ESQUIMALT, B.C. — While countless happy memories fill Roberta Flora’s home, her husband Gianni’s chair is empty.
“I was with my husband until his last breath,” Roberta says. “And the doctor said, ‘You did it right, until death do us part.’”
Yet, leaving the hospital without her Gianni — after 33 years of marriage — felt wrong. Roberta was engulfed by grief. Until that night, she felt an unexpected and comforting presence.
“And he said, ‘It’s me.’ And I go, ‘Gianni?’” Roberta recalls. “(He said), ‘You were so sad they let me back for a while.’”
When she woke-up, her Gianni wasn’t there. But Roberta then heard that something was.
“And then I go to the window,” she says, recalling looking outside on the roof of the shed in her front yard.
“And they’re (saying), ‘Caw-caw-caw.’”
It was a couple of seagulls, which Roberta says she’d never seen before, let alone landing so close to her home.
“I think my husband sent them,” Roberta says. “Because he loved me and showed me every day.”
And she believes Gianni is still showing it every day. Because every day since the day after her he died, Roberta says, the seagulls have stopped by for a visit.
“I go, ‘Hi guys! I’m coming out!’” Roberta smiles. ‘I love it. They’re my friends.”
While sometimes she feeds them, every time they have a conversation. She talks and they squawk back.
“I tell them how cute they are and that I love them,” Roberta smiles. “(I tell them) I’m glad they come and visit me.”
And rather than get stuck grieving, the seagulls remind her that Gianni would want her to keep living.
“It’s just wonderful,” Roberta says. “You forget all the bad stuff.”
And you remember all the good stuff you can still find, when you start looking for life after loss.
