There are always signs!

Many years ago I was skiing out west with my family. My Father, who lived with us at my home suffered a health setback and was rushed to the hospital.

I kept in touch with the doctor several times the first day and finally he said, “maybe you’d better come home.”

We packed up and were driving from the ski resort to a city airport to fly home. On the drive, with teens and pre-teens in the car we were distracting ourselves by playing the alphabet and license plate game.

In the third round of play the letters “RIP” came up and with an epiphany, I said, “I think Grampa just died.”

We were mostly silent the rest of the way to the airport. I called the doctor from an airport lounge. Sadly, he said, “my Father had died.” The time of death was about when “RIP” came up in our car game.

Now go ahead several weeks. The funeral was over, and I had to settle my Dad’s simple estate. He had about a hundred dollars in the bank and an inexpensive two-year-old car. That was it!

I was very busy at work at the time and asked a friend of mine to go to the motor vehicle office and register Dad’s car in my name.

The randomly distributed new plates had three letter and three numbers on them. The letters were, “RIP.”

There are always signs of continuance if we choose to see them.