Seventeen years later, she is an amazing wife and mother of two equally amazing grandkids.

It’s a rare experience for parents to see life through their children’s eyes–perhaps even rarer when you both see the same thing.  In May of 1998, in her first assignment for her Communications 343 class at CSUSB our oldest daughter gave us a glimpse .

Suspiciously Superstitious?  Surprisingly Supernatural
My Life: Eighteen Years of Extraordinary Events
By Carrie Anne Still

“Thank God!”  “What a coincidence!”  “How providential!”  “That was lucky!”  “I’ll take my chances .”  We holler in excitement.  Theses verbal symbols are excepted by all to mean that fate has shinned her golden light upon us.  I myself have made good use of many of these expressions.  And with good reason, over the course of my eighteen years!  For me, serendipity has become a way of life.

Life in itself is made up of circumstances working together, in a way that promotes or inhibits us.  That either helps or hinders us, that pushes forward, or keeps us back.  They can cause grief, or bring joy.  So what are these circumstances?  Who or what causes them?  How do they happen?  Everyone has an answer of their own.  Some call it fate, others call it coincidence, and still others call it Supernatural.  I can only share with you my side of the story, and let you make up your mind from there.

I’m from a family of ten kids.  Some think this is a miracle in itself!  It’s true that in a family this size, unusual things are prone to occur.  However this was different.  I’m not superstitious, but I do believe in the Supernatural.  How can I help it?  It’s the only rational explanation for a whole lifetime of irrational events.

The Reign of the Extraordinary

It was 1978 in Ellensburg, Wa., there they were: Mom, Dad, and three little boys (my six sisters and I weren’t born yet), sitting calmly at an empty dinner table.  Having just said grace over the food they didn’t have, they waited for “God to provide.” I have to admit that the situation was a mite desperate.  There was absolutely no food in the house, and even less money.  However there were still five hungry mouths that rested quite idle and empty.  I really don’t know what they thought would happen.  I guess they were waiting for a miracle.  Well it came, in less than five minutes!  A knock was heard at the door, and low and behold it was my parents friend and pastor.  In his arms he carried a bag of groceries he was giving them.  My parents hadn’t told a soul about their dilemma, so there was no reason for such a visit, as far as they could see.  What caused this man to stop by on this particular errand of mercy, at this particular time, to this particular family?

Coincidence? Maybe.  Fate?  Possibly.  Supernatural?  Conceivably.  Who is to say.  A one time freak event isn’t much to go by.  However, it did happen again, and little did my parents know that it would happen over and over throughout their lives.

That same year, my mom and dad moved to Cle Elum, Wa. with the three boys.  They ended up next to a trailer who’s occupants were atheist.  This figured, since my parents are staunch Christians.  Well the neighbors were curious to know how my parents were surviving, and asked them one day.  My dad answered that they were living by faith.  The atheist neighbors of course thought that they were crazy.  2 to 3 weeks after they had moved in my “crazy” parents again had no money, and on this particular morning no food.  About the time they started to wonder what they were going to have for breakfast, and after my dad had prayed that the Lord would provide, there come a knock at the door.  It was the neighbors.  They said to my dad: “You probably think God is doing this, but our electricity went out and the refrigerator is down.  Here’s some food…”  Whereupon they loaded my parents down with breads, fish and other meats.  My family ate a good breakfast that day, and many days after.

The neighbors knew nothing about the food situation that was at that very moment looming over the family.  How did just so happen that their refrigerator broke at that specific time?  Why not a week later, or a few days before”  How did happen to pick our family to give the food to, and not any of the other neighbors?  How do circumstances work out so perfectly?  These were the kinds of situations I was born into, in April of 1980.  I already had a rich background of weird and wacky events, making me a believer at birth.  But a believer in what?

In 1980 my parents moved to California, and we lived with my grandparents for the first ten years of my life.  In 1986, when I was six years old, my grandmother wanted to visit her sister in Iowa for her birthday.  But since she didn’t have the money (this seemed to be a perpetual problem in my family), she just sent a birthday card with a short note inside that said she was praying for $500 to be able to fly out.  As she walked out the front door to mail the card, the mailman was just walking up with a certified letter she had to sign for.  My grandmother signed for it, then gave him the birthday card to mail.  When he left left, she opened the letter.  It was from a cousin whom she had only met once, and never kept in contact with.  The letter said: “I had this money just laying around, and thought that you could use it more than me.”  Inclosed in the letter was a check for $500.

The exact amount?  On the exact day she sent the that letter out?  This blew my mind.  What power was at work here?  Surely it could not have been an accident!

From about 1990 on, there were events that I was old enough to remember personally,  In ’91 my dad was with out a job, and we were really struggling to stay afloat.  By this time the family had expanded to six kids, and we had no idea where rent was coming from, but by this time we had learned to just wait and trust; it would come from somewhere!  On the day that rent was due, my dad received a teacher’s retirement check in the mail for $1,300-the exact amount that was owed.  I can recall the excitement and the thrill of witnessing  yet another … well, another what?  Miracle?  Coincidence?  Maybe.

The retirement check could have been sent at any time in the year, and we certainly were not expecting it at this time!  And the fact that it was the exact amount that we owed, and came on the day we owed it, it forces you to stop and ask how?

That year there was a whole slew of incidents like the one just mentioned.  Just to get a feel for the situation, on November 16th my dad made a $7 deposit into our bank, which covered some overdraft charges, and brought our account up to a whopping $1.73.  On the 22nd we deposited $20 to cover a check for $20, which left us again with $1.73!  Not a lot for a family of eight to live on.  But our family seemed to be living off something stronger than money.

In the middle of November we owed a bill of $50, that we were again unable to pay, and the day it was due, a payment of $50 came in from a dishwasher we had sold a while before.  We were also skimping on food, and that same day a friend (who knew nothing of the situation) came by with a load of food she was evidently trying to find a home for.  On December 5th the water bill, electric bill, and rent was due.  That day my dad received advance payment for a graphic design job, for the exact amount we needed to cover all three bills, and some back rent.  That year the story went on and on.  When we were out of food, a friend or neighbor would stop by with something they “just didn’t want” of they “couldn’t eat before it spoiled.”  Or that was “a good deal at the store” and they thought that they would pick some up for us.  When I asked my dad if he ever told anyone, he said, “No.  I never make it a habit to tell people that sort of thing.”

Cars were the other thing.  Sometimes it seemed that we were loosing cars as fast as we were gaining kids.  I remember one time in ’93 that was pretty remarkable.  My mom was driving home with the two youngest kids in the car.  (At this time we were living in La Verne, Ca).  She was 4 or 5 blocks from the house when the engine caught on fire.  She jumped out of the car and tried to get the kids out of their child safety seats, and as she shot up a short prayer for help, a man drove up and immediately stopped to help.  It turned out that he was a volunteer fireman, and knew exactly what to do.  In a matter of minutes a fire truck arrived.  But by this time my mom an the kids were already safely home, via the kind volunteer.  Now we had no car, an eight kids to boot.  But did we have cause to worry?  Of course not!  Later that month a lady from our church called and said she had a car that she felt “the Lord wanted her to give away.”  She had already decided to give it to us.  She had no idea what had just happened to our car.  In fact, no one knew.

In 1992, it was the same old story.  We had no food, and my dad was still out of a job.  I can recall eating biscuits every meal.  But still, no one knew.  One night my mom and I came home to find boxes and boxes of food piled on our dinning room.  I counted them and came up with 57 cases of food!  We had just met the family who had benefited us a few weeks before.  They knew nothing about our situation.  I decided to call for this report, and ask them some questions.  When I asked how they knew that we needed food at that time he said, “I didn’t.  I guess I just put two and two together by listening and understanding.  You know, sometimes God just prompts you to do something.  He just put it on my heart.  All you have to do is learn to listen, Carrie Anne, just learn to listen.”  When I asked if he had experienced any unexplainable events in his life, he replied, “Oh yes!”  Even the children had.  Apparently his son had recently been praying for $300 to buy a monitor, and a week later he got an anonymous check for $300.  Included was a note written in unfamiliar, shaky handwriting: “With congratulations, you won.”  No one knows where it came from.

In ’95 for a period of about five months we received an anonymous check of $200 almost every month.  And without fail, it came at the time we needed it most.

The stories go on and on.  Almost as if an insider was there throughout it all, leaking information to some fairy benefactor who would always catch us just before we fell.  Is it fate?  Is it coincidence?  Is it luck?  Or is it Supernatural?  I believe the latter.  Organization does not happen on it’s own, it is the trademark of intelligence.

What do you think?

[After you’ve thought for a while, why don’t you click here to checkout the art gallery.  Maybe you find something you’ll like.  Maybe you’ll be someones “fairy benefactor” – part of the organized “intelligence” Carrie Anne eluded to.]

The post Family: Carrie Anne first appeared on RickStillArtist.com.

Granddad at about 35 – Circa 1914

In 1955, as a five-year old grandson, I worshipped the ancient ground he walked on.  He was Granddad, born in 1879, in Paso Robles, CA – the first and deepest root in what is now a five-generation California heritage.  He and Granny lived in a court of six, old, Spanish-style, four-room bungalows, on Second Ave., in Arcadia, CA.

The houses were set across from each other in two tidy rows of three, perpendicular to the street with a central walkway between them.  Around the perimeter of the court there were the barriers.  A neatly trimmed three-foot hedge that ran along the sidewalk, parted in the middle to form an entrance.  There were neighboring fences to the north, the forbidden alley to the south, a spotty row of haggard shrubs and small trees to the rear.  But to a troubled child  the hedge was a mountain range of make-believe, separating the magical interior of the courtyard from the frightening world of home.  

At the age of 75, he and 78 year old Granny, were my shelter from the raging family tornado.  Like Dorothy and Toto, I came to them in the midst of the storm. I can still feel the spinning confusion and the vague impression of a cold and gloomy darkness.  The clouds were inside of me, as I approached their front door and entered.  In the dim, musty warmth of their aging living room, as if by magic, the gloom began to dissipate, replaced by a weary peace.  It was Granddad who created the magic.

I do not remember how it happened, the mental images of that day jump without transition from scene to scene.  Time and space between the living room and their bedroom had vanished. I was on his knee, nestled in his arms.  I was out of the storm, away from my world, traveling across the verdant fields within Granddad’s mind. He was the magic.  He was the story.  Inside of him were other times, other places, and other worlds.  The stories he told had calmed my storm, reality had given way to the safety of make – believe.  But in the arms of Granddad the safety was real.

In the land of Granddad, make believe was real, too.  The artifacts of his imagination cluttered the shelves, tabletops, cabinets, and chairs like museum pieces and souvenirs.  They were the tangible relics of inspiration – tin boxes filled with page after page of word pictures, deep in thought and rich with color and music – poems, songs, and short stories.  Real cowboys and Indians, coolies and vaqueros, intertwined with the history of a boy growing up on a California ranch, in the home of a frontier doctor.

The products of Granddad’s ingenuity did not stop with the written word.  Homespun inventions and mechanical marvels made a frequent trek from fantasy to fact.  Hanging on the bedroom wall, was an electric bell, with a hand wound copper coil and an oscillating mercury switch. It was remotely activated by a button made from an old crib spring, flat pieces of scrap metal, and a plastic medicine bottle. In every drawer were hand carved cats, beavers, alligators, dragons and lizards all with tails hewn into letter openers.  There was a dragon that rolled forward on wooden wheels, flapping its wings and snapping its mouth, as you cranked from behind on a flexible cable.  With the push of a medicine bottle button, another dragon would lunge at the unsuspecting operator from its wooden perch atop the living room buffet.  On the floor of the adjoining storage room, another dragon of similar design, recently escaped from his fairyland imagination, was flanked by boxes of spare wheels, and legs and medicine bottles that had migrated in from Granddad’s workshop behind the courtyard.

Something of Granddad must have awakened in me that night, as I nestled in his arms.  I would no longer be enveloped in the fear and gloom of the tempest.  Make-believe built a small sanctuary in my mind and the architect of peace waited patiently at its door.  Of all the monuments to his imagination, peace was the greatest treasure I drew from Granddad, on that soul wrenching day. No storm, including my own, could buffet Granddad’s tranquillity. It towered like a huge monolith over the feeble tragedies of life.  The pervading calm of his soul enveloped me. It wafted over me like the scent of honeysuckle. For me it was the incense of hope and a reason to trust.  It was a light shining on a world beyond the turmoil of home.  In the course of an evening, he had shown me how to see beyond my trials. For even with his eyes closed he could still see beauty with his hands.  The light from within him shone on me, even though he could never see the light.  All the trophies of his creativity had been made in darkness.  His tranquillity had been born of trial.  Fifty years of blindness had opened the windows of his heart and he saw through the darkness with eyes of love.

[In life Granddad never had a chance to see my artwork.  Click here to see what he is looking at now through Heaven’s eyes.]

The post Family: Granddad first appeared on RickStillArtist.com.