Yesterday was my Auntie Jan's funeral and my mother's birthday. They seem like polar opposites, right? After all, one is grieved and the other is celebrated. Even so, they shared a common thread - the synchronicity.

That thread provided the signs and symbols that punctuated the day.

Synchronicity

I'm starting with the last because it provides the main context, which is family and love.

The fact that my mom's birthday coincided with the date of Auntie's funeral was just awful from my mom's perspective. She didn't want her birthday acknowledged. She was deep in grieving Auntie, who she'd known from the age of 18 (at least).

And yet, there we were, all together; the whole family - even our California family, save for one cousin.

Family flew and drove in from California, Florida, Colorado, Texas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. We spent the better part of two days together. We grieved, yes, and yet we also laughed, because that's what happens during these times.

Most of all, though, we loved. We hugged, we listened, we shared, all with love.

My mother made great-grandmother Blanche's doughnuts. She made them with love and they were received with love.

For two days, we celebrated what made our family what it is from the beginning: love.

Signs, symbols

On the drive from the funeral home in Hudson, NH, to the NH State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen, a car zoomed by us on the interstate. The license stood out as though it was a billboard. It read: THEFARM.

I gasped with surprise and delight, because...

The home Nana Blanche and her husband, Grampa George, shared, and raised their brood in, was always called "the farm." It was apt, since they lived on a farm, raising their own meat, sourcing their own milk from their heifers, growing their own vegetables...

And yet "the farm" came to symbolize more than just a descriptive for their residence. It came to signify wherever our family gathered en masse, because the gathering was representative of how Blanche and George lived, and raised their children, and then also how their children lived, and raised their children, and so on.

They lived, and raised, their children on love, laughter, honest work and play, gratitude and generosity (and delicious food).

So, there went THEFARM, zooming by. I immediately sent out a "thank you" to Blanche and George, and their children all in spirit, and other family in spirit, because I knew without a doubt that was a sign from them.

We're here! We're with you! We love you.

During the graveside service in Boscawen, a huge yellow butterfly - or was it a luna moth? - flew past over the head of Auntie's husband, my Uncle Eddie. The timing was exquisite, as a solo bagpiper was just playing Auntie's favorite, "Highland Cathedral."

Hello, Auntie! You're free! We love you.

On the way home after a family luncheon following the graveside service in Boscawen, I thought of that license plate and its significance, and that huge butterfly and its timing. Glancing up, I noted the time on the dashboard clock: 4:11. My gaze was then drawn to a route sign: 111. And then it was drawn to a road sign where it caught one perfect word: Memories.

It felt like a "final word," so to speak; a capstone for the day, and for the day before it, too; a cosmic love note from my loved ones in spirit.

If you're seeking signs and symbols...

...from your loved ones in spirit, and/or your spirit guides and angels, please be open to everything and anything, pretty much, because they'll use almost any means to connect with you.

It could be license plates, butterflies or dragonflies, road signs, clock displays, songs... Anything, truly.

What's the most recent sign or symbol you noticed? Who was it from?