"Is my imagination running away with me?"
November 03, 2010, 7:49 a.m.

This morning I jumped when my porcelain Pegasus music box started playing by itself while I was sitting here reading emails on my laptop. Besides the light of my laptop there was no other light on in the room, save the green numerical digits from the clock on my cable box. There was no other sound in the room except my fingers typing on the keyboard and the faint hum of the household. I couldn't see the music box as it sat on the bookshelf, but I could hear it playing it's tune, To Dream The Impossible Dream. I turned the laptop toward the shelf and in the dark, the monitor cast a strange bluish light on everything. I don't know what I was expecting to see. Nothing was out of place. Everything was normal. Still, that odd lighting only heightened the eeriness I was feeling, so I jumped up to turn on the table lamp nearby.

In all the years I've owned this music box, this is just the second time the music box has played on it's own. Last June, my sister Audrey passed away suddenly. In my grief, I lit a votive candle, placed it near a framed portrait I have of her and then turned the key on the music box to listen. The song lasted about 3 minutes till it finally wound down and was silent. When the music stopped I picked up my book and settled on the sofa to read. A few hours later I took a break from reading and looked over at the candle -- it looked like it had burned down pretty far. I started singing under my breath Amazing Grace which I have the habit to do from time to time. There I was softly singing the words, "Amazing grace how sweet the sound" and as I lifted my hand up to touch the candle, the music box began to play again - six slow notes. Six notes that sounded just like the next line, "that saved a wretch like me". I looked straight at Audrey's picture and just smiled, as if I knew it had been her joining me in song. But then after a few moments I started crying and just couldn't stop. It was a moment. A personal moment of grief.

Here's what I think happened that night. The music box had not been wound up in years. Although the box had stopped playing, the remaining tension in the music box caused the energy to spend by playing its last few notes. Because the notes were played so slowly and they were so few, my mind naturally placed them within the next line of the song. I was hyper-senstive because of Audrey, plus it was night, it was quiet, I was alone, hence my emotional response. Still, I felt shocked and a little freaked out. My heart was beating and the tears were flowing. And after a long while, I settled down.

So, this morning as I sat in the dark, listening to the music box playing those slow notes again after all these months, my thoughts went back to my sister Audrey and I wondered if she was here with me or was my imagination running away again. Is there any remaining unspent energy lying dormant in that music box, or will I be hearing it during some other quiet moment? I don't know.

I am selfish enough to want my sister with me, I'm afraid of the unknown enough to be spooked, I care for her enough that I'd rather she was bathed in love and light, and logical enough to know that this may all have been just a set of interesting circumstances. Purely a coincidence. Or is it?

It's a mystery to me.