Spirits, Sightings & Signs from Beyond

Last week I posted on my FB status that I was looking for some blog inspiration. I asked for suggestions on topics to write about. As a result of this status update I got this Formspring anonymous question:

"Have you ever seen a ghost?"

I KNOW one of my close friends who knows me well must have asked this question, wanting me to share some of my experiences in this area. Be prepared! After reading this post you will either think that I had a very special experience, or you will think I'm a huge wacko...

The short answer to the question is "yes". The long answer is that I think that after someone has lost a loved one, they often experience signs, sightings or visions that are unexplained. These signs often provide a lot of comfort to the grieving person. I feel very privileged to share that I have experienced one such sighting, many years ago.

I was 14 years old, a new Freshman in High School, when my great-grandmother from Atlantic City, New Jersey was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She had no one to care for her, so she moved in with my mother, brother and I in Cleveland. We cared for her, along with a Hospice team. My great-grandmother was not a spiritual or religious person. I don't believe that she had any expectations about what the after-life was like...most likely she didn't believe in an after-life at all. Several special things happened during my great-grandmothers 6 months with us.

One day after school I went to ask my great-grandmother what she wanted to eat for dinner. As soon as I entered the doorway to her room, she asked me who the two little people were standing next to me. Without the slightest pause, I responded that they were my guardian angels. I have no idea where that response came from? I continued to get my great-grandmothers dinner order and went along on my merry way. Oh, how I wish this many years later that I could have that moment back. Who, after all, has someone get a glimpse of their guardian angels. THAT only happens in the movies, right? If I could go back I would ask more questions. What did they look like? Did they have anything to say? My great-grandmother also talked to her dead husband all of the time. He resided in her TV stand...really. She had long and very interesting conversations with him. After one of these conversations she had us write a date on a piece of paper. After her death we found the piece of paper in her room. The date she had us write down,months in advance, ended up being the date she died...

All of these things were experiences of a woman who was dealing with cancer that had moved to her brain. She was also heavily medicated. Therefore, all of these sightings and signs can be passed off as hallucinations or stress on her brain. Maybe there is a physiological explanation, similar to the medical explanation given when people have near-death experiences who see the "white light". I have heard scientists pass this off as a biological reaction to a lack of oxygen in the brain. So here's what I think. I think my great-grandmother was preparing for death. I like to think that she was given a little bit of access to whatever was on the other side. This explanation gives me comfort, so I'm going to go with it.

Several months after my great-grandmother died we had moved to a new house. I was having a very difficult time adjusting to high school, dealing with my great-grandmothers death and dealing with my own health issues. One night I was sleeping soundly. All of a sudden I started hearing whispers. I opened my eyes and looked over toward my vanity, where I heard the whispers coming from. Sitting on my vanity chair was a black "shadow figure". It was looking in the mirror. When I looked, it's head turned toward me. I still could see no face, nothing identifying. My heart was pounding. I tried to scream, but I was paralyzed. My voice would not work, I could not move. I was really scared and really struggling. The figure very slowly stood up and started walking in place. It then disappeared into the vanity mirror. Just like that, it was gone. I continued to struggle for a few more minutes, until I shot straight up and gasped for air. I felt awake the entire time. I had never experienced a "dream" quite like this... I knew this was my great-grandmother. Too scared to get out of bed, I instead prayed, probably for hours, until I fell back to sleep.


I got up for school the next day with a new little secret. I finally told my friend Lisa a few years later and I was actually surprised by her lack of judgement. In graduate school for Social Work I took a class called "Death & Dying" where I started to hear about these types of sightings and signs being well documented in literature. I read a book called "Final Gifts", written by two hospice nurses, that spoke of instance after instance of similar sightings/visions to my own. This started to normalize my personal experience. From time-to-time I would share of this experience when in private conversation with close friends. If only I had known that these things happen more than I would have ever imagined. Here are some examples that have been shared with me by those close to me...

• My mother got a prank phone call in the middle of the night one day. She answered, nobody was there, she looked at the clock, then she went back to sleep. When she woke up she was informed that her father had never woken up that morning...he had died of a massive heart attack during the night. It was very sudden and he died instantly. The autopsy showed that he died very near the time that she received the prank call. Maybe a coincidence? However, we like to interpret it as her father calling to bid farewell.
  
• My friend Josh's sister died when he was 16 years old. He shared with me that he had a very similar "dream/sighting" of his sister. To this day, Josh still feels Angie's presence very often!


• My friend Julie experienced the death of a close relative. Over drinks one night recently we began discussing the movie "Paranormal Activity". A little tipsy, I let down my guard and shared a little bit about my experience with the paranormal, only to have Julie say that she had the exact same type of vision! We compared details. It was amazing how similar our experiences were...from the paralyzed feeling to the inability to speak. It was fabulous to know that I was not alone, even within my circle of friends.
  
• I have a friend in my neighborhood who had a high school friend commit suicide, while they were still in high school. This friend was a jokester...always pulling pranks and being silly. Soon after his death she had a vision/sighting where she woke up from her sleep to see and feel him jumping on the end of her bed. Of course, being as silly as he was in life, it was no surprise that he found a humorous way to reconnect after death.
  
• Finally, little Conner Jones, age 7, died almost a month ago from CF. Read this beautiful blog post about the sign Sarah Jones received from little Conner last week: http://notsobrightandshiny.blogspot.com/2010/07/he-is-here.html
  

Are we all crazy? I don't think so. Were/are we all grieving? Absolutely. Could these experiences be our attempt to cope with the loss? Yes. Could grieving cause a biological change in our brains that made us "hallucinate"? Possibly. However, I tend to think that my sighting and signs, and those of my family and friends, were real. I think that we were connected to these souls in a way that allowed them to "communicate" with us even after death. If you've never had this type of experience, I'm sure you think I need some psychological help right about now. I completely understand! Yet, I feel blessed to have had this "sighting". For years I have prayed for my great-grandmother to come back for another very welcome visit. This time I wouldn't be frightened and I would collect myself enough to try to ask all of the important questions. Apparently, it doesn't work that way...