Signs I've Received From Deceased Loved Ones

As one who’s lived through the deaths of quite a few loved ones, I’m convinced by the following that we are not our bodies, we’re our spirits, and, in reality, we don’t die, we simply lay our bodies aside gently.

My Brother John

My brother, John, died at age fifty-seven in October of 2017 from pancreatic cancer. He was the ninth child in our family, and I the tenth. He was almost three years older, and, I adored him. In my view, John not only hung the moon, he’d created it, as well.

About two years prior to his death, he’d called to tell me that he had terminal cancer in his liver, but that the doctors had told him it was a very slow-growing cancer (he’d “won the lottery of cancer,” according to one of them), so he still had quite a bit of life left. He also specified that, although there were cancer cells found in his pancreas, it was not pancreatic cancer. They were a different type of cancer cell.

A year or so after that, he called again to tell me that he then did have pancreatic cancer, and he didn’t have long to live. It was the only time in our lives, certainly since he was a little kid, that I can remember hearing him cry. Fortunately, I got to visit with him the summer before he died, and it was a fulfilling visit, during which we laughed quite a bit. John was hilarious, and his wife (my sister-in-law) still is.

When we were kids, John had a toy Viking, which you can see by typing “toy Viking 1970” in your search bar. John had the one with the light green body covering. It was about a foot tall. Like a lot of toys at the time (the mid-to-late 1960s), it didn’t do anything, but he had a great imagination, and he enjoyed playing with it. What he didn’t enjoy was the way his little sister (yes, I was that little sister) would take the Viking when John wasn’t around, and use it to date her Barbie dolls. When he found out, he was furious.

“He dated your BARBIES?!” It was as though my Barbie dolls were drenched in contagion, I’d exposed the Viking to it, and nothing worse could’ve happened. We had many fights about it when we were kids, and, when we were adults, we reminisced and laughed about it. The Viking hadn’t been in my thoughts for decades at the time John died.

By then, I’d been living in California for almost three decades, and John lived in New Jersey with his family. To attend his service after he died, I traveled back east, then returned home the following Friday.

A week to the day after his death, I was hiking up a steeply-inclined boulevard. The area is frequented by other health-oriented people, couples, families, and groups riding bicycles, skating, jogging, hiking, walking dogs, and engaging in other athletic activities. As I climbed, I thought about John and the service I’d just attended, I looked down, and I saw a plastic tag on the street with the word Viking on it.

Initially, all I thought was that there must be some sporting-goods company with that name (because of how many athletic people frequented the area), and someone had lost a tag. Continuing my ascent, twenty or thirty minutes later, I saw something on the ground that resembled a Viking helmet.

It’s a twist-off cap for a sports drink, but at that moment it looked like a Viking helmet to me. As one who believes everything happens for a reason, when I saw the cap, I thought (and probably said aloud), “Why am I seeing two references to Vikings so close together?”

All-of-a-sudden, I felt John’s presence all around me. It was enveloping. It felt healed, so released, and ecstatic. There wasn’t an audio experience accompanying his presence, but the message he conveyed to me was that he had no idea anything could feel so wonderful, beautiful, and perfect, alluding to his current state of being.

Knowing that he was well, happy, and released from his physical, emotional, and mental pain meant everything to me. It brought me enormous peace and comfort, and I will always be grateful for and blessed by it.

John was and his wife still is a big animal lover and rescuer. A few years after John’s death, I was pet-sitting for my animal-loving and rescuing friends, Lisa and Jack. I’d just finished watching an episode of Surviving Death on Netflix from which I’d learned that finding coins in unusual places is one way our deceased loved ones communicate with us.

Lisa and Jack had eight indoor cats, many of whom don’t get along, and who, it seems, believe they’d be much happier as outdoor cats. If you open any door in that household, you must close it behind you immediately to prevent cats escaping or, sometimes, even, intermingling.

Having stepped out of their office where I’d watched the episode, and into their kitchen, I noticed some leaves on their kitchen mat, near their side door which leads outdoors. Not realizing I hadn’t closed their office door behind me, I thought I was alone in their kitchen. I picked up the mat and stepped out their side door to shake off the leaves outside, not thinking I had to close the door, because the kitchen was enclosed by the door to the office and a front door.

Suddenly, one of their indoor cats darted out of the house. I called her, and went toward her, but she easily eluded me and jumped over a south-facing wall that was too tall for me to climb. Immediately feeling like an abject failure, I walked up and down their block for some time with their plastic container of cat treats, shaking it, hoping to get the cat’s attention but to no avail.

Unsuccessful, and bereft of sightings, I went back into their house. Probably an hour passed. I fretted the entire time, wondering if I should ruin Lisa and Jack’s vacation by texting them the news.

Then, through their office window, I saw that cat in their backyard. Once again, I tried to lure her back in with the treats, but she entered into a tiny crawl space under their house next to the side door through which she’d escaped.

There were leaves, wires, and dirt in the well to the crawl space. I’m not a huge person, but I may be a tad claustrophobic, and I didn’t feel I could fit into the crawl space.

Removing the top from the cat treats container and placing it at the mouth of the crawl space, so the aroma of the treats would attract the cat, I stepped back and began pacing. Just then, I noticed a dime among the leaves in the well leading to the crawlspace. The memory of coins being signs from deceased loved ones came to mind, and I knew it was John telling me not to worry, because I’d get the cat back inside the house.

He was absolutely right, of course. Within half an hour or so, the cat got closer to the treat container, and I was able to grab her by her scruff and bring her inside the house. Phew! Thanks, John!

My Mom

My mother was a very gentle, stoic, loving, and beloved woman who lived to be ninety-four years of age. She passed away in New Jersey in 2012, just days after superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast. We’d all known from things she’d said for several years that she was ready to move on to her next experience. My sister, Rosemarie, was unhappy that our mom took advantage of that opportunity to leave while Ro was asleep, but Ro was also way too reliant on our mom, and I believe that’s why our mom left when she did.

My mom’s name was Frances Rose, and she’d told me when I was a kid that her favorite flower was the white rose. In the house where I’ve been living in southern California since 2008, there are wooden, double front doors. At the top of each door are four triangular, frosted windowpanes in a semi-circle, like four pieces of pie, etched out of which, in clear glass, are rosebuds on stems with leaves.

In front of the doors is a brick alcove that’s probably six or eight feet deep, and, perhaps, ten or twelve feet high. Because of the alcove and the fact that our house faces south, the sun doesn’t shine into the alcove or through the front doors. Yet, one day not long after my mother’s death, I descended our steps from the second story of the house to find roses of light on our wall opposite the doors:

Should you choose to recognize these occurrences as signs from deceased loved ones, you also open yourself to receive their presence, however fleeting it may be. It provides a grieving person with much-needed comfort.

For Christmas of 1965, the first one after our dad passed away, my eldest brother and his wife gave my mom what seemed to become her favorite necklace, based on how often she wore it. It has a gold, heart-shaped locket with the date it was given her inscribed on the back. Around the locket is a lace-like gold design, also heart shaped. There’s a picture of my dad inside the locket, and I’m not certain if she put it in the locket or my brother or his wife did.

Another way that my mom shares her presence with me is to place heart shapes in odd places. It’s never an ordinary occurrence, like seeing someone wearing a heart-shaped pendant or receiving a Valentine’s Day candy box. She seems to choose odd ways to demonstrate her presence.

Once, on the first dry day after it had been raining heavily for several consecutive days, I walked through our backyard and absent-mindedly glanced down. There was a large, lacy heart-shaped image on the concrete.

Although there is a tree with distinctly heart-shaped leaves on our property, the heart on the concrete was not directly below it. Certainly, it’s possible that a leaf happened to blow off of that tree, get carried to where the image was, land on some dust or dirt, dry after the rain ceased falling, blow away, and leave the heart-shaped image. You can probably guess how I choose to believe this image appeared there.

Also, on what would’ve been my mom’s 102nd birthday, I saw heart-shaped leaf while I was hiking. When she makes her presence known to me, it always feels like she’s hugging me.