When Love Finds a New Language - A Journey From Grief to Gratitude
Even though it felt like our world was ending, and my heart was breaking for my daughter's pain, there was a tiny part of me that felt something more was coming.
On April 10th 2024 our sweet and beautiful Zoey released her physical body and became the first member of what I now call our Spirit Herd. She was deeply loved. Not only by me and my daughter, but by everyone whose life she touched. She truly was a gem. And when she passed, the silence she left behind was profound.
I remember sitting in that silence & grief, when a subtle voice wondered “what will come next? What is this making space for?
I also remember feeling that we weren’t ready. Not yet.
A Sign of Hope
But then, exactly seven days after losing Zoey, in the thick of our grief, an unexpected message arrived from a friend that brought a slight ray of hope. She was thinking of downsizing and wondered if we were still interested in Fancy. The same Fancy we had loved since birth and that had rekindled my dream of working with horses.
It felt like a bit of a lifeline dropped into the middle of the ocean of grief. Not a replacement as nothing could ever replace Zoey. But it was a ray of hope. A quiet reminder that life was still moving, still offering, still asking us to stay open.
While she was deciding if she could actually let her go, we were moving through our grief and holding on to the hope of happiness once again.
The First Sign
On May 10th, exactly one month after Zoey passed, something extraordinary happened. The Northern Lights appeared over Abbotsford, something we had never seen here before. My daughter and I stood beneath that breathtaking display and felt something we couldn't quite explain.
What moved us even more deeply was discovering the next day that all three of us who had loved Zoey dearly had all felt her presence in that light, independently, without knowing the others had felt it too.
She was showing us she was there and still shining.
The Daisies
Around the same time, something beautiful began to happen in the field where Zoey had lived. Daisies started popping up that had not been there the year before. When I mentioned it to the property owner, she told me she hadn't seen daisies growing there in many, many years.
What made this even more remarkable was that my daughter had painted daisies on her last two pairs of Converse. And when she went to get a tattoo of Zoey, the artist had unknowingly included a daisy.
The daisy wasn't a coincidence; it appeared to be Zoey's signature. Her way of saying I'm still here.
Bringing Fancy Home
In August, we made the journey to Alberta to bring Fancy home, a trip that itself felt quietly orchestrated by something beyond us. While we were there, we stopped at a trailer shop with a small home decor store. My daughter wandered in, and what she found stopped us both.
A plate. With a horse that looked just like Zoey, surrounded by daisies.
In a random shop in Alberta. During the trip to bring home the horse whose arrival had been suggested seven days after Zoey left.
There are moments that move beyond coincidence.
Six Months
On October 10th, exactly six months after Zoey transitioned, the Northern Lights returned to Abbotsford. And once again, all three of us felt her there in that luminous sky. The same feeling. The same presence. The same love, showing up in light. Only this time, she was accompanied by another form. Her own mother, perhaps.
I don't think that was an accident. I think she knew we needed to feel her again. And so she came.
The Winged Cloud
Before Zoey passed, I sat with her to write down her wisdom. She told me, “You know I will always be here. You know how to connect.”
She also told me, "I will be the wind in the willows. Think of me when you see a dandelion or horse-shaped clouds.”
While I knew dandelions were abundant, the horse-shaped clouds were not something I ever remembered seeing.
And then one day, sitting in the field with her in my heart, I looked up, and there it was. A horse-shaped cloud, with wings.
She hadn't just shown up. She had put any doubts to rest.
The signs that kept coming, even years later…
The signs didn't stop there. They kept arriving in the most tender ways.
This year when I visited my daughter in Prince George, Zoey showed us she is still here. Time hasn’t made her disappear.
While shopping for summer shorts, we made one last pass of the store before heading to the till. And there on the table was a pair of jean shorts with little daisies embroidered on them that fit my daughter perfectly.
The next day, Northern Lights Winery hosted a Lego event. Among the selections to choose was one box of Daisies! Seriously. Two of the signs blended together in a beautiful way.
That night we noticed something new at her door. A cluster of three daisies. One for each of us. Not at the barn where she lived but here in a place she has never been.
Each of these is a reminder. Each one affirming that she is still with us, regardless of where we are. That love doesn’t just live in one place.
The lessons this journey has shown me
Grief isn't a straight line. You don't move through it in an orderly fashion. It is full of twists & turns, ups & downs, and times when you feel as though you are going in circles or stuck in a maze with no way out.
And, if you can stay open, even in the darkest corners of that maze, love finds a way through.
What Zoey has taught me is that love does not end, but it does change form and finds a new language.
It speaks in the ordinary through daisies, dandelions, and the wind in the willows. It also speaks in the extraordinary through the Northern Lights displays, winged horse clouds & perfect plates found in random places.
The journey from grief to gratitude is not about letting go. It is about learning to receive love in the forms it arrives in, even when those forms are unexpected. Even when they make you laugh and cry at the same time, even when they come in a field of flowers that haven't bloomed there in thirty years.
Zoey is still here. She always will be.
And I am so grateful she found a way to show us.
I know I am not alone in these beautiful experiences that pull at your heartstrings. If you have one that you would like to share, leave me a comment. I would love to hear it!
