At Last: the DMV (Part 3)

Before we go to the DMV I just have to mention that about six months before he died, Barrett gave me a book. He mentioned that his friend Maggie knew the author. He told me a bit about the book, which he had read and apparently enjoyed tremendously because he was foisting it upon me while I was saying, “No thank you, I really don’t think I will get to this book anytime soon,” and he was saying, "It’s ok, really, just take it and read it when you can…just take it!"

Fast forward six months, and Lily and I are packing to move from New Mexico back to Chicago after her dad died, and I give her an easy job: books. Most had already been packed and there were just enough on the shelves to make it not look bare. When I came in to check on her progress there were only three books left.

“These don’t fit in the box,” she said.

One was the book I had grudgingly accepted from Barrett. I looked at it for what I immediately realized was the first time. It was a book about life after death. I was stunned. Of all the books he could have given me—of all the books that could have been left on the shelf after packing hundreds. I had a sudden desire to actually read it. The author was, like Louise Hauck, a death psychic. In order to be of more help to her clients, she had asked the Universe for an experience of life after death, while she was living. The book is a description of what she learned on her adventure. It’s great! (Echoes of the Soul, by Echo Bodine.) Even though I cannot grasp “where” Barrett is, if he’s not in his body but he’s “here,” the book made so much sense and did not promote a belief system. It’s been the perfect guide to his death—and I can’t thank him enough for making me just take it.

So: I went to the DMV.

I needed an Illinois drivers license, and I needed to get Barrett’s car title and plates put in my name. He had no will, and I had filled out an affidavit saying that everything of his should go to Lily--but I needed his car to go to me because she was 15. I had neither my divorce papers nor my name-change papers from when I changed my first name, so my identity, for DMV purposes, was confusing.

Should I get my drivers license first? Or the plates? There was no right answer. I chose plates. I entered and explained what I needed and was handed a lengthy form to fill out. Armed with my envelope of important papers, I found a work station and sighed.

“Do you need help with that?”

“I’m fine,” I said, barely glancing up.

“If you need any help at all, that’s what I’m here for.”

I looked up. Who would even say that? He was, like many of the DMV employees, African American, but much older. And rather than having the feel of a civil servant, he was…well…elegant. He felt like a butler, or a history professor at Harvard; maybe it was the cardigan, or the wire-rimmed glasses. He seemed so out of place.

“Do you think I need help?” I asked. The six-page form was laid out before me and I was already confused by the first question: my address. I was living in Chicago but every bit of ID said I was living in New Mexico. I began to explain my situation.

“I’m sorry,” he said, about the death of Lily’s dad. “Let me help,” he said, taking the form, and began crossing sections out. Maybe he felt more like a musician. So polished, an older man, but apparently not old enough to retire. He gracefully cut my forms down to a manageable length and reappeared two more times over the course of my form-filling to soothingly ask how it was going. I wanted to cry in his arms both times, so grateful that he’d asked.

I was finished. I looked for him, so I could thank him. He took my hand in both of his and looked me in the eyes. The world around us stopped. 

“We appreciate you,” he said, and walked off.

A wave of emotion moved through me.

Wiping tears away—yes--I proceeded to the next station where I was given a number: 92. Which is numerologically an 11. In my admittedly imaginative but at the same time validated-by-a-lifelong-death-psychic view of the world, Barrett had been present in that maître ‘d, DMV, helpful-greeter-guy. I had felt him. 

Next stop: cashier. “Technically I should charge you $115, but I have a little leeway,” said the surely should have retired by now white guy behind the bullet-proof glass. “I’m gonna check this other box and charge you $15. You’ve been through enough.” This DMV was awash in empathy. And since when does the DMV have leeway?

After paying one more (larger and very unheavenly) fee at another window, I felt compelled to return to the nice old white guy. I felt like I was at a spiritual retreat and it was time to seek out those I’d had connected with.

“I just came back to say thanks,” I said. (Actually just I wanted to see if he was real.)

“That’s not why you’re back, I know why you’re back,” said his merry crony—another retirement-age guy behind the glass.

“Fine,” I played along, “I’m back because I think he’s cute!”

“I knew it! Be here at one. That’s when we go to lunch,” he urged. I was buoyant. PART 4

DMV Part 2!

After we ate our Dexter-served lunch we ran some errands and I dropped off Lily at a friend’s, circled around the block a couple times looking for a parking place, parked, and was thrilled to see the odometer: 111.1.

The following morning, coincidentally, I was scheduled to be on a conference call with a woman who communicates with the deceased, as her career. I was only marginally interested, but here’s why I signed up for the call: one day while I was having a moment of post-death Barrett-pondering, I checked my email, and just then an email loaded from one Louise Hauck. She is a psychic that Barrett and I both saw in 1992, and I guess I’d signed up for her email list.

Over the past 19 years I’ve deleted many of her emails, but never took myself off her email list. About once a year, Barrett would ask, “Hey, who was that psychic I really liked? The one we saw in the 90s?” and I would, in my most grudging ex-wife way, reply, “Louise Hauck! Why don’t you write it down?!” Mind you, he asked this question only about once a year, and it wouldn’t have been annoying if it had been asked by anyone else in the world, and he was never the least bit annoyed when I requested information that only he would know. But regardless: Barrett had kept the name “Louise Hauck” in my mind for the last 19 years with his annual question, so when I saw her email pop up just as I was pondering Barrett’s death, I actually opened it up and read it for a change. In that moment I “knew” that he was wanting me to sign up for her conference call. The price was right. So I did.

Each participant was allowed one question. Not wanting to appear too self-centered, I asked a question that maybe had some group appeal: “How can I tell the difference between my dead ex-husband communicating with me, versus my imagination, versus my own intuition?” That's all I said, and all she knew.

Right off, she said, “You know those things he does? I call them ‘cosmic winks.’” (I had not told her about the car, the numbers, or Lucy reading from Nevermore. I had told her nothing.) She continued, “He sure likes to show off! And the more you notice those winks, the more there will be. He is gratified by how you’ve transcended your human relationship feelings about him and experience him as a soul. Does this resonate with you at all?” I told her I was thrilled. That she was right on. That if he showed off as a human I would have found it irritating, but as a soul he was quite entertaining. I described a dream Lily had had:

Her dad appeared in her dream and said, “I can do all these cool things now. Watch this!” and he proceeded to show her the night sky, pointing out a constellation that looked like a ping-pong table and paddles. Then he summoned the constellation to come down to earth, and Lily and Barrett played ping-pong. He was showing off, for sure. She woke up thrilled. He’d had a ping-pong table in his living room when he lived in the city.

Louise Hauck asked me if I slept on my side, which indeed I do. She said Barrett wanted me to invite him into my dreams, and I said I wouldn’t be doing that anytime soon. She also included a message for Lily from her dad which, when I relayed it, made sense. In answer to my question, she said that his messages “piggyback” on my intuition, which is why it’s difficult to tell them apart. She didn’t say a thing about my imagination.

I walked away from the call feeling validated—even though the numbers we consistently received from him were validating enough…it was great to have a “professional” label it. Cosmic winks. Awesome and undeniable. I sat down and emailed Louise Hauck a thank-you note.

The following weekend, I was driving Lily to her friend’s. I glanced at the car thermometer and noticed it was 55 degrees. “Dude. I am convinced that your dad changes the temperature.  It’s 55 degrees a lot. And when I look at my phone, the temperature isn’t 55 degrees.”

Lily was only slightly impressed. I continued.

“So I asked your dad,”  I said carefully, waiting for rebuttal, “and he said that it’s easier to mess with the temperature as opposed to, for instance, the clock, which is based on real time, and the mileage, which is based on real space.”

“Mom,” she replied. “How do you know he answered?”

“I don’t. I have no idea. I asked. That’s what the answer was. It could be my imagination. But that's not the type of thing I'd even think.”

Lily had an idea: “Ok Daddy, if you’re really here and you can do that, please make the temperature go up three degrees.”

You know the end of this story. I won’t even say it.  The whole thing took all of one minute. But that’s not all.

We arrive at Lily’s friend’s, early, so I pull out my phone and open my email. Just in case we were still not believing Barrett enjoyed moving our thermometer to 55 degrees, in that moment the only email that loaded was from…Louise Hauck.

Does it matter what it said? Absolutely not. But what it said was: “Hi Rachel, I just found this email in my outbox! I had sent it last week in response to yours. I have no idea why it didn’t get sent, but anyway…”

I answered, told her how perfect the timing was, much better than if her email had been “on time.”

Lily thought it was pretty cool that of all people, Louise Hauck would email just then. But there's something I’d left out.

“Lily—do you even know what year your dad was born?”

Indeed she did not: 1955.

NEXT: I will talk about the DMV. Really. I promise:
<Go to Part 3!>