Some years back I got a reading from a psychic. She lived out of state and as I look back, I see how I was set up to make it super easy for her to read me. How? She phoned you before hand to see if you would be a good “subject” for her reading. And of course we talked quite a while and by the time we hung up, she had gotten her reading!

One thing she said that I realized was true when the day of the reading actually came. She saw my little girl holding balloons and a stuffed tiger. She told me my child just wanted me to be happy.

I asked my sister if she remembered Laurie having a stuffed tiger and she said no. I don’t remember if I asked Rob or not. It seemed vaguely like she did, but I had no clear memory of it.

Rob is in Washington for July 4th and I have been busying myself cleaning the spare bedroom closet and the basement.

I have worn myself out, believe me. I have run out of black garbage bags and cardboard boxes. I keep telling myself to quit for the day, to do it in batches.

As I opened the last plastic tub of the day, which held things from Rob’s childhood, I saw the little tiger, hidden among his other things. So the psychic had been right! I knew it.

It is easy enough to clean out the basement and closets galore. It is impossible to remove meaning from the heart. My heart aches as I do this necessary paring down.

But that tiger, that dusty little tiger, brought me to tears that you would not know unless you had a child and they had just waved at you through time and space. Hello, hello….

I posted a photo. As far as I can recall, the principal had come to visit her and brought her the little stuffed toy, which looks more like a leopard than a tiger, but I know that is what the psychic was referring to.

It is sitting on my hutch now. I put it there for its first photo in 40 years. He doesn’t look a day older.

Vicki Woodyard