Snippets and Snatches

Yesterday one of my tasks of the day was to pick up a package for my husband from FedEx.  Sounds simple enough and since it was a Monday, and also Halloween Day, I was glad not to have an overabundance of items on my To Do List.  I thought it a little strange that it just couldn’t be delivered and put in the screen door on the front porch, the way so many other packages arrive.  I didn’t see what was so different about this one and when I asked Pedro about it he dismissed it as typical of FedEx these days.  Then he gave me his license to show when I signed for the package.  This wasn’t a problem since he is having his truck repainted and he is getting rides to and from work, yet it added to the oddities beginning to pile up in my mind.

Thankfully, FedEx wasn’t busy at lunchtime so I stopped in on my way to pick up some food.  The nice lady behind the desk did ask to see Pedro’s license and my own as well before I could sign for the small package she held before me.  I got in the car and headed to Wendy’s drive-thru, the package beside me on the seat.  I got a little more curious at the first traffic light I stopped at and looked at the return address:  Cairo, Egypt.  Pedro did tell me on my birthday a few weeks ago that there was something else coming for me but it was coming from Egypt.  I didn’t take him seriously because we are always kidding around and he had done more than enough for me on my birthday.

By now I was VERY curious!  I texted him about the return address and he texted me back to OPEN IT!  Opening a package while driving is not smart but curiosity won out over common sense and I carefully removed the small square wooden box with inlaid designs from its cardboard wrapper that was covered with pictures of Egypt and a label that said “From Cairo with Love.”  At the next traffic light I came to I quickly opened the little wood box and inside was a bright yellow drawstring bag.  I untied the little bag before the light turned green and inside was a shiny, gold Sphinx charm.

At first it didn’t occur to me what the meaning of this gift was and I called Pedro to thank him as I pulled out of Wendy’s with my chicken sandwich.  He said, “This is really from your Dad and I am just the vehicle.”  Still, it didn’t ring a bell and I asked him what he meant.  He said, “Remember your dream?”  A blurry memory popped in my mind and I vaguely recalled a dream about my Dad, who passed away almost three years ago, and a Sphinx.  Tears welled in my eyes from some deep place inside and though I couldn’t remember the details of the dream, the feeling was suddenly there.  I thanked him again and hung up crying.

When I got home later that evening I searched my journal pages looking for this dream.  It was in May of this year and I read it again thinking how I’d nearly forgotten about it, but Pedro remembered me telling him about it months ago!  Yes, that’s the very sweetness in him that I do love!  In the dream my father is ill and bedridden in the house I grew up in.  I am a little girl again and I lay down on the bed beside him.  He tells me that he has something to give me and that I should always keep it with me, that it will protect me after he’s gone.  He asks me to hand him some boxes from the nightstand drawer and opens one of them.  Inside is a small, shiny gold Sphinx and he puts it in my hand, closing my fingers around it so I won’t lose it.   I remember being very sad in the dream and waking up right after he handed me the little charm.

At the time I did research somewhat the Egyptian Sphinx, enough to know that it is a symbol of protection, a male human head on the body of a lion, that guards the spirits of the dead in the Giza pyramids of Cairo, Egypt.  I didn’t dwell on it too much except to take great comfort in my Dad coming to me in the dream and reassuring me that he is still my protector from the afterlife.  The loss of my father as my guardian had a profound effect on me in the few years since his death and was a source of an underlying depression that I  functioned  in spite of  in my daily life.  For my husband to remember this dream better than I, enough to search the internet for a site to buy it from, and to give it to me for my birthday is a gift that I will always remember and treasure.  That the Sphinx arrived From Cairo with Love on Halloween Day just seemed all the more symbolic of divine mysteries unfolding before me as a reminder of my father’s love and his guidance from an eternal realm reassuring me that I am protected from evil.  Writing this today on All Saints Day, November 1^st, is a fitting tribute to my Dad, who I believe is in heaven watching over me and I hope he can hear me say through the ethers of time “Thank you, Dad!  I love you!”