I guess I have waited long enough to tell this story. I have started writing it several times and each time I got sidetracked. So, tonight I’m gonna tell it once and for all.

When I was a little girl my Great-Grandmother collected dimes. She would pick them up every time she saw them and she never spent one. She always told her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to save dimes. Well, we all knew that she said that, but it wasn’t until after she died that we realized she really MEANT it!! Inside her little house, hidden in jars, closets, baskets, and drawers were literally thousands…maybe even hundreds of thousands of dimes! Yes. Hundreds of Thousands!

The number of dimes that were found inside her little house was big news, and it spread through our family like wildfire! I mean, Mamaw Jones had a bazillion dimes and she really did keep all of them. We were amazed at the sheer volume of dimes that she had collected. The biggest surprise was that no one really believed she had kept all of those dimes she had touched in her lifetime…until the day they had to clean out her house!

So, for years after she died anytime a person in our family found a dime we would say, “There’s Mamaw Jones telling us hello”. We would smile and go on about our business. I mean, we all found dimes here and there through the years, but it wasn’t a big deal.

Until my Me-Maw died.

Me-Maw was Mamaw Jones’ third child. She was the baby and was (in her own words) spoiled rotten. Well, Me-Maw was always looking for dimes and every time she found one she would say, “There’s a dime from my daddy” (Her daddy….Mamaw’s husband had died in the seventy’s) or “There’s a dime from Mama”. It never failed that she would say that when she found one or came across one. She would also remind us to keep them instead of spending them…”that way we would always have a dime to our name”.  I guess growing up poor made my family believe having just one dime to your name was enough.

And it always was.

Fast forward to June, 2015. My Me-Maw had just passed away (Three short weeks after her oldest sister, Martha) around 5:00 that Saturday morning on the day that I found the first “weird” dime. I opened the trunk of my car and there was a dime sitting in the middle of the trunk. Now, I was at my Me-Maw’s house…which happened to sit at the end of a long, bumpy, red-dirt road. That dime was sitting in the middle of the carpet like it had been placed there on purpose. There was no other change in the trunk at all. I picked it up and took it inside to show my family. They all grinned and we just silently agreed that Me-Maw was telling us she was finally OK. It was a good feeling.

Well, I went home that day and I told Greg about finding the dime. He just blew it off as a coincidence, told me I was crazy, and went on about his business. (He knew the way my family felt about dimes since he had been around so many years).

Skip ahead to September 2015. My cousin Zackary got married at the beach. He is my Mama’s sisters son…aka same side of the family as the dime story. Me, my Mama, both of my sisters, numerous cousins, aunts, and a passel of friends went down to the beach for the wedding. I had to work that Friday, so my sister Diana rode down with me later in the evening. My sister Tracy, my Mama, and my cousin Paige drove down earlier during the day and we met up with them that night. Since it was going to be a girls trip, we all split a hotel room for the weekend.

When I got to Diana’s house that afternoon she said she needed to change purses, but decided to wait until we got to the beach to do it. She put the new purse that she had ordered online in the front floorboard of the car (it was still inside the plastic) with the wallet (also still inside the plastic). She never touched it again until we got to the hotel and unloaded all of our luggage.

Since we arrived so late in the evening at the hotel, everyone else was nearly ready for bed. My Mama was actually already in the bed (the pull-out sleeper sofa that she had put the sheets on herself) when we came in. We all talked and just settled in for a few minutes before Diana pulled out her new purse and wallet. As she took everything out of her old purse she laid it in a pile at the end of the bed. She turned the old purse upside down and shook it to make sure it was empty and a dime fell out! We all laughed and said, “Well, Me-Maw did make it to Zack’s wedding after all!”

At this point it was just neat to see one dime fall out of the purse. No big deal…right?

Then, as Diana was pulling the wallet out of the plastic she un-zipped the change pocket and TWO DIMES were inside it! We were like…wait….what?! How in the world did those two dimes get into that brand new wallet? We were all kind of shocked and so we did what we always do…we started laughing.

Well, we laughed about three dimes being there on the bed and how neat it was that they were there at all for several minutes. The whole time Diana was putting things into her new purse. Mama was in the bed (she never got up); I was sitting at the head of the bed against the headboard; and Tracy & Paige were sitting on the opposite bed and Diana was at the foot of the bed I was sitting on. Then, Diana picks up the dimes so she could drop the into her wallet and she said, “Wait, why are there five dimes here? Where did those two come from?”

We all said, “Huh? 5 dimes? There was only 3 dimes there just a minute ago!”

Then, Mama (still in her bed) lifts up her hand and said, “Well, where did this one come from?”

This is the point where we ALL started screaming, laughing, and plain ol’ FREAKING OUT!!! I am telling you we FREAKED OUT! We ran out of that hotel room and commenced to having full blown panic attacks…every one of us!! If you don’t believe me…just ask our friends who were down at the pool. We were howling laughing. I mean I bet y’all could have heard us all the way at home we were laughing so hard. Crying, hanging over the rails, screaming laughing. What else could we possibly do? It was crazy.  Pure CRAZY!

I guess we laughed hysterically for about two hours. My Mama could NOT get over the fact that one of the dimes was in her hand and she had no idea how it got there. NONE. We were as freaked out as we could possibly have been at that point. Literally.

Well, the next day was the wedding. Of course, since this was the “Dime Side” of the family we told everyone at the house (where the wedding took place) about the six dimes we had been given the night before. Everyone agreed that it was Mamaw Jones, Aunt Martha, and Me-Maw just wanting us to know that they were there and to have a good time together that weekend.

Until after the wedding and reception.

My aunt and I were sweeping off the deck on the back of the house. I was moving some things and she was sweeping when all of a sudden a dime dropped onto the deck and rolled around until it came to a stop. She looked at me…I looked at her….and we didn’t’ say a word. How that dime fell out of the sky and landed on that deck was beyond us. We didn’t move. After a few minutes, we both looked up and all we saw were the stars twinkling above us. There was nothing up there but clear sky and a whole bunch of stars. Yet, lying on the deck between us was a dime just as clear as day.

This time, we didn’t freak out. We didn’t laugh. We didn’t even speak. We just stood there and looked at it. Then, my aunt stepped forward; picked the dime up; looked towards heaven and said, “Thanks Mama. I needed that today”. She shoved the dime into her pocket, looked at me, and we just started cleaning up again. No words were even necessary.

I posted the whole thing on Facebook before I got home. It was just so crazy we had to share it with the world. Naturally, Greg saw the posts and heard me tell him what had happened numerous times that weekend on the phone and when I got home. He said that we “all were crazy and we needed to stop making up such crazy stories”. I really think he thought I was loosing my mind…along with my mother and sisters!! LOL!!

Anyway, that happened the weekend before Greg died. That whole week he made fun of me about the dimes. He told people about it and told them how crazy his wife and her family really were. It really was comical to him because he didn’t believe any of it. I still don’t know how he didn’t believe me even though I had picture evidence of it on my phone!

The day Greg died, I died too. The person I knew was no longer here and in her place was a shell of a person who was so lost and so traumatized that she didn’t even function for three months. There was precious little interaction between me and the world around me during those months. Yet, the times that I did try to interact (either at home or away from home) I noticed something strange that kept reoccuring.

I started finding dimes everywhere. Inside my camera case that I had not used in years. On the ground by my foot at the gas station. Inside my pockets in both a pair of pants and a jacket. In my bed. Inside a drawer. On the floor beside my bed. On the floor in the girls room where a bug had been moments before. Inside the sock basket that sat under our window in the trailer. On the tailgate of Greg’s truck. In the seat of my car after I went in (and it was not there before I left the car). On and on and on it goes. I have dime stories out the wazoo. Only now, I don’t get freaked out.

I have kept every dime that I have found since Greg died. There may be one or two that I didn’t make it home with for one reason or another, but for the most part I have every single dime that I have found in a jar at my house.

Tonight, I poured them all out onto my bed and counted them.

I have 98 dimes.

Ninety-eight dimes that I have “found” in odd, strange, plain out weird places.

Places that no dime (or any other coin) should be found.

It is so strange.

It is so weird.

It is so comforting!!!

I know, deep down in my soul…that those dimes are put in those odd places at those odd times by Greg. I know deep down in my soul that my husband can see me and his girls. I know without a doubt that on the days when I miss him…or wish I could tell him something…somehow he knows and he always leaves me a dime to reassure me when I need it the most.

Case in point…I am engaged to be married soon. Heath is a wonderful man who I know God prepared for me and the girls. I also know that he has Greg’s stamp of approval. How you say? Well, let’s just say that Greg has left Heath a few dimes as well. It is so crazy…and so much fun!! LOL

I  don’t really know how…or why…or if any of this is Biblical. What I do know is that I have found too many dimes in too many weird places at too many exactly “right” ,moments.

Ninety-eight times to be exact.

I was curious if finding dimes was a common “thing”…so I Googled it! Turns out a lot of people find dimes often. There are Facebook Groups, Blogs, and Article after Article written by people who have found dimes just like I have after losing someone close to them. They all talk about finding them in the oddest places at the oddest times…and it is always Dimes. Never any other coins. Strange isn’t it?

I can’t explain it. I can’t rationalize it. I can’t stop the negative comments or thoughts about it. All I can do is share my stories with you all; keep posting my dime pics; and keep believing in something that doesn’t make any sense. Isn’t that what Faith really is?

I see each new dime as a gift. A loving reminder that I am not alone and that I will always have someone who cares about me no matter what. Finding dimes is so comforting to me now…and it is comforting to the girls as well. Even our biggest girl (and biggest Dime Skeptic!) has started to receive her fair share of dimes! Ol’ Whitter Lou has been shocked speechless (hilarious I know!) more than once when a dime suddenly appeared out of nowhere for her as well.

So, there ya go. That’s my dime story(s) and I’m sticking to it. I can’t speak for the rest of the world…but I can speak for me and I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt where my dimes come from. I count it all joy as I look for new ones everyday. I never know when one will appear…but they always show up at just the right moment!

Please tell me your dime stories (or other weird stories) that relate to this one! I look at it like this: God is a big guy. He created the Heavens and the Earth. He created everything in it, outside of it, and around it. He has done so much and is capable of so much…who am I to limit what He can (or cannot do)? I personally believe that He only gives us a tiny piece of the big picture. I can’t wait to get to Heaven and see Him face to face! I just believe deep inside my heart that He has so much more to show us and teach us…but we only get the small, limited view while here on earth. That’s why we have to be ready to meet Him one day. We never know when that day might be…are you ready? If not, let’s talk! Today could be your day!