When Kody and I were living together, he would often call from across the house to me, “It’s 11:11, make a wish!” Throughout our entire friendship and even after the divorce, he would always point out the time to me. I don’t know if this is some weird millennial thing or something my friends and I picked up in high school and just never stopped talking about, but whenever you caught the time 11:11 you got to make a wish. It was so funny, because even when we were living with depression, Kody would point out the time and we would make wishes.
I’m not sure how many of those times Kody would actually make a wish or whether it just became something that would bring momentary joy to him even in absolute darkness. In general, I’ve never been a person who has been good at wishes. Birthday cake wishes and wishes on stars, generally leave me wondering what I really ought to be wishing for. So when Kody would yell across the house for me to make a wish, I originally wouldn’t really come up with anything.
As we got deeper into the struggles of living with depression, there was only one wish that I would ever make. I wished the depression would go away. I wished that it would leave Kody alone so that I could see him happy and smiling the way that things used to be. Unfortunately, you can’t just wish depression away, no matter how hard you try. None of my wishes ever came true for longer than fleeting moments or hours.
Seeing repetitive numbers, sometimes known as Angel numbers, isn’t so much about wishing anyhow. There’s a lot more spiritual meaning to the numbers themselves and the repetition of seeing the same ones. Somehow this has been twisted into the idea that we should make a wish when seeing them show up for us. Still whenever I catch the clock at 11:11, I close my eyes and I wish. I wish that wherever Kody is now, he’s at peace with his world. I wish for him all the happiness he didn’t get a chance at in life.
Most of the time, I see the numbers 11:11 as Kody popping in to remind me that I can keep on wishing, keep on hoping, keep on dreaming in my life. I run into the number regularly enough that it doesn’t feel like a random chance. These special numbers were a moment of light in Kody’s struggles when living with depression. They remain moments of light for me to this day.