This post is also available in Spanish. Read it here
There are moments when we don’t need a huge answer. We simply need to know that, somehow, on the other side, they can still hear us.
After almost three weeks without writing about Matías, last Saturday I found myself sitting in his place again.
It was on Roosevelt Island, on the bench that has so often been the setting for our silent conversations. A place we have returned to again and again because, for us, Matías is there too: in the trees, in the river, in the wind, in the animals that appear, and especially in the geese.
That day, I needed to talk to him.
And this time, I decided to do something different.
I didn’t simply ask him for a sign.
I made a very specific request.
I said:
“Matías, I’m going to sit here for a while. If you are okay, if you are very happy where you are, send me a group of geese, pigeons, or little birds while I’m sitting here.”
And I stayed.
I didn’t know what would happen.
I wasn’t expecting an apparition or anything extraordinary. I had simply made a request, and I decided to remain attentive.
After a while, they appeared.
Four geese.
Together.
And they came incredibly close to us.
Geese are not unusual on Roosevelt Island. We’ve seen them many times. But we don’t usually see them right there, so close to that bench, and certainly not arriving that way just after I had specifically asked Matías to send me exactly that.
I watched them approach and thought:
“Was that you?”
I have no scientific way of proving that it was.
And I don’t need one.
Because I know what I felt.
I felt that my son had heard me.
But more than anything, I felt that he had answered my question.
I hadn’t simply asked him to show me that he was near.
I wanted to know something much more specific:
Are you happy where you are?
And I wanted to know if that happiness was truly immense.
For me, that day, the answer was clear:
“I am here, and I am very happy.”
And yes.
I know he is very happy.
How can we communicate with those we love?
For a long time, I thought signs simply happened. Something unusual would occur, and we would wonder whether it had been a sign.
Today, I think we can also create space for communication.
This isn’t about forcing our loved ones to send us something.
And it isn’t about turning every coincidence into a sign.
It’s about talking.
Asking.
And paying attention.
If you want to try, you can begin very simply:
1. Find a quiet place.
You don’t need to be somewhere special. It can be your bedroom, a park, your car, a church, the beach, or a place you once shared with that person.
2. Talk to them the way you always did.
You don’t need special words. Say their name. Tell them how you are. Tell them you miss them. Tell them something that happened that day.
Love doesn’t need complicated language.
3. Make a specific request.
Instead of simply saying, “Send me a sign,” you can ask for something you would recognize.
An animal.
A song.
A word.
A flower.
A butterfly.
A coincidence.
Something that has meaning for the two of you.
4. You can give it a time frame.
I told Matías I would be sitting there for a while and that, while I was there, I wanted him to send me one of those signs.
Not because I thought I could control how it should appear.
I was simply creating a space where I could pay attention.
5. Don’t decide beforehand what the sign has to feel like.
Maybe it will be something you see.
Maybe something you hear.
Maybe a dream.
Maybe a memory that suddenly arrives with a strength you weren’t expecting.
And maybe nothing will happen.
That’s okay too.
It doesn’t mean they aren’t listening.
6. And above all, don’t be afraid to talk to them.
Sometimes we think that because our loved ones have departed, we have to stop talking to them.
I don’t think that way anymore.
I still talk to Matías.
Because our bond didn’t end when he departed.
It simply had to find another way to exist.
And as I write this, another sign arrives
As I am writing this post, I just received a call from Aida, Andrés’s aunt, in Venezuela.
She always carries Matías in her heart. She always says that there are three of us.
She just told me that last night she dreamed about the three of us: Andrés, her, and me.
In the dream, she was trying to talk to us, but we couldn’t hear her.
Matías could.
He looked at her.
He smiled.
He showed her those little white teeth we know so well.
And then he did something that broke my heart.
With his little hand, with those chubby little fingers I remember so well, he gestured to her:
“Come, come, come.”
I don’t know what that dream means.
And perhaps we never will.
Each person can interpret it through their own beliefs, their own spirituality, and their own relationship with those who have departed.
But there is something that deeply moved me:
In the dream, Matías was happy.
He was smiling.
He was listening.
And when Aida tried to get closer to him, he recognized her.
“Come, come, come.”
Maybe our bonds simply learned another way to speak
Since Matías departed, I have learned to look differently.
To listen differently.
To wait differently.
I no longer need a manifestation to be something extraordinary.
It can be a song.
A dream.
A word.
An animal appearing at exactly the right moment.
A coincidence that touches something very deep inside us.
Four geese.
I don’t know if Matías made those four geese walk toward us.
But I know that I asked him a question.
I asked him if he was very happy where he was.
And when I saw them approaching, my heart understood the answer.
“I am here, and I am very happy.”
For me, that was enough.
And now, as I finish writing these words, I receive Aida’s call telling me that, in her dream, Matías was smiling at her and gesturing with his little hand:
“Come, come, come.”
Perhaps that is one of the most beautiful things we can learn when someone we love departs:
That love does not disappear.
That conversations can continue.
And that sometimes, when we dare to ask…
they find a way to answer.
❤️💙❤️