It was a beautiful day in spring and I was leaving the local community college where Iwas in my second semester. I loved school but I was depressed because of some personal
problems I had been having since the previous Sept. or Oct. There was no one else in
the parking lot as I was getting into my car and I suddenly heard just a faint tap
behind me. I turned to look and and the only thing I saw was a business card laying
in the empty parking space beside my car. I didn't think much about it but I walked
over and picked it up just the same. Next to a picture of a rose was an inscription:
For Me To Know And You To Find Out, in a lovely font. I turned the card over and
someone had written on the back, "When the bell tolls". I looked at it for a minute
then I got in my car and laid it on the console and drove home. The next day, between
classes I mentioned it to an aquaintance and he told me there was a bell tower in a
local cemetery that had the word "rose" in the name of it. I knew the cemetery well
and had lived close to it for years, in fact my brother was buried there, but I never
really noticed the bell tower. I had actually only been in the cemetery twice - once
two years prior when my brother was buried there and then again when I went with my
mother and my two sons to visit his grave. Well, after he mentioned this, I decided
to check it out, so later that day I drove all the way up into the cemetery and got
out of my car and just stood looking at the bell tower. The bell was not tolling and
I didn't see anything unusual so I decided to leave. On my way back out of the
cemetery, I saw a couple of groundskeepers and stopped to ask them about the bell tower.
They told me that the bell would toll three times a day and what those times were. Of
the times that they told me, only one was a time of day that I would actually consider
going into the cemetery. I dont remember exactly what time that was but it was in the
afternoon. I went to the cemetery the next day at that time. I got out of my car and
walked up to the concrete platform that was the base of the bell tower, as well as a
kind of veranda with concrete benches and four podiums with concrete "bibles" that were
"opened" to certain well-known verses. It had been raining earlier that day and was
still somewhat drizzly and everything was just kind of all wet so I didn't really want
to sit down or anything. The bell had not yet begun to toll so I just kind of walked
around reading the bible verses while I waited. It finally started just as I finished
reading the fourth one and I was just standing there looking around and feeling kind of
silly. About that time I looked down at the base of one of the podiums and I saw a
ring so I bent down and picked it up thinking someone must have dropped it. It was 18k
gold electroplate and on it was a small, oval-shaped ceramic rose on a white background.
Well, that WAS unusual so I was thinking "now what" and I still didn't really no what
to do about it or where this was going. As long as I was already there I decided to
walk over and visit my brother's grave. My brother had been very ill for a long time
before he died and so it was sort of a blessing and it made me happy to think "he's
walking now" which was something he had longed for for years. While standing at my
brother's grave I was thinking about the brother I had lost years before who was always
singing and dancing, playing guitar and harmonica, and picking on our younger brother
who had a hot temper and would get so mad at him. He was a really funny guy and just
a fun person to be around until the accident that cost him the use of his arms and
legs. He also had only about 30% use of his lungs which eventually led to his death.
"You're walking now" I said out loud "I'll see you again some day". Then I left the
cemetery not really thinking that it was my brother who had led me there that day.
That was over ten years ago. Last week I was at my mother's house and my younger
brother came over. It was pretty late and he had been drinking. When everyone else
left the room and just he and I were still sitting there he started telling me about
an experience he had about five years ago. He said he had just gotten his realtor's
liscence and began working with a local realty firm when he sold his first house and
a guy came in to the office saying my brother had stolen his customers as he had
previously showed a house to the people who were my brother's first buyers. My brother
was not there at the time but he told my brother's co-workers to warn my brother that
he would be there first thing in the morning to shoot my brother and kill him. When
my brother came into the office later and his co-workers told him this he just laughed
and said "Aw...he's not going to shoot anybody". The next morning my brother went into
the office and a few minutes later a call came in saying the person who had made that
threat had died in his sleep and was found in the morning with a loaded shot gun leaned
against the wall next to his bed. At the age of 33 the man had died of a heart attack
in his bed. It was then that my brother who had been out drinking looked at me with a
very somber face and said "Phil took him out in his sleep because he was going to kill
me". "Phil" was our older brother who had died and who had always picked on this
younger brother of ours just to get him all mad and then laugh at him. I now believe
it was "Phil" who led me to the cemetery that day. Perhaps he just wanted me to visit
him, to let me know he's walking now and watching over our family.
