
I was chatting with my cousins one morning about signs we receive when those we love in spirit visit. Poppa had died over 50 years ago, so we were trying to work out how we’d know if he was in the room. Later that night while I was in Grandma’s room and I heard something I hadn’t heard in a while.
I ran out to the kitchen with a huge grin on my face. ‘Whistling! Poppa used to whistle!’
‘What made you think of that after all these hours?’
I just smiled, knowing that I’d been given an awesome hint.
Grandma’s radio had always been temperamental (with a little help, I’m sure) and when I’d visited her last time, it had driven me crazy as it flicked on and off, the volume went up and down, or it just flat out refused to play some of my favourite CDs. Of course the gospel ones seemed to work no problem…
Most of the time we didn’t bother with it, there were plenty enough of us around the house, we didn’t need background music, until the music angels arrived, anyway. One day the radio started, then stopped. A couple of people tried to get it to work, and I laughingly said maybe it needed me to come over and give it a ‘rev up’.
I had almost reached it when it flicked itself on again. Hmmm...
As I mentioned earlier, my Grandma was deaf and had no hearing aids. I am a light speaker, even when I yell, so I didn’t bother trying to make myself heard. Instead I began talking to Grandma telepathically. At first I wasn’t even aware I was doing it, it just felt normal. It wasn’t until I was telling her something that she clearly disagreed with, and she was shaking her head at me, that I knew she could hear me.
Gradually people had to go back to their homes and our numbers thinned. It was sad to see everyone go, and sad for them to know they were leaving Grandma too.
The music still played every night and those wonderful food angels kept us well fed.
One day, there were just two of us there with Grandma, my cousin Gae and I. Gae told me a wonderful story about how everyone in their family had the opportunity to say goodbye to her Mum by telephone, even though they couldn’t be there personally.
I loved the idea and, as we were there alone, the timing was perfect. I sent texts to my Mum, and children, asking them if they wanted to ring and say goodbye to Grandma. I cannot explain the emotion of that time, as they each rang and said their final farewell. Gae and I sobbing as Grandma acknowledged them by making a noise or flickering her eyelids. It was beautiful and heartwarming to know that although they were so far away, they had had the opportunity to do so. There are times when technology is our best friend.
It felt as if something or someone was preventing Grandma from leaving us behind. I have to admit there was a lot of healing taking place, old rifts were patched up, disagreements forgotten and all of us remembering to be grateful for the love Grandma had instilled in us. Still, it felt as if something wasn’t quite ‘finished’ yet.
We began talking to our respective fathers, making sure they had told their Mum that it was okay for her to leave. Some found it harder than others, but they all did it.
As her health deteriorated, there were some who couldn’t bear to see her and we made sure to let them know that they didn’t need to, that she knew they loved her and that was all that mattered. There is no right or wrong when it comes to someone you love passing. It’s about being true to you and not forcing yourself to do something you aren’t comfortable with. All too often people do whats expected and regret that they didn’t just follow their own wants or needs.
Three days before Grandma’s passing, I had a nudge, an urge to take her flying. I’d never done it before, I didn’t even know if I could, but I felt I really needed to try…and it needed to be today. I explained to the other ‘day angels’ what I wanted to do and we pushed a bed up against hers. I lay the opposite way, holding her hand in mine.
Almost before I had a chance to close my eyes, we were off flying. Grandma wasn’t so sure it was a good idea, and let out a groan as we went up. I kept saying ‘It’s okay Grandma, I’m just showing you around. We can go back anytime you like. I just want you to see what’s waiting for you.’
She was okay for a while, and then she pulled my arm, saying ‘Kar go!’ (Norfolk for ‘Can’t go!’)
I told her it was fine, there was nothing to be scared of, she didn’t have to go if she didn’t want to and she could come back anytime she liked. She grabbed my hand and pulled me back down on the bed. We tried again, with the same result. As keen as she was to explore, I knew there was something holding her back and there was no point in pushing her.
Later that night, I was chatting with someone, with the same religious beliefs as Grandma, on the other side of the bed. Now usually I avoid any kind of religious discussion. I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion and beliefs, I don’t want to convince them otherwise and I certainly don’t want them to try to tell me what’s what either!
Needless to say, I was shocked when the words came out of my mouth: ‘Do you believe in the afterlife?’
‘No, there's nothing!’
‘So you don’t believe that our spirit family come back to take us home?’
‘No, there is nothing. We are buried and after a thousand years, God calls us from our graves to take us home. What do you believe?’
‘I believe that our spirit family returns to take us back to Source/God’
‘Ah, so you are a Creationist? We are not of God, we are created from the breath of God’
‘Really? I think if you read your bible, you will see that we are made of God and in his own image.’
‘I believe that none shall pass into heaven, unless they accept God.’
‘Ahh, so that means you can be a paedophile, a murderer or such like and as long as you repent before you die, you can still go to heaven?’
‘Well, yes, as long as you have accepted there is only one God. Do you believe in hell?’
‘I don’t believe you have to be a church goer to be a good person. I also believe that hell is what you make it. It can be here on earth if that is what you believe.’
‘So how do you feel about evil?’
‘I believe there is balance in all things. There is no good without bad, no positive without a negative.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘There has to be good and bad, to create balance. We try so hard to hide our shadow side, but it is in accepting all of ourself, we are able to achieve balance. You can call me a bitch, as if that’s a bad thing, but when I need to stick up for myself, it is important that I tap into my ‘inner bitch’ that rests in my shadow side.’
‘Well what do you think happens when you die?’
‘I believe that dying it is like taking off a suit. Our spirit returns to Source/God and the physical body or suit is discarded.’
‘So why do you think we are here?’
‘We choose various life lessons to learn on this earthly plane. For example, supposing we choose to be born into a life with no money, become rich and then lose it all, but reconcile to the fact that money wasn’t what made us happy in the first place. We go back to God and he says ‘Well done! You did a great job!’’
‘And what if we didn’t achieve all that?’
‘Then he still says ‘Well done! You did a great job!’’
‘So, what is your take on the Godhead?’
About now, I’m thinking I have bitten off more than I can chew, but I can see Grandma is listening intently to everything that is being said.
‘Hmm, you better explain what that is and I will give you my opinion, if I can.’
‘Well, there’s God, the father, Jesus, who came down here to show us the error of our ways and then there’s the Holy Spirit.’
‘Ahh! So what you’re saying is that there is God, the Creator, the Source. Then there’s Jesus, who lived a physical life here on earth and then there’s the Holy Spirit, which is our soul or life force that goes back to God, the Creator.’
There was silence for a moment, as he thought about what I had said. I changed the subject and left the room a little while later. Not one person had wandered into the room during our half hour discussion, so I knew there was a reason it had happened.
Later, I overheard him talking to one of my cousins, saying ‘It’s amazing what you learn that’s not in the manual.’
Dare I mention I was doing a victory dance in the hallway about then? I now knew why Grandma felt it hard to believe there were spirit family in the room or that we could fly. Within her belief system, she probably thought she was hallucinating.
I couldn’t have had a conversation like that in my younger days. It is only now I realise how important it is to respect others beliefs and not try to sway them, but perhaps to ‘create a question’, so they can look at things from a different perspective.
Okay, that’s enough for now for part 2. I’ll finish Grandma’s journey in the next part.
With love, respect and integrity
Love Cherie xx