I left for a work trip this morning to Boston. I felt bad for leaving my kids to take care of their mother, my remarkable wife. I haven’t really had much alone time since my mom died. It’s been a blur. After such a heavy and emotional week of being with my mom through her death, I welcomed getting back to work and family life. But here it was – the first Mother’s Day without my mom and just over two weeks after she died.

I wrote with a pen in my notebook most of the flight, a lot of it about my mom. I rarely have the solitude that helps create the space I feel like I need to just write. Mid-way through the flight, I felt something hit my glasses. Whatever it was was on the brim of my face mask. And I saw in my periphery that it was crawling, so I slowly removed my glasses and then my mask but couldn’t find what it was. I looked around my seat and in the folds of my pants and discovered a ladybug!

Where did it come from?!

What do I do with it?!

What is a ladybug doing on a plane?!

I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Wait, wasn’t it lucky to have a ladybug land on you?

I texted Laura first and of course she asked if my mom liked ladybugs. I didn’t really know. I only knew she liked all living creatures. When I posted it in our family chat with my brother and sister, my sister responded almost immediately.

“That is MOM! Didn’t I tell you about the ladybugs before she died and after. She’s sending a sign to you. She loved ladybugs and had a little ladybug pin I got her she used to wear. It’s not even the season for them!!!”

No, she had not. Or if she had, I couldn’t remember, but whoa.

So I let the ladybug crawl around on my hands and I watched it closely. It would just stop and be still on my hand. After a minute or two, I put it on my journal and let it crawl around while I was texting some more. I looked down and it was gone. But then, two hours later, it came back! It flew into the window next to me and I looked down to find it in my lap.

I posted the update and another photo. My sister responded again.

“So when you got in town and I went home to shower a ladybug was randomly on the rug. I took it outside. I’ve never seen ladybugs in our house. Then the day she died I got up in the middle of the night upset and went downstairs and one was on the couch next to me. Mom and I always talked about signs and how we felt dad. I told her to send a sign if she could, like a ladybug! And when she was dying I talked to her so much and told her to send signs and all that. She LOVED ladybugs. She found them in her house all the time and thought it was a sign from dad.”

I stared out the window, eyes welling with tears. Deep breaths. I turn to look at the ladybug is just crawling all over the seat back, up and over the headrest, back down, across the screen. Eventually it disappears and I never see it again.

If it hadn’t happened on the first Mother’s Day without her, I might have been more dismissive, but here we are. Message received, mom. I miss her so much. I especially miss who she was before she had the fall that caused her to never return to her home.