The Turtle Story -- Shani's Birthday, 2009

I know I said I was putting the blog on hold for now, but an experience I had this past weekend, led me to share this with you...


In two weeks, I will be heading to the mountains of North Carolina for a spiritual retreat with an African Shaman where we will be engaging in Indigineous African Grief Rituals for Men. This morning I went to the registration page and found a picture of a turtle, sketched in an African Tribal style. I knew immediately that I am supposed to be there. I don’t know what will happen, but this is destined to be a spiritual experience for me. Turtles became a “totem” for me very early on after Shani’s death. There have been a number of experiences involving turtles, and I even had a tattoo of one done on my right forearm in what I would call a Pacific Islander sort of style.

The appearances of these turtles have typically grounded me at times when I needed it the most. And now, as you will see later on in the story, I can certainly connect with the direction I have been given to “go within my most primal essence.”

I have been waiting to share the turtle story, and after this morning feel more compelled now than ever to do so. Sean is working from these stories to help piece the book together in a different fashion, but here is an excerpt summary from the book proposal we wrote.

This should give you a good idea as to why I love turtles.  Hope you enjoy….

Mike

In realizing this was his story to tell, Mike reflected on the most powerful, awe-inspiring day of his grief—June 11, Shani’s birthday.

A mere nine days after the murder, this day began like all the rest.  Misery.

Mike awoke, instantly crumbling into uncontrollable sobs.  The pain was too great.  Two weeks before, he had been in a grocery store in Florida looking at birthday cards for his wife.  Now, he was curled up in a ball, wishing he could die.

Somehow managing to get out of bed, he ventured outside to take a casual stroll, hoping to clear his head.  He called his ex-boss in New York, just to talk, and as he walked, he noticed something strange up ahead.

A turtle.  It was a turtle in the middle of the road in downtown Atlanta.

“Rick,” he shouted into the phone, “there is a live turtle in the middle of the road.”

Mike looked around and realized there was nothing but concrete and buildings.  This was downtown Atlanta.  There was no logical reason for a turtle to be right there, right then.  Being that this was before the music messages really started coming through, Mike didn’t instantly make the connection that this might be a message from his wife.  He was, however, consumed by an overwhelming thought.

What would Shani do?  What would Shani do?

Shani was an animal lover, an activist, and he could feel her standing over his shoulder, watching his every move.  He wanted to honor her.  So, he scooped up the little turtle and carried it back home.

A few nights before this, in a state of emotional anguish, Mike had escaped the crowd that had gathered in his condo by ducking into his and Shani’s large walk-in closet off of their master bedroom.  He just needed to get away, so he stepped in, and as he closed the door behind him, he took in his surroundings. 

Shani’s clothes and belongings were everywhere.  It was a stark reminder of what his life had suddenly become.  He was a widower, alone at the age of thirty-five, the only real next-of-kin for his wife, and her entire legacy resting in his hands.  It was all too much, and he collapsed to the floor of the closet, head in his hands, sobbing.

After a few moments, he looked up and was perplexed by what he saw.  There was a small bench in the closet, and on the shelf under the bench, there was a little, clay turtle resting there.  Its eyes were made of green beads, and it appeared to be staring right at him.  Shani had sculpted it in one of her pottery classes.  She had etched a smile on its face, and Mike couldn’t help but smile right back.

In the soft smile of that clay turtle, in the silence of the closet, in the face of his tears and sadness, he heard Shani’s voice, “I’m still here, babe.”

Upon returning to his condo with the turtle from the middle of the road, he saw the little clay turtle resting on the top of their entertainment center, where he left it after exiting the closet that lonely night a few days back.  He was instantly reminded again of Shani’s message to him, “I’m still here, babe,” and it was this memory that propelled him on a turtle-saving adventure that took him, his buddy, Tommy, and his dad to the Chattahoochee forest that afternoon, where they released the turtle.  What had started as a miserable and lonely day turned into a perfect celebration of his wife’s birthday.

Amazingly, the power of Shani’s birthday didn’t end there.  On the ride to the forest, Mike had called his friend, Therese, the woman who had passed along the symbolic meaning of the hawk from Shani’s memorial service.  Upon his return home, he had another email from her, this time detailing the symbolic significance of turtles.  A couple of sentences spoke directly to him.  They were excerpted from a book entitled Animal Speak by Ted Andrews.

“The shell is a symbol of heaven, and the square underside is a symbol of earth.  The turtle is an animal whose magic will help unite heaven and earth within your own life.  A symbol of the turtle is an invitation for the blessings of both heaven and earth.”

The turtle will help unite heaven and earth?  Could Shani’s connection to him be any more obvious?  A few days before, he had found a clay turtle that Shani herself had made, then on her birthday, he had found a live turtle in the middle of all the concrete of downtown Atlanta, and then he finds out the symbolism of the turtle is a connection of heaven and earth?  Could this be anything other than a message from his late wife?

His buddy, Tommy, and his father could only shake their heads in amazement.  Mere coincidence certainly was possible, but it seemed too perfect, too right to be anything other than a spiritual connection and divine message.

Therese’s email went on to say, “If a turtle has shown up in your life, it is time to get connected to your most primal essence.  Go within your shell and come out when your ideas are ready to be expressed.”

Come out when your ideas are ready to be expressed?  Are you serious?  The story Shani believed she was destined to tell now belonged to Mike.  Her lessons of healing were now his. Her legacy had been handed to him in the tragic fire of a 9mm rifle.  He felt deep in his heart it was only a matter of time before he was to come out of the shell of his grief and express the ideas Shani was now imparting to him after her death, as well as the lessons she had been teaching him long before she ever left this world.  It was awe-inspiring, it was crazy, and it was nearly unbelievable.

Later that same day, Mike received what would, in his mind, be irrefutable confirmation that this whole thing wasn’t just some big, astronomically improbable coincidence.

Some of his neighbors and friends had arranged to take him to a showing of “Screen on the Green” at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta that evening.  It was going to be his first time in public since Shani’s murder, and he was extremely nervous about it.  “Screen on the Green” was a free movie series the city of Atlanta put on for the public several nights throughout the summer.

He had no idea what movie was even showing when he agreed to attend, but when his friends arrived, he was met with the news that they were showing none other than Field of Dreams, his favorite movie of all-time. 

Previously, this movie had captured every aspect of his inner soul.  Baseball was the one true passion of his entire life, and in its purest sense, “Field of Dreams” was a baseball story.  In the movie, Shoeless Joe Jackson captures the essence of the game, referencing the cool of the grass, the smell of a glove, and the sounds of the park, and it was those very things in which Mike had found a life serenity he was unable to find anywhere else.

On a deeper, more emotional level, the movie was a story of a broken relationship between a father and son.  A sad, yet beautiful picture unfolded throughout the film, one of a man, yet still a boy in so many ways, who longed to reconnect to the father of his youth.  In the end, a simple game of catch between a father and son bridged the gap that years and death had created.  In so many ways, Mike saw the relationship with his father reflected in this movie.  Mike’s father was his hero and one of his closest friends, and there was something about the father/son relationship in the movie that revealed the depth of this intimacy to him.  Not surprisingly, in the tragedy surrounding Shani’s murder, that relationship only deepened with his father becoming the anchor of his strength and support.

So, nine days removed from the murder of his wife, on her birthday no less, after the whole turtle episode with its symbolic connection to heaven and earth, Mike found himself watching his favorite movie play on the large screen before him, and a third, even deeper, more spiritual level revealed itself—the one connecting heaven and earth, life to death, Shani to him. 

Looking back later, Mike would conclude it could have been no other movie to which he would be led.  It had to be “Field of Dreams”.  It had to be Shani.