Do you believe in messages from the dead?
That was the question my sister-in-law, Alice, suddenly asked as we sat at her kitchen table playing Scrabble. We never play Scrabble together—aside from the occasional online game of Words With Friends—so even that moment felt oddly out of the ordinary. But that afternoon, I asked her to play, and she asked me a question we had never discussed.
My brother—her husband—has been gone 12 years now. My parents passed not long after.
My relationship with my dad, Myer, was complicated. As his oldest child, I often absorbed the brunt of his anger, especially as he grew older and sicker. When he wasn’t frustrated with my brother, he was frustrated with me. After my brother died, I became the sole target of his verbal tirades, with only the occasional flare-up directed toward my sister Lori. He wasn’t an easy man.
I remember one time flying home from my winter stay in Florida to help Lori care for him because she was becoming overwhelmed. While driving him to the doctor, him grumbling and unappreciative, I mentioned that I had flown home just for him. That wasn’t true; I did it for my sister. But without missing a beat, he replied, “So what, do you want more money when I die?” I was livid.
Another time, while I was pacing his living room in frustration, he called me a cockroach. I walked out, called my sister, and declared that I was done. And yet… I wasn’t. He was my dad. I had childhood memories of him being tender, especially when I was his adoring little girl. But that tenderness evaporated once I grew a mind of my own. He couldn’t tolerate the loss of my unquestioning admiration.
Back to the Scrabble board.
Have you ever gotten a message from the beyond?” Alice asked. Then she said, “Of all the people I know who have died, I have never received one or recognized one.”
“I have not either,” I said. “Maybe they’re just coincidences that people need to believe in. Maybe they help us feel better. I’d like to believe they’re real, though.”
“Me too,” she said.
I reached into the Scrabble bag, pulled out four tiles, placed them on my rack, and froze.
The letters spelled MYER—my father’s name.
“Alice… you’re not going to believe this.” I turned the rack toward her. We both sat there, mouths open. It felt like too much to be random.
On my next turn, after using some tiles, I reached into the bag again. This time, among the letters, was an A. When I added it to the tiles left on my rack, they rearranged themselves in my mind into another name: RAY—my mother’s name.
First MYER. Then RAY.
I sat there thinking: Maybe they’re together. Maybe they’re letting us know they’re okay.
Why had I, of all days, asked Alice to play Scrabble?
Why had she chosen that moment to ask about messages from the dead?
Why those letters?
Coincidence? Maybe. A message? I’d like to think so.
The experience stirred up a lot. My dad had been an uneducated man who made a good life for himself after moving from Canada to the U.S. to marry my mother. He’d left high school to join the Canadian Air Force at 17—probably lying about his age to do so. I suspect now that he also struggled with undiagnosed ADHD. School was hard for him. Focus was hard for him. And when I grew independent, earned two master’s degrees, built a career, and married a kind, intelligent, successful man, something in him seemed threatened.
“You think you’re so smart because you have two master’s degrees,” he once snapped. “Well, I’ve taken some courses too. You’re not so smart.”
That one came out of nowhere.
But after that uncanny Scrabble moment—after MYER and RAY—I found myself softening, reconnecting with the wounded parts of him. He loved me. I knew that. He also saw in me the potential he never had the chance, or perhaps the tools, to fulfill. No one encouraged him academically. Even if they had, I’m not sure he would have known how to study.
Still, he showed up proudly to my graduation. He was a devoted grandfather. He always needed to be the smartest one in the room, to instruct, to correct, to prove himself—even when he was wrong. Especially when he was wrong.
When he was dying, he needed to control that too. One day he called me and said, “Hi, Randy. I’m giving up. I’m ready to die. I’m getting into bed now, and I’ll be dying soon.”
I hung up and cried. He even had to choreograph his own death.
“I’ll be there, Dad,” I told him.
I drove up to Poughkeepsie. My sister Lori and I sat by his bedside. We recited the Shema with him—the prayer he said every night, the prayer in which he asked God to watch over every member of our family, naming each one down to the youngest great-grandchild. That was the part of him I loved most.
We stayed with him almost until the instant he died, which happened only when my sister and I briefly fell asleep.
So, Dad, if you really did reach out through a handful of Scrabble tiles…
I loved you.
I know you tried.
I know you were complicated—and so am I.
And if there is a heaven, I hope you and Mom are together, finally at peace, finally whole, finally forgiven.
And I hope you know that I forgive you too.
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