I have touched on a spooky thing already that happened just before dad died and i thought for my own interest and maybe that of others i would talk about the experiences i have had since mum and dad died.
To start i am pretty much an atheist in respect of the belief in a God and if that upsets people i apologise but i think God is something humans put in place to explain why they are here. However i lean towards the feeling that this isn't it because of experiences i have had and i guess because i am open to the suggestion that energy doesn't disappear it just transforms......and ultimately it is very likely that the idea of not seeing my parents and aunts and uncles again and then the boys is too difficult to accept.
Well it started in 83 i guess i went to Plymouth on the spur of the moment and stayed with a friend. Her mother is a medium and invited me that evening to her church, i went along just out of interest and at the end of the meeting had a message. Talking to dad afterwards the description was of his dad, there were things said that mace me wonder and i duly forgot about it.
Dad was diagnosed in October 95 with cancer, for the next few months he deteriorated and i started to think i should write to him. I had Adam in April 96 and after that on occasion i would think about that letter but something else would always come up. Then Dad went into the local hospital for a bit of respite care and i thought well i could write to him now directly just me and him so one Sunday i sat at the keyboard and wrote a letter just telling him that he was a great dad and how i would miss him and my plans for the future etc. I phoned the next morning before collecting my aunt and uncle....another long story who were going up to visit him that day, they were over from Australia.
When the receptionist answered she asked if i had spoken to my mum... no i hadn't....she would just go and get the sister......sister asked has mum been in touch?.....no i just wrote Dad a letter and wanted your address.....i am sorry i really feel i need to tell you that your Dad is very poorly and we don't think that he will last the day. Such! a shock and suddenly it was imperative i get the letter to him, my lovely neighbour faxed it for me and the sister read It to him. They say hearing is the last thing to go, and in the end it was a goodbye letter telling him in one bit that i understood it was time for him to go however much i wanted him to stay. The letter was read to him in the afternoon and he died the following morning at 2am. My aunt and uncle knew that he was ill when i got to them, mum had told them......the first she spoke to me was to tell me he had passed the following morning, i never got to the bottom of why i think it was because she didn't want me to drive up there, but i would never have done that. I asked my dad once if he saw his mother after she died, he said no the last time i saw her she was sitting up in bed laughing and joking and that's how i remember her. The last time i saw dad was when we sorted out his garden...i didn't see him after he died.
So! then not too long after dad died i ended up on the phone with mum having an argument and the phone was put down and picked up a couple of times and then i wouldn't answer again. In the middle of that a message was taken on the answerphone, when i played it back it was a man's voice in amongst the white noise saying just Hazel very tersely! my hub heard it too and there was no one it could be, it was as if Dad was frustrated with us and butting in....who knows?
Then what? oh the car Dad gave me on easy payments broke down the day i dropped my aunt and uncle off never did it before or since.On my first birthday after he died i went to go out to the circus with the boys and found it had a puncture......we had the new car i inherited by then so used that.
The car i inherited engine died and i debated about it but ended up getting a new one, the day i picked it up and drove it home as i neared home i saw a car in front with my initials in the number plate, then suddenly at the same time a car in the opposite direction appeared with my dad's initials and i had them briefly in sight at the same time......was that a sign that i made the right decision?
I was out for a meal with a friend who wanted to go and see the fortune teller sitting in one of the booths, she came back saying that it wasn't so good but i thought i would try. She held my jewelry and talked of chickens, which i had for a short while a year before, she asked about someone passed and said he was ruffling my hair, something he did but i had forgotten about. She also mentioned an iceberg Rose, when i spoke to mum she said that they had one in the garden.....was he around?
Then mum died, just minutes after she passed on the stereo that i had playing Shostakovitch piano concerto came on which always reminds me of her....come to that later. In the week before she died we chatted about the service and she couldn't think of anything, I bought in her mothers bible and opened the page which was John 14 we lived at no 14 and i do now so i read it and it made sense about Jesus preparing a place etc....when i spoke to my neighbour the local vicar she said it was often used at funerals.
Later when she wasn't so easy to understand she said that she wanted a hymn lord 40 years. I couldn't understand more..... the day after she died i was in her box room at home just looking though things, on top of a book case i found two pieces of paper folded together one was a poem Letter from Heaven which made me sob and the words of a hymn lord for the years which we played. Later on my first day back at work in the home we were watching tv and the staff member with me asked if Vicar of Dibley was on, i said have a look and she flipped to BBC 1 and at the bottom of the screen it said lord for the years and the songs of praise audience started singing it. I was speechless!..here is the poem i found, mum wasn't demonstrative but i knew she loved me......this sealed it
Letter from
Heaven
To my dearest family some
things I'd like to say
But first of all to let you know that I arrived
today,
I'm writing this from Heaven. Here I shall dwell with God
above
Here, there's no more tears of sadness. Here is just eternal
love.
Please do not be unhappy just because I'm out of sight
Remember that
I am with you every morning, noon and night.
That day I had to leave you when
my life on earth was through
God picked me up and hugged me and He said "I
welcome you,
It's good to have you back again,
you were missed while you
were gone,
As for your dearest family, they'll be here later on.
I need
you here badly, you are part of my plan
There's so much that we have to do to
help our mortal man."
God gave me a fist of things that he wished for me to
do
And foremost on the list was to watch and care for you
And when you lie
in bed at night, the days chores put to flight
God and I are closest to you .
. in the middle of the night.
When you think of my life on earth and all
those loving years
Because you are only human, they are bound to bring you
tears
But do not be afraid to cry, it does relieve the pain
Remember there
would be no flowers, unless there was some rain.
1 wish that I could tell you
all that God has planned
If I were to tell you, you wouldn't
understand
But one thing is for certain though my life on earth is
o'er
I'm closer to you now than I ever was before.
There are many rocky
roads ahead of you and many hills to climb
But together we can do it by
taking one day at a time.
When you're walking down the street and you've got
me on your mind
I'm walking in your footsteps, only half a step behind
And
when it's time for you to go . . from that body to be free
Remember you're
not going . . you're just coming here to me.
Copyright - Ruth Ann Mahaffey
The last two lines were what hit me and i guess they fit in well with the theme of this post. I am sure that they were left for me as the last time i spoke to mum before i had to return back to London and a few days before i returned to find she had deteriorated further, when i said goodbye she said oh don't say goodbye it is so final just say aurevoir!
But it continued a friend was travelling to work with me and i was talking about mum and she said oh i don't know what you feel about this but sometimes i hear people talk to me, a well spoken women said to me a week or so ago tell them I'm fine, just matter of fact and now i realise it was for you..........
There have been so many 'co incidences' that i find it difficult to remember them all but the most memorable one was 4 months after mum died, before she died Adam and i had to decide which school he wanted to go to, he chose a very over subscribed school which is a distance from home so i was prepared to only get second or third choice. Mum and Dad valued education and whatever school the boys got would be a big deal. I was able to go on line in the morning before Adam went to school in March to check the results and just before he left up popped the school .....the one we wanted!!!!!
I happened to be off work that day and i was listening to classic fm on the radio, they do a most wanted top ten where listeners vote from a selection on line. Anyway at number three they played a piece that reminds me of my dad the theme from Schindler's list, a film he watched on Video when visiting once and i have associated it with him ever since. I had been thinking what a shame it was that mum and dad weren't here to celebrate with us and i said to myself when i heard the music if the one that reminds me of mum comes on next then they know...........it wouldn't be worth telling if the next song wasn't Shostakovitch which played just after she died....of course it was!
Since then i went to see the medium at Hastings with my cousin can't remember her name a bit loud for my liking and is on Sky. Happily sat watching the rest and at the end she said i have a policeman and and Singapore, she kept repeating it and no one was answering, Singapore resonated with me as i lived there for a year, the policeman didn't mean anything and i was a bit ahead of things and wasn't listening to Suzanne my cousin i ended up standing up and she said some stuff that made some kind of sense,Suzanne thought it was to do with cancer, this was Oct 2010 on 29th Nov,.....ironically the anniversary of mum's death i would be told that the cancer had spread....you know what i don't remember it much i will have to talk to Suzanne, but what i did remember was as i sat down she said i have Joan here, i still had the mike, my aunt Joan who died the previous Oct i was close to married to mum's brother and they both died in the same year so from 2006 to her death in 2009 i would visit and we would go out for meals etc we were close and she and uncle Joe were more like grandparents to the boys....... someone else in the audience tried to claim her but the medium said no it's for you it's Joan she is here.....that was her last bit of the night.....will have to talk to Suz about what was said again.....oh and the policeman once i listened to Suz she reminded me that her Grandad was Policeman!
Anyway make of this what you will, the co incidences have meant a lot to me and they have startled me each time, maybe we look for evidence of people being around, i haven't particularly and maybe you could say i am making more of something that isn't there, but it doesn't feel like it.....wouldn't it be great to know that you will see loved ones again whether they go before or come after......i would like to think i will, how lovely to have mum dad and my aunts and ! uncles waiting for me......and my boys coming here to me!
