The Very Best Birthday Gift 

Diane Prefontaine, of Winnipeg, Canada, was not looking forward to her fiftieth birthday. It just seemed so...old, somehow. Her mom knew her feelings, and occasionally teased Diane about becoming a "senior citizen." Diane's teenage daughter was a bit more practical. "What would you like as a gift, Mom?" she asked.

"Probably roses," Diane responded. They were her favorites, but it was hard to work up any enthusiasm for them this year. However, shortly before the Great Event, Diane's beloved mother unexpectedly died of heart failure. Diane was devastated. "Mom was so special to me, both a friend and a mother," she says. "I missed her terribly." Diane believed in heaven, but sometimes her faith wavered.  If only she could be sure that death was not the end, that she would see her mother again!

In the early morning hours of Diane's birthday, she awakened with a start. The room was dark.  What had disturbed her?  Then she noticed something glowing at the door. A lamp? Diane tried to focus. Suddenly she saw it clearly.

It was her mother, surrounded by a heavenly brightness. "She was radiantly beautiful, and her hair, which had been snow-white when she died, was once again thick and auburn-colored," Diane recalls. "I was too astonished to react.  She smiled at me for just a moment, and then disappeared."

"Don't go!" Diane got up and ran toward the spot where her mother had been. There was no one there. But an unmistakable aroma of roses was filling the room.

"Mom had given me the perfect fiftieth birthday gift," Diane says. "I received the roses that I had asked for, but also the knowledge that she was safe and happy." Diane knows that she will see her mother again.
 

(C) 2002 Joan Wester Anderson   www.joanwanderson.com