothing in my recollection now that points to anything specifically so. In the way she approached me, I thought she was going to ask me for directions, and I was already rehearsing my response knowing how bad I am with directions anywhere.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but I am a reader of license plates and I wondered if you could explain yours to me?” The question caught me completely off guard, but immediately conjured the explanation that was going to tug at my heart more than I felt prepared to deal with standing in front of a stranger in a parking garage.

“Someday Farm,” I said, “It means ‘Someday Farm’. It’s what we call our farm,” I went on, the pronoun sticking in my throat like it does every time I say, “we” anymore. She didn’t say a word as we both kept walking toward the building, but her demeanor somehow prompted to me to keep talking, a rarity with people I don’t know. “We always said, ‘Someday we’ll get cows, someday we’ll get chickens…’ so we named our farm, ‘Someday Farm.’” By this point we were nearly to the doors of the hospital and I looked to the outside stairs leading up to the floor I needed to get to as an escape hatch, but she stopped and faced me and asked one more heartwrenching question before I could retreat to the stairs, “Do you still have all those animals?”

I stared at her. Later, I would wonder why that was the question she asked. Why didn’t she ask if we ever got those animals? What prompted her to think we wouldn’t still be living that dream? “No,” I finally quietly replied. “My husband recently passed away and so we had to get rid of the cows…” my voice trailing off as I tried to suffocate the feelings of anger and loss and grief quickly rising up in my chest.

“I am so sorry,” she said, and looking at her, it was as though the same feelings were rising up in her. She truly was sorry. I’m not sure I have ever met anyone who so clearly fit the term “empath,” but she definitely is one. “I don’t even know you,” she continued, “but I feel like I should hug you,” she said.And in a move I cannot begin to explain, I took a step forward and hugged her. Which I never do. Especially to a stranger.

We parted ways, me making a quick escape up the stairs and I continued on to my appointment. The encounter had been unsettling and yet I didn’t feel unsettled. She felt like a friend, she seemed familiar, it had seemed so honest and true and real.After my appointment, having all but temporarily forgotten about the previous encounter as my mind raced toward my next dreaded appointment at the dermatologist (dreaded only because of the reminder of why he was gone, not that I had any particular concerns for myself), I got to my car and had just turned the key when she approached from a few cars away. I immediately thought how odd it was that we had both finished our appointments at the same time, but then I realized she was talking to me and I put my window down and heard her say, “I was just going to leave this on your windshield,” as she handed me an envelope, and then, “and this sucker,” and she handed me a red Tootsie Pop. I didn’t know what to say or do. I don’t know what I said or did. She walked away, I put my window back up and I sat in my car and let the tears roll. It took several long minutes before I even opened the envelope. Several very long moments.

“Dear Ms. Someday Farm,” the card read, “It was nice meeting you today. I am soo sorry to hear about your husband. How painful. I have this weird thing where sometimes it seems like God uses license plates to whisper to me – this morning he used yours. Through you, I needed the “someday” reminder. Someday = at some time in the future – one day, by + by in the fulness of time.” I flipped the card to the back and continued reading, “I go to the River Church and have great hope that Paradise is our future for those who reach out to Jesus! Someday is coming.”Inside the card was her business card, including her name, telephone number and email. The back of the business card carried this message:

I haven’t heard the owls since the day James’ died. I have begged for him to talk to me. I have cried on my knees on the floor asking him to just let me know he is okay, wherever he might be. I have sat on the porch steps at the tail end of dusk, like he and I used to do together, and I have listened and cried and spoken to him. “Talk to me!” I plead. “Talk to me! Tell me you are okay!” Just this morning a wood thrush sang it’s two-phrase ditty outside my bedroom window over and over on repeat until I thought I would go mad. Even then, I voiced out loud, “Is that you? Are you trying to talk to me?”

Later, after all my appointments had been survived for the day, I invited my sister over to sit on the porch and talk. I had briefly texted her about my initial encounter with the woman, but now, seated side by side, I handed her the card and waited for her response. “Am I crazy?” I asked when she finished reading the words.

“No,” she said, without requiring any further explanation on my part. “This is a sign, for sure.”

Today, a stranger that felt familiar literally handed me the words I needed to hear. She literally handed them to me. I have heard people say before that faith in a higher power is something people do to provide an explanation to the unexplainable. It’s a crutch people lean on to give themselves comfort. But my life story has shown me that faith is hard. It is not something easy to lean on or lean into, it is an enormous leap without tangible evidence.

“…have great hope that Paradise is our future for those who reach out to Jesus! Someday is coming.”

My grief threatens to consume me most days. I struggle every moment of every day to keep it at bay long enough to do the things I am required to do – hour by hour, minute by minute. This place, this farm, this was our Eden, this was our Heaven. But today, at least for a moment, I could set my sights ahead and think “our Someday has yet to come.”

After all, red Tootsie Pops are my favorite.

Someday is coming.