Tiara came for a visit

Since Tiara passed away over 4 years ago, she has worked hard to let us know she is still with us. Whether you believe this is possible or not, it doesn’t really matter, but we know she is still around. She isn’t with us every second of the day but she spends lots of time watching over us and sometimes she even shows herself to us in different ways.

I know when Tiara is close because I feel like crying. It’s as if my heart can feel her soul and I am suddenly overwhelmed with sadness and tears.

When she was alive she loved to swing in the backyard on her “porch” swing. It’s the same place that Lou and I still spend lots of time talking when the whether isn’t too hot or cold. I usually sit on my favorite, lime green Brown Jordan chair I purchased on sale years ago, and he sits on the swing.

It isn’t uncommon for a specific monarch butterfly to visit him whenever he is on the swing. I know it hasn’t been the same butterfly for the past 4 years, since I just googled the life span of a butterfly, and they only live 2-6 weeks, but it looks like the same butterfly! When this butterfly shows up it will usually fly right in front of Lou’s face and then land somewhere close to him.

The weekend before last, Lou was off and it was Trinity’s last volleyball tournament. It was a long 2 day tournament and on Sunday I was just wiped out. I put on my sweats and was in the back yard talking to Lou about how sad I was that my volleyball mom years were over. Right then “the butterfly” showed up. It flew right in front of Lou and then he spoke to it. You may think this is weird but if it really is your family member and you ask them to do something they usually will. We learned this years ago and so whenever Lou see’s “TT”, in the form of a butterfly, he talks to her.

He said: “Hi, Tt, I love you! Can you land on my arm, sweetie? You are so pretty” He talked on and on to the butterfly as if it was his beautiful daughter. And guess what, the butterfly landed on his arm and stayed there for at least a minute. While it was on his arm, he continued to talk to “her” He then said: “Go sit on Mom’s arm, Tt.” And you guessed it, the butterfly flew onto my arm which I had up by my forehead, shielding me from the sun. Because my arm was in such an awkward position I couldn’t see “her.” I started crying and I slowly started moving my arm down from my forehead, so I could get a better look at “her”. She stayed on my arm, for what felt like an eternity and never flew away until she was eye level with me.

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Please ignore my double chin, crow’s feet, horrible hair and wacko outfit and just enjoy that my TT stopped by to cheer me up.

Last summer when Lou and I were in Wyoming for his work trip, our “TT” butterfly made an appearance. We were on a small hike and then all of the sudden this butterfly shows up out of nowhere and flitters near Lou’s face. He freaked out and was like: “TT is here!” She flew away rather quickly but landed on a log and let us take a bunch of pictures. The weird thing about these photos is that her reflection is of her wings open, but in the picture you can see they aren’t open.

It definitely felt like she was with us. Of course the entire rest of the day and night Lou showed the picture to everyone and talked about his “TT” butterfly.

I have lots of other stories of how Tiara has shown herself to us, but I’ll leave you with my personal favorite. As you might imagine I’m very particular with how my pillows are arranged on the couch. I always keep them the same way. Like this:

Often I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep because of a hot flash or stress, so I move to couch. Usually the cool leather helps me fall back to sleep. About a year after Tiara passed away, I stumbled out to the couch at 1:32 am, my usual hour, and was met with this:

I stopped dead in my tracks. Why are my pillows like this? Who did this? I usually grab the pillows and arrange them so I can sleep on them, so I couldn’t believe my eyes. Really, who could have done this?

It struck me in that moment, TT did this. Lou would never do this, Tabitha didn’t live with us anymore and Trinity was dead asleep in her room. It was hard to believe but I knew it was her. The next morning I told Lou, Tabitha and Trinity what had happened and they were all stunned. None of them had moved my pillows. I still could hardly believe it myself until it happened several more times in the future.

Love and miss my girl who is doing amazing work in Heaven and showing us she is still with us!

xoxo tiffani