How a turtle was sent to give me meaning and reassurance from the spiritual realm
Bags in hand, my young daughter and I arrived at my childhood home in the suburbs. We rode the subway even in a pandemic since we didn’t have a car, and we walked the half-mile from the station. We didn’t know my husband was gone from our lives for good yet, but we had come to escape him for a while. Even though he was still in the city, we would never lay eyes on him again.
It had been a bumpy ride, but it was over. He had become more docile in the previous year, giving me hope that he could be easier to live with and become a happier person overall. Definite signs of being an improved human being had shown through like a sliver of sunshine in the darkness. But when the pandemic rolled in like a heavy storm, our problems seemed to amplify.
It wasn’t that there were more fights. On the contrary. The issue was that when there was a problem, we were trapped inside a tiny one-room apartment in a city where we were shamed for just going out for a breath of fresh air. Strangers seemed to wait on the streets for us to emerge so they could verbally humiliate us or stare us down for either wearing or not wearing a mask. I didn’t like going out anymore, and there was nowhere to go. So we had to confront our obstacles head-on.
Before the pandemic, my daughter and I could go out for the day and get away from his cruelty until it subsided. We could assure ourselves that our lives were as normal as anyone else’s. But now we had nowhere to hide — and it was painfully obvious that he was not willing to get better. So, there were only two fights in the span of five months, but one led to the other, and by the second one, his promises were clearly made to be broken.
It dawned on me finally when I saw his smile.
Yes, he smiled when he was being cruel. I had tears pouring out of my very being. I was trembling in the bed, sobbing and expressing thoughts of suicide. That’s when I caught a glimpse of his happy face. I’d seen it for years but turned a blind eye because it made no sense. He loved me, right? I mean, he chose to be with me. Why would someone take pleasure in someone else’s pain, basically hate them, but still keep living with them? Why marry someone just to torture them? It made no sense. But there it was.
My pain gave him relief and happiness. He smirked and did a little dance if I was sad. He always had.
That was it for me. I told him we were leaving and I wanted him out of the apartment that I paid for, I didn’t care where he went but I was over it.
In my parents’ home, we were alone and in peace. My mom and dad were on vacation. We had the place to ourselves. It was a beautiful week in July, and the flowers were in full bloom. The birds and insects were teeming with life in the trees. I felt like I’d been knocked off a horse in the middle of a ride, or hit by a garbage truck. My whole life as I knew it seemed to be ending to make room for a new life.
I attempted to continue working full-time while processing my sudden loss inside the empty house with my daughter. I didn’t know how long we would be staying there or how things would truly end. I just knew that I couldn’t take the assault on my soul any longer, and we were safe there. We were given the space to heal there.
I would sit at the computer trying to do some work and just burst into tears out of nowhere. I attended meetings feeling dead inside. I found it hard to just move through the motions of the day, making meals and looking for meaning. So many emotions bubbled up haphazardly.
After we’d been there about twenty-four hours, I was dragging the hose around the backyard, making sure to quench the thirst of all parts of the gardens that lined the perimeter. My daughter was frolicking in the sprinkler in her bathing suit. I hadn’t been watering the plants for very long before I came to an open space in one of the gardens, and between the azaleas looking right at me, there was a turtle.
Now, let me clarify something. This was the home where I grew up, in a Maryland suburb of D.C. inside the beltway, and never in forty years had we seen a wild turtle in the neighborhood. It was unheard of. It was a beautiful Eastern box turtle, apparently enjoying the shade and nourishment of my mother’s garden, and it was a miracle. I picked it up and we talked to it for a while. My daughter and I cherished its existence for several minutes before we let it crawl away and disappear again below the hydrangeas.
Those few days at my parents’ home were transformational. It was the beginning of my new life. I suddenly woke up — not just about my marriage and my self-esteem, but about existence and the universe. I saw myself in harmony with the greater cosmic consciousness. I reawakened feelings of spiritual oneness that I’d had before I got married. I had never believed in guardian angels before, but I was starting to think that the stories were real and true.
Suddenly, I understood that everything in the world was imbued with a spirit, and it was all the same spirit. At one point, I took a walk and felt that the trees were speaking to me loud and clear. I listened to them and touched their bark with my hands, exchanging precious energy.
After months of witnessing synchronicities in nature as well as seeing repeated numbers, I have realized that the turtle was a message sent from my guardian angels. It is undeniable to me, knowing what I know now. Energy manifests and attracts, and the turtle was a gift to show me that I am being assisted.
Turtles in spirituality signify safety and protection, as their hard shells keep their assailants at bay. My daughter and I needed a hard shell at that time, and we found it in this house where nothing could harm us. It was a peaceful time there, inside our shell. It provided a refuge to heal and face our trauma.
Your guardian angels are helping you at all times, and they are sending you messages if you just tune in to the world around you. These guardian angel stories are real. Observing miracles disguised as natural occurrences, we can receive these messages that are so personally meaningful, even while others would dismiss them as coincidences. But you know better than to believe that! There are no accidents in this life.
Look for your messages. Your guardian angels are sending them all the time.
