Moon River became a favorite song of my mother's and our family.

A year before she died, I made an Andy Williams CD for her with Moon River on it:

After decades of childhood memories gradually move farther into the back of my mind, Moon River connected me to my childhood memories. About a year before my mother's death, I was creating music CDs on my computer for myself and everyone. Using special software on the internet, I could download virtually any song from the internet and put it on a CD. When I asked my mother what kind of music CD she wanted me to make for her, she told me she would like Andy Williams - her favorite. So, I downloaded every Andy Williams song he ever recorded in a matter of minutes then looked through all the song titles for the ones I thought she would like. Looking through them was like walking back through my childhood in a musical sense. These songs were the soundtrack of my childhood and remembering them meant remembering myself listening to them with my mother. And Moon River was the big hit song among them which made Andy Williams famous and which I mother loved most. Andy Williams songs were the soundtrack of my childhood and because I knew Moon River was her favorite, I put it at the top of the music CD that I created for her.

My mother was called to heaven just several months after her father David was called to heaven:

Several family members were on an elk hunting adventure near Yellowstone Park when they were involved in a car accident for which my mother died instantly. My twin brother Steve and his wife Sandy sustained severe injuries that left Sandy with a permanent disability. It may actually have been a miracle that Sandy even survived. Their son Joshua was the only one uninjured. He was able to climb up the embankment to the wilderness road they were driving on and flag down the next car that happened to drive by for help. And because the accident occurred so far from civilization, it was a wonder that anyone actually did drive by when they did for Joshua to flag down. And it is a wonder that the person who did happen to come  driving down the road next just happened to be driven by a medical technician with a cell phone that just happened to work that far out of range. And if a helicopter was not summoned at that time, which it was, Sandy would have not likely have survived her injuries.

My sister and I had similar dreams on the same night for which our mother appeared:

My sister and I had similar dreams of our mother on the same night. I was having a normal dream and the only normal part that I remember is when I opened a door and rushed into a room. There, I find myself looking at my mother sitting on a couch with a little smile for me. At this point, I suddenly realized that I am in a dream; but because I didn't wake up, I became lucid. The couch that she was sitting on was against the wall and I was facing one side of the couch. She was sitting with one leg crossed over the other and her upper body was turned toward me. She was holding her chin with the fingers of her left hand and one finger rested against the side of her face. She had her thick glasses on and because she was shifted a little sideways, her beautiful eyes looking at me appeared larger than usual. It appeared as though we were in a waiting room and she had been sitting there awhile expecting me. The moment I first saw her sitting there, I exclaimed, "Mom, you're not dead!" She replied, "I haven't told Glenn yet." At this point, I woke up.

For a few seconds, I actually believed she was still alive in the world. But even when the reality of her death sunk in - that it was a dream - I wasn't too disappointed. I knew she had just appeared to me from the Other Side in a dream. I knew I had an after-death communication dream. Because my mother told me in the dream that she hadn't told Glenn something yet, I understood this to mean that my mother was going to appear in a dream of his to show him she is alive. Two days after having my dream, I phoned my sister and told her about it. We were surprised to learn that both of us had a similar dream with our mother on the same night. She was just having a normal dream when she encountered our mother in it. My sister's reaction during her dream of seeing our mother was the same as mine: "Mom, you're not dead!"

The image of our mother sitting on a couch inspired both me (in a dream) and my brother (in a childhood memory) to Moon River:

A few days after our mother's death, one of his favorite childhood memories of our mother would help him with his grief. It was a memory of sitting with her on the couch, her arm around him, and both of them singing Moon River. This childhood memory stuck with him his entire life. Music has always been an emotional release for him and when our mother died, he would find himself singing Moon River out loud to himself, at work, in the car, and everywhere. Singing Moon River out loud to himself also became a way for him to sing to our mother and feel closer to her while grieving. He eventually had to buy an entire Andy Williams music collection to hear Moon River and the other beautiful songs we listened with our mother. At some point after our mother's death, he decided to surprise everyone by singing Moon River at the memorial. Glenn is a professional artist, actor, and director, as well as a beautiful vocalist who won a state championship in high school.

I don't know it at the time, but my brother, sister, and I have been contacted by our mother from heaven at the same time:

I phoned Debbie to tell her about my dream of seeing my mother sitting on a couch and exclaiming, "Mom, you're not dead!" I was surprised when I learned that she had a similar dream the same night.

At the time, she didn't know that just in two days our brother was going to sing it at the memorial:

Two days before the memorial, Moon River suddenly popped into her memory while thinking of our mother. She could only remember the tune at the time - not the lyrics. She didn't know that Glenn was going to sing Moon River in two days at the memorial.

Hearing the song was a pleasant surprise, but especially for my sister who noted the coincidence:

At the memorial, Glenn crooned Moon River beautifully for all to hear - including my mother I am sure. Debbie noted the coincidence of hearing Glenn sing Moon River when only two days prior to this, Moon River popped into her head.

I heard Moon River sung for the first time since my childhood: 

I couldn't attend the memorial because I was recovering from a recent bout of depression and I feared what such an emotional event would make me sick again. I have a separate web page that documents my transition through grief and depression over my mother's death. My father made a videotape of the memorial and I watched it when he returned. When I watched my brother sing Moon River on videotape, it was the first time that I heard Moon River sung since my childhood days. It was also then that I discovered that I was not the only one who associated the song with our childhood and our mother. I remember thinking that he couldn't have picked a more perfect song to sing in our mother's memory. He picked her song.

My mother's magnified presence and love entered my room and my heart and bringing with her the joy of heaven:

Four days after watching the memorial on videotape, I had a powerful spontaneous visitation of my mother's presence which lasted about an hour. It did not involve any of my five senses. It was purely a spiritual experience. I was not high on drugs, nor was I depressed at the time, nor was I under the influence of any religious meditation ritual or prayer. The only I can say is that it resembled the non-ordinary state of consciousness of a hallucination - except there was clarity - and it was highly spiritual, highly emotional, and with no distortions. It was a sudden, unexpected visit with my mother's heavenly presence and spirit.

Before this happened, I have had experiences with non-ordinary states of consciousness of different sorts (e.g., psychedelic, psychotic, and psychic/spiritual). And the best way that I can describe my visitation experience with my mother is in terms of a hallucination or a vision which did not involve my five senses. Although the spontaneous visitation I experienced on this day had similarities to a hallucination (i.e., hearing a voice, feeling a strong presence and intense emotions), it was different in that the visitation experience of my mother occurred spontaneously while I was in good mental and physical health - which doesn't happen with psychotic hallucinations. Psychotic hallucinations occur after an extended downhill descent into depression or an extended uphill ascent into mania. My visitation experience of my mother was unique and like nothing I ever experienced. Because of the intense feelings of love, God, and heaven, that I felt during my visitation experience with my mother, I call it my "near-life experience." Instead of me crossing death's door to meet my mother in a near-death experience, my mother crossed back over the threshold of death to bring me a moment of heaven to me and a near-life experience.

I received a physical validation of a completely spiritual experience:

Hours after my visitation experience with my mother, the following morning I got out of bed and turned on the television set. A cable movie popped on which I later discovered was "Breakfast at Tiffany's." And when it popped on, Moon River began to play. It couldn't believe my ears. It was easier to believe I had a spiritual visitation with my mother; but the incredibly improbable coincidence of randomly turning on the television just in time to hear Moon River play went into the miraculous.

Later, I calculated that the odds of this happening at random is over 1 in 18 billion! I didn't need to do the math at that time to know it was a sign from heaven. It was physical proof that my purely spiritual experience only hours before was a physical reality. Hearing Moon River that morning felt like time stood still for a moment while past, present and future came together. Everything made sense now about Moon River. Heaven was giving me proof that my mother still lives. Mom was giving me a sign. Although I didn't need this proof (I already was convinced there is life after death), this event removed any possibility of doubt for me. But more importantly for my family, I felt that these after-death communications we have been having involving Moon River will be more of a help. Hearing Moon River that morning was an incredibly beautiful experience. Along with the coincidences and after-death communications, another amazing thing about it was the song itself. it was also the first time since my childhood that I heard Henri Mancini's beautiful rendition of Moon River. I sat down and closed my eyes and enjoyed the experience.

A few days after the memorial, my father was driving his car and listening to the car radio when Paul Harvey came on. My father remembers hearing one of Paul Harvey's news items to be about Moon River and how someone keeps stealing the Moon River signs along tje actual Moon River near Savannah, Georgia. My Dad noted the meaningful coincidence of hearing a news story about Moon River so close to hearing Moon River sung at the memorial. He also thought it was strange that stolen signs would be a newsworthy item on a Paul Harvey show.

At the time, I thought this would be the end of our Moon River coincidences, but one of the biggest coincidences is yet to come:

The first draft was first published on the internet on this day. I then emailed family members so they would be aware of it. This would be the first time that many family members would read about the whole experience.

While watching one of their favorite television programs, "Sex and the City," the song Moon River was highlighted on the show. It inspired him to think of our mother again.

The day after I published this web page on the internet and email my family about it, Glenn reads my email and views it on the internet. He noted the unusual coincidence of hearing Moon River on television the night before and then reading my email about Moon River the next day. After viewing the web page, he emailed me to let me know that "Now I can't get Moon River out of my head."

I now realized that our family is being contacted again - this time on our mother's anniversary to heaven:

I was working on this web page when I needed to phone my sister to ask her more about the memorial two years ago and how she remembered Moon River just two days prior to it. After telling me about it, she informed me that she saw an Andy Williams special the night before and heard Moon River sung on it. I told her about the music CD of Andy Williams I made for our mother about a year before she died and that I had put Moon River on it. She wasn't aware of this, even though the Andy Williams CD was in her house and stored along with our mother's other things.

Everyone in the immediate family has now had at least one Moon River coincidence:

I phoned my twin brother to see if he had any Moon River experiences to put on this web page. He told me that hours ago his wife was browsing for music CDs in a store and noticed a Barbara Streisand CD. Out of curiosity, she pulled it off the shelf to look at it. She noticed that Moon River was listed on it.

My thinking about "Moon River" began only a few days after Mom died. Music has always been for me an outlet for emotions. I've been attracted lately to rediscover the music of my youth and, when Mom died, a lot of the songs she sang to me and we enjoyed together (largely at the Ivy St. house in Monrovia) flooded back. I actually have a literal memory of Mom singing "Moon River" when I was a kid. We were sitting on the couch in the living room at 201 N. Ivy and she had her arm around me and we were singing the song together. The song was always the Black Sheep National Anthem to me and I felt then that we both knew something about loneliness. Mom had the sweetest singing voice, beautiful and clear. I loved hearing her sing. The memory has long been a sweet one for me.

After Mom died, I found myself singing "Moon River" out loud to myself at work and in the car and everywhere else. It kind of became a way for me to sing to Mom and it helped me feel Mom's presence during the grieving process.

During the memorial at Deb's house, I really wanted to get up and sing "Moon River." But I was afraid that it would be too sentimental or that people would feel I was being inappropriate for a memorial. I kept thinking, maybe I should sing "I Come to the Garden Alone" or some other religious song. But "Moon River" kept running through my heart and I knew that's what I wanted to sing for her. I waited until we were pretty much finished sharing and then thought to myself, this is my last and only chance to do this and I don't want to regret not singing this song at this moment. So I told everyone I had one more thing to do, and I got up and sang "Moon River" a capella.

"Moon River" keeps coming up for me. I finally had to break down and buy an Andy Williams collection to get a copy. There are other Mom songs that come through for me as well: "Turn Around," "Prayer for Bobby," and others. But nothing like "Moon River."

I searched for this article without success for a long time and on this day I finally found it:

Sometime after the memorial, my father heard Paul Harvey on the car radio talking about Moon River and signs being stolen. Since then, I have made attempts to validate this news article without success. But after spending hours on this day searching the internet, I finally discovered the news article - the only one on the internet - that validates the news story about Moon River that my father heard.