There have been a lot of deaths in my circle of friends over the last couple of years. It is not to do with growing old either, as almost all of them have been people much younger than me.
Every few years I go through my phone numbers and delete the ones ascribed to people now dead. I usually haven't the heart to do it for a few years so there are still a few on my phone which will not be answered ever again. Sometimes I have called them and found that the numbers are never given to anyone else to use - at least not in the same arrangements. There must be an almost infinite number of combinations on six figures. There is scope for a good ghost story there.
My brother died about ten years ago but I did not have to delete his number because we had lost contact with each other. That was my decision. When he was alive and still out of contact, I was working in Buckingham on the old Chantry. One evening I tried to call up a friend in a town about 100 miles away.
I dialled the wrong number - just one digit different to the right one - and someone answered. The voice was familiar and the man sounded surprised at being called at all. It was my brother.
He had just moved to the area, his phone had just been installed that very day and he had not given the number to anyone. Nobody believes me when I tell them this story and I understand why they don't, but things like this confirm all sorts of irrational beliefs which I have held since childhood, when nobody believed me anyway.
Shortly after both my parents died - they died one year apart - I was at my workshop using a noisy air-hammer, when I became aware of a couple of people at the open doorway. I looked up to see my parents standing there, just smiling benignly at me.
I turned the hammer off and removed my mask and ear-defenders. We did not say anything and I don't remember smiling back at them. I just looked at them in silence until they gave a little wave and walked away. I knew there was no point in going after them, so I sat and thought for a while then got on with my work.
That night I called their number which was still on my phone, but an out of service tone was all I heard.
Yes, those things happen..Cosmic Chuckles come in all varieties.
ReplyDeleteMy Mountain Man came to tell me to get on with life and not give up just as I got together with Pirate. It was a hard time and that push was needed
That was good advice. A spirit once told me to stop messing around and get on with my life - via a ouija board...
DeleteIncredible to pick up the phone and dial your brothers number Tom. I have seen ghosts and had other paranormal experiences. I think it's only people who have seen and heard these happenings that believe. There is definitely a spirit world. Great post.
ReplyDeleteThe 'I know what I saw' response is always rejected by everyone with a closed mind. I believe in anything. It makes life more exciting.
DeleteSo interesting Tom. My father saw my mother months after she had died - she looked at him and waved a hand. That's all, Such things are I suppose tricks of our minds but memorable and also food for thought.
ReplyDeleteI cannot think of any other way the dead can appear other than by tricking our minds. Whatever works?
DeleteI am open to anything like that but nothing has happened to me. I have never ' seen ' anyone who is now no more but I would like to ! I do remember just after my Dad died, we went on holiday to Amalfi. I was sitting for an hour or so, looking out to sea, thinking of my Dad. We then went into the town for dinner and there was a street musician playing a saxophone .... my Dad played saxophone and I felt it was a little ' hello ' from him. He always said he would come back if he could !!! XXXX
ReplyDeleteYes, those little messages happen a lot I think.
DeleteI had heard the phone call to your brother before and was just as astonished at it this time around as I was then. I've always wondered though...did you and your brother talk? Have a bit of a visit?
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I remember about my mom's death is that it was awful. She had always been one to pit one of her kids against another, and sitting back to enjoy the show. Her death was more of the same. My sister, for whatever reason, had decided that she wanted to be the only one with my mother as she passed. My other sister and I were both going to schools (late bloomers, we were, both in our 50s). I went there after class one day, and before I even got in the house, I could hear the death rattle. I walked in the door and my sister tried to keep me out. I pushed back and went down the hall to my mother. My sister was calling my brother and bawling because I was with mom. It was so crazy.
I sat with my mom and listened to all the hubbub and then I just told her in a quiet voice that I would not be seeing her again, and that I was sorry that she and I spent so much time not getting along. I wished her godspeed and stood to walk out.
A little music box across the room whirred and played six notes very slowly 'Let...me...call...you...sweet...heart...' and clicked once again. I felt as if she had, at the last, said the words she could not say to me during her life. I have that music box now. Sometimes, I stare at it in its glass fronted case, willing it to speak on more time. It never has.
I know I have written about both these things before, Debby. I don't care though. A parent's death is always awful, no matter how old they are. Yours sounded more dramatic than most! I loved the music box playing. Last minute reconciliation - the very last minute!
DeleteI hope that you did not take that as criticism. The story is no less amazing for the retelling.
DeleteOccasionally I have dreams of something about to happen. But the first time, someone came back from the dead in my dreams was my first husband to tell me not to worry. The dream was centred in that large old graveyard somewhere in Surrey by Camberley where we lived.
ReplyDeleteBrookwood Cemetery? A short cycle ride from where I was brought up. As a child I got lost in there at nightfall when the gates were about to be closed, and I have never forgotten it.
DeleteIt was - and maybe still - the largest cemetery in Europe. Woking was built to service London by train - the 'ghost train'.
DeleteIt always surprises me when things like this happen and they do happen to all of us. A relative of mine died at his home as he wished. We were always close and very much in contact through the years. A few weeks passed and I was alone at my house and I felt his presence it was almost like he was checking up on me to see how I was doing. It never happened again. One last contact?
ReplyDeleteThey find a way.
DeleteI have heard similar stories several times over the years, from patient relatives after a death. Indeed it happened to my great grandmother who was injuried in the may blitz in Liverpool. My great grandfather who had been killed instantly when the family air raid shelter was bombed, turned up at her bedside before walking quietly away,
ReplyDeleteI reserve judgement at why it occurs
Probably better to reserve judgement about how.
DeleteAbout 6/7 years ago I was sitting here at the computer when I heard a bump from the sitting room behind me.......I went in through the closed door to find 2 family photos had fallen off the sideboard. One to the side and one in front. No cats or draughts/winds could have moved them. An empty, closed room.!! When I thought about it some time later, I realised that it must have been sometime before my son's wife left him.
ReplyDeleteThese things seem to happen a lot within families. One of my sisters had things happen which you would not believe.
DeleteMy best friend Anne died last year, and I miss her so much. Sometimes when I am looking for an answer for something (we were very close and knew each other from the beginning of our studies) it happens that I open a book - and a postcard that she had written and which I used as a bookmark falls out. Not often, but always with an encoded advice. That's as near as I ever came to encounter with dead ones - except that my dear late father still, 14 years after his death, talks to me (in my head, no appearance), gives his advice - and his loving chuckle, when I take myself too serious.
ReplyDeleteThe postcards from your friend sound a little like the I Ching.
DeleteWhat a gift you saw them. I believe you.
ReplyDelete"...things like this confirm all sorts of irrational beliefs which I have held since childhood, when nobody believed me anyway."
Tell us here.