By MARILYN SHAPIRO

I am not a fan of the supernatural. Except for “Ghost” (I love the chemistry between Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze!) and “Sixth Sense” (What a great ending!), I shy away from any movie that smacks of the occult. And while I respect Stephen King as a writer, I rarely read his best-selling horror novels. But there is one area in which I am a believer: signs from the other side.

Several times in my life, I have felt that I have had “visits” from those I had loved and lost. Six weeks after my mother-in-law passed away in 1994, I strongly felt her presence at my daughter’s bat mitzvah six weeks later, literally seeing her sitting on the bima and smiling as Julie ran the service.Thirty-six years later, soon after my mother had passed away, I woke up in the middle of the night feeling someone stroking my shoulder and smelling the powerful scent of Bengay. No, Larry had not touched me, and we didn’t even have the topical analgesic heat rub that my father had used in our house. I was convinced it was a sign from my parents that they were together and that they were okay.

So, it is not a surprise that I believe my beloved sister Laura, who passed away on Aug. 29, 2025, has sent messages to me in the past two months. Yes, many would write them off as coincidences. I know better.

Synchronistic Events

On September 6, 2025, I sponsored the oneg, refreshments served after the Friday night service, at Congregation Shalom Aleichem in my sister’s memory. I had spent the week baking cookies, brownies, and challah but waited until Friday morning to order the cake. When I called , the bakery told me it was too late for a special order; I would have to use what they had in the store. The two choices were one with colorful balloons and one unadorned white sheet cake. White? How boring! I texted my niece/Laura’s daughter to ask what lettering I should use for the cake. “What’s her favorite color?” I asked.

“White,” Jen wrote back.

“OMG!” I wrote back. “That’s the only cake they had left!” Coincidence? Maybe? Or a sign?

The next “sign” occurred when Larry and I traveled Lake Champlain to spend time with my two surviving siblings and their spouses at my brother Jay’and his wife Leslie’s home. Fortuitously, Laura had sold her fully furnished cottage, only a mile down the road, a month before her death, and my sister Bobbie was getting it ready for the October closing. I took one last walk-through and took a few items to bring home. A “Wine Down” towel (Laura loved her white Zinfandel). An apron our mother had sewn for Laura decades before. Her favorite flannel shirt. And a green floral tote bag. After throwing out some tissues and a plastic bag filled with Tylenol, I switched the essentials from my regular pocketbook to Laura’s tote.

The next day, I was rummaging through the tote to find my comb. Deep in a side pocket were two pictures: one of  a six-month-old Laura smiling from her baby carriage; the second, a formal shot of Laura and Will, her significant other, who had passed away 18 months earlier. “Look what I just found!” I said with tears in my eyes. “Laura is telling us that she is happily reunited with Will, the love of her life!”

Sense Of Presence

One last sign: Soon after trip to New York, I called Dan Dembling, the architect and president of Capital District Jewish Holocaust Memorial, Inc, to ask if the governor had signed the bill to establish and create the New York State Holocaust Memorial. When he said that it was still being reviewed and considered by the executive chamber team, I told him that I would knead prayers into my weekly challahs that the bill would be passed quickly, in part selfishly so that I could complete the story I wrote about the project this past spring. Dan then asked me a favor: Please knead in prayers for his mother, who had passed away Friday, Aug. 18, at the age 87 years old.

“I’m sorry to hear this, Dan,” I said. “Was she sick?”

“No,” Dan said. “She was doing great, but she came down with what appeared to be pneumonia and was gone 10 days later.”

“Oh my God,” I said. “My sister passed away on Friday, Aug. 29, with the same scenario! I promise I will knead prayers for her when I bake my challah! What was your mother’s name?”

“Frances,” Dan said.

I gasped. “That was my mother’s name! My three-year-old granddaughter was named after her…Frances June. We call her Frannie.”

“What a coincidence!” Dan said. “I have an interesting story as to how I got my name. When my grandmother was single, she was the secretary for her synagogue. During her time working there she also typed manuscripts for the rabbi’s wife, Sadie Rose Weilerstein, a prolific author who wrote several Jewish children’s books. One book was What Danny Did, a collection of short stories about how the protagonist celebrated each of the Jewish holidays. Growing up, that was my mother’s favorite book. When I was born, my mother named me Daniel after Weilerstein’s character. I have an original first edition of the book on my shelf, and I will text you a picture of the book and Sadie’s inscription to my grandmother that is on the first inside page.”

We said our goodbyes, and minutes later, Dan, as promised, sent me a picture of the old book and the inside leaf. It read:

 

To Miss Spieler

In sincere appreciation

from

Sadie Rose Weilerstein

March 25, 1928

 

 MARCH 25, 1928, exactly 14 years to the day when Laura was born. Another message from heaven that Laura is okay? I don’t doubt it.

“While we may lose a person we love, their love is not lost to us,” Mary Louis Kelly writes in It. Goes. So. Fast. “It just simply finds its way in different channels.” Whether it be coincidences or “signs” or b’shert, the love we share has found a life of its own, its own channels. May Laura’s memory be a blessing.

Marilyn Shapiro, formerly of Clifton Park, now a resident of Kissimmee, Fla. has announced that her 5th book, Remembrance and Legacy, Profiles of Jewish Sacrifice, Survival, and Strength, will be available this fall. Other books include Keep Calm and Bake Challah: How I Survived the Pandemic, Politics, Pratfalls, and Other of Life’s Problems, Tikkun Olam, There Goes My Heart and Fradel’s Story, a compilation of stories by her mother that she edited. Shapiro’s blog is theregoesmyheart.me.