Signs...

We all spend hours searching for them, but that day I was looking for a sign that I was going to survive. Something to let me know you were okay. A house emptying out, stuff piled everywhere and I couldn’t help but notice the words “another river to cross” stuck up on that empty wall so oddly placed that I knew it was you. I spent hours desperately searching for letters, pictures, anything written by you & it was there all along. Little did I know that note on the wall was placed there on purpose, placed there by you. At a loss for words on why you put it there, or what motivation you felt from those words, but I knew it was you & in that moment I knew you were okay. You stared at that wall outside my bedroom everyday and somehow I’d soon figure out what those words meant to you. So I took that note, I took that tiny yellow sticky note outside my bedroom wall and pondered what it meant to you. You were always surprising me with motivational words and anything to help you feel like you’d survive this tough little life. I heard the words “another river to cross” and that’s when it clicked. Life is tough, but it’s not end. The struggles, the low times, life is kind of like a river. You’re going to get through it, you might need to swim through the river, and some days you might need to go a little slower but it’s all just a hurdle in life that I’d like to consider another river we have to cross. You’re going to do whatever you have to do to cross your own river in life, but your journey isn’t over. Don’t give up when the river seems never ending and when the water seems a little deep. So there it was, the reason you wrote that tiny sticky note inside of a painting outside my bedroom walls. This gave you hope that your battles would eventually be over, that you would win the life you wanted, hope that every problem in life wasn’t the end but simply a river or a little hurdle you could say. So thank you, thank you for giving me hope that this situation wasn’t the end for me and reminding me that no matter how long it took me you weren’t gonna let me drown.

& here I am years later telling myself I won’t drown with that same yellow sticky note to remind me life’s just a river to cross.

Submitted by: Anonymous

Date: 2/11/2025