Do you believe in miracles?

In the past, I’ve written about my belief in angels. As a result, this story gives me chills and makes me smile.

Miracles do exist; you just need to know where to look for them. For my friend, Dorothy, she simply needs to look at spare change.

After a two year battle with bladder cancer, Dorothy’s dad, Ed, died in March 2009. She had a very special relationship with him and his loss threw her for a loop, leaving her feeling lost and adrift. Her dad visited her shortly after her death during a very vivid dream, and she told him she missed him enormously.

“But Dor, I’m with you all the time. You just have to start picking up the coins,” he replied.

After that vision, Dorothy started experiencing a strange phenomenon: coins started appearing in the strangest places. The next day at work, she lifted a file folder to find a nickel mysteriously tucked underneath. She cried.

“Good one, Dad. I know you’re there.”

From that point on, she started finding coins whenever she was struggling or felt she was going to lose it. When alive, her dad would often be a steadying hand in her life, telling her to calm down and reminding her when she was overreacting. With the coins, he’s continuing to provide that guiding presence, giving her strength, sharing a joke or just letting her know he’s around.

One day she had a horrific day at work. Everything went wrong and she didn’t know if she could physically or mentally face the next day. As she climbed into bed that night, she flipped back the covers to discover a coin in the centre of her bed. Dad was at work again, telling her she was blowing the situation out of proportion, calm down and go face work again tomorrow. She got the message.

Often she’ll find coins in the corners of her office or be working on her computer and suddenly one will appear on her keyboard tray. One day, she was working at the Souper Fundraiser for Team Tina and her parking meter needed money so she didn’t get a ticket. At the curb, she discovered she didn’t have enough to replenish the machine, but looked to the base to find a sprinkling of coins to tide her over.

"Thanks Dad.”

Ed seems to have a great sense of humour with the coins too. One day, colleagues asked Dorothy why he was being so stingy with his denominations. Sure, he’d deliver pennies, nickels, dimes and the occasional quarter with his money distribution, but they wanted to know why he wasn’t delivering the bigger stuff, like a loonie or toonie. I guess, it’s ask and you shall receive because that very day, a toonie appeared in her cube.

His humour also shone through during a funeral. During his life, he and his daughter would often joke about the constant kneeling and standing involved in a Catholic church ceremony because they both struggled with bad knees. As a result, he and Dorothy would groan about the pain involved in the kneeling portions of the ceremony. Shortly after her dad passed, Dorothy attended a funeral at a Catholic church and when she had to move her foot to set down the kneeler, she found a toonie under her foot. She looked up, sharing the joke with her dad.

“You’re good.”

My friend uses her walks to work as her time to think, talk to her Dad and pray, so it makes sense she discovers coins during that time. One day, when I was unsure I was going to be able to get chemotherapy because I was dehydrated from vomiting and diarrhea, she prayed and talked to Dad on the way to work. On that one trek, she found 14 coins! Another day, when I was struggling with questions about treatments, clinical trials and my future direction, Dorothy was thinking about me while working. When she lifted her hand from her keyboard where she’d been sitting for hours, she astonishingly discover at 1901 Indian head coin nestled beneath her hand. She gave that precious penny to me and it sits by me as I write this blog.

“Thanks Ed.”

He’s generous and makes his presence felt for others too. Sometimes Dorothy will talk to her dad on behalf of friends, asking for strength and lo and behold, a coin will appear. It happened this past September when I was stuck in the hospital. Shortly after she shared her dad’s story with Michael and my sister, they found a coin in the corner of the hospital room.

Last March, Dorothy and two friends had an eerie experiencing on the way to the airport. The weather was snowy and bad, roads treacherous. On a ramp, the car they were travelling in started sliding off the road down the embankment and it was as though a hand shoved them back on the road. Her friends praised Dorothy for her fantastic driving, but she claimed it wasn’t her. By the time they made it on to their seats on the plane, they were shaken and thankful they weren’t sitting in the ditch. As they settled into their seats, one of the women found a dime sitting on the floor in front of her seat.

“Way to go, Dad.“

So what does Dorothy do with all the coins? The ones she feel are destined for others, like my Indian head penny or the one she found at the funeral, make it to a particular recipient. Some of them she keeps in a container in her house. But she admits she’s too Dutch not to use all the coins she finds. Some make it to buskers or street people she encounters on days when she finds some spare change, others end up in pockets, wallets, piggybanks and the general coinage of the house.

You may say it’s all coincidence or a fluke, but I truly believe in miracles. I believe those who have died can touch us from the great beyond in small and big ways. Dorothy’s dad happens to use coins; and I think that’s really cool. She believes it’s her dad’s way of staying in touch with her.

“I miss you too, Dad.”

Tina