“Our life experiences will have resonances within our innermost being, so that we will feel the rapture of being alive.” – Joseph Campbell

The knock from heaven came at 9:12am on Friday, November 7^th, 2014. Having an exact time for it makes it seemingly clear when it was anything but. But it was odd enough at the time to be noticeable.

I was driving to meditation class on a crisp, fall morning in Seattle. Not in a hurry because I had plenty of time before the 9:30 start, even if I needed to circle the block a few times to find parking. Driving the route between my house and the studio where we practiced meditation was neither complicated nor congested as we congealed into a circular pattern around the neighborhood lake.

I was in a euphoric mood because I’d just signed off on everything I needed to start my cycle to try to have a baby via in-vitro fertilization (IVF) as a single parent.

It felt like everything was about to change and I was riding high on that excitement. But the anticipation came with an edge.

First, the fear about how my 45-year-old body would handle pregnancy. I’d never tried to get pregnant before so there was no history one way or another. All the tests and procedures boded well but I was well into the category of advanced maternal age.

Second, the vulnerability of doing this without a partner. I hadn’t wanted to have kids until after I got divorced. I told my ex-husband that I didn’t want to have kids. After the relationship ended I discovered that the whole truth was that I didn’t want to have kids with him.

While it seemed like the divorce was because of his infidelities, both of us sustained wounds. His announcement that it was time to have kids and my refusal to cooperate were telling markers of our relationship. He expected me to orbit around him and I was more like an asteroid on my own trajectory.

I felt healthier and happier on my own. So much so that taking the risk to start a family on my own felt manageable. Scary and exposed but within my window of tolerance.

The third element in my mix of emotions was the buoyed elation of my close friends. I had three dear women older than me that carried their own stories of desire without success when it came to having kids. All of them had made peace with how life had worked out but stood as a testament to the complexity of ambition, expectations, and relationships. They channeled pure enthusiasm for my pursuit of creating a family in a non-traditional way.

So when the knock from heaven came, it pulled me out of my effort to tease out the threads of all these emotions. That guy on the bike next to me must have rapped on the back of my car. But there was no near collision or obvious reason why. Did I get too close to the bike lane and the biker tapped a warning? I didn’t think so. Maybe they’d had wobbled and reached out a hand to steady themselves? Or maybe I was going too slow?

Those were my explanations in the moment.

A few hours later, I was working on a project in the garage when I missed a call from my mom. When I dialed her back, she haltingly told me through tears that my beloved 79-year-old dad died in a bike riding accident. A bike accident. He’d gone for a ride in a quiet neighborhood in Tucson and just happened to turn a corner and hit the frame of a passing car. What in most cases would be a broken collarbone had instead been instantly fatal because of the angle of the collision.

After I hung up, I sat there in a daze. Then I thought of the knock. Had it happened at the same moment my dad died? No, he’d died at noon. Even accounting for the time change between Tucson, where he was, and Seattle, it wasn’t even close. The knock had come two hours before he died.

My understanding of the knock has traveled its own path through the stages of grief. Denial – it didn’t mean anything. Anger – I knew life was about to change but not like that! Sadness – there was never enough time with my enthusiastic and supportive dad. Bargaining – it must mean that my dad left this world knowing my IVF plan even though I wasn’t going to tell my parents until it worked.

And finally, acceptance. Sometimes heaven knocks when you really need to pay attention. A little tap to make sure you are tuned in. So that when the invitation comes to sign up for a job, or unseal the envelope that might contain bad news, or pick up a phone call from someone you haven’t heard from in ages, you are primed to lean in.

Now that I’ve accepted this, I hear knocks from heaven differently. Eleven years after that first one, they show up as the most ordinary things. Like the sound of footfalls on the stairs first thing in the morning from my six-year-old son. The beat of my heart catches something a little extra and I come awake to the miracle of the moment. It’s a stutter that accounts for the ups and downs and twists and turns that all came together to make this life possible.

Or the pulse in my wrist when I hold hands with my 86-year-old mom as we say grace before a meal. It feels like a tap to remember that even though she seems so healthy, the comfort of her physical hand in mine will not last forever.

Or the tap of my chin against my 10-year-old daughter’s head when she gives me a hug. The angle between our heights seems to change on a daily basis and our banter reflects the accelerating maturity. I squeeze a little tighter when I feel that knock so that she can feel in both her heart and her head that I’m near.

Sometimes heaven knocks to remind me that this life is more mystical than it seems. It doesn’t need to make perfectly logical sense in order to lean in to receive the courage and heart that comes with accepting that there is more here than meets the eye.  

(featured photo from Pexels)

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