Every sign we receive from a spirit is a gift unlike any other. That is why it is so important to be able to recognize it when it is presented to us, as James did during a very emotional situation he was involved with.
There was a horrific traffic accident one day. Several high school students in an SUV were driving home from spring break when they were forced off the road by a semi, causing their vehicle to flip several times. All but one of the students survived. Jenna was pronounced dead at the scene. She was a model student, a senior set to graduate in a month and go to college in the fall. She left behind her mother, father, and two siblings.
James was a journalist for the local paper. “I had covered some pretty difficult stories over the years, but this was as tragic as anything I’d ever had to write about,” he said. “I think it hit me hard personally because I had three kids of my own, the oldest of whom was in middle school. I couldn’t imagine what Jenna’s parents were going through.”
James’s initial coverage was based on police reports and comments from school administrators. But then, two days after the accident, one of his sources asked him if he’d like to speak with Jenna’s father.
“I was told that he was willing to speak only to me because my source had said some nice things to him about my reporting,” James said. “It was one of those interviews that I really wanted to do, and I had to do, but at the same time I didn’t want to do it because of the emotions involved.”
James arranged the meeting for that afternoon at Jenna’s house.
“I knocked on the door and her father answered. He was the only one there, at least that I could see. I shook his hand and told him how sorry I was. He thanked me and took me through the house to the back porch. We talked, laughed, and cried for about an hour. He didn’t want to discuss the details of the crash. He just wanted to talk about how wonderful his daughter was and how important it was to keep her legacy alive, and I obliged. It was a very surreal interview. I sensed he was still in a state of shock.”
The funeral was a couple of days later. James was there to report on it.
“It is difficult covering stories like this because you want and need to be respectful while still doing your job,” he said. “I brought a pen and a single piece of paper that I folded a couple of times to make as small as possible, and I kept them in my pocket. I stood in the corner in the back of the church and only pulled them out when I needed to quickly make note of something that I thought I might forget. I kept most of the notes, though, in my head.”
Next to where James was standing was a large poster of Jenna.
“The entire service was the saddest event I’d ever been to. I kept looking at that poster, with Jenna’s bright, smiling face, and I couldn’t stop thinking of my oldest son. He was also very bright and happy, and not far from starting high school. I was imagining how I would react if this had happened to him. People may ask why I would do that, but I’m an empathizer. I could never feel what Jenna’s dad had felt, but I felt I had a duty to at least try. Not just as a reporter, but as a father.”
Throughout the service, James continued to think about his son, who was only a few miles away going about his normal day at school, just as James was at his job, while Jenna’s family was saying goodbye to their daughter and sister.
“After the service, I walked outside and noticed some girls from Jenna’s school, each holding a bowl that people were dipping their hands into. I went up to one of the girls to ask what is was. She said each bowl contained three hundred sixty-five slips of paper, each with a different date. They were asking each person to pull one out and to pray for Jenna and her family every year on that date. I thought it was a novel idea, something I had never seen before.”
The girl asked James to pull out a date.
“I always had a personal rule in reporting that I would never make myself part of the story I was covering. For example, if I was covering a story involving food, I would not accept any of the food if offered. For this story, I stood inconspicuously in the back of the church and didn’t let my note-taking be noticed, and all I needed to know was what the girl was doing with the bowl. I didn’t have to pull out a date for myself. But this was different. This whole story was different from anything I’d ever covered. I became emotionally involved when I interviewed Jenna’s dad, and I decided there was no reason not to pull out a slip of paper. So, I reached in and took one.”
The girl asked James what date he got.
“I was speechless,” James said. “I looked at her and knew that if I had tried to answer her, I would have cried. I just turned and showed her. She smiled and said, ‘Oh, May 20.’ That date meant nothing to her, of course, but to me — it was my oldest son’s birthday.
“I don’t know who was responsible for that happening, but I know it wasn’t by chance,” James continued. “I never knew Jenna personally, so I don’t believe it came from her, but I do believe that it came from a spirit who knew me, who knew how much I was thinking of my son that entire week and how fortunate I felt to not be experiencing the pain that Jenna’s family was going through. Now, every year on my son’s birthday, it’s more than just singing to him or eating cake or getting him a gift. I think about Jenna, too, which reminds me how much of a gift my son is to me.”