Hello and welcome to week 4. I wanted to say thank you so much for your patience this week. The scheduled date for this to come out was over Christmas, so it's a bit late. One will come out today and one will come out on Sunday. I hope everyone had an absolutely wonderful week and holiday. Thank you for understanding and your continued support. Like last week, This week will have a couple of experiences. This one is also my own ghost story. As usual, please feel free to reach out and send me your own ghost story. While I do have many, I will eventually run out of my own. I'd love to get some of yours. Here we go...
Most of us have had loved ones who have passed. I believe most of us hope for a chance to say goodbye in one form or another. Ive been lucky enough to experience a couple of different final goodbyes. These are experiences that I feel very fortunate to have been a part of.
My maternal grandma Pat was a very beautiful woman with this long curly red hair. I honestly don't remember too much about her because she passed away when I was very young. She suffered from the disease Multiple Sclerosis. This is a disease where the muscles atrophy and there are complications throughout other body systems. When she passed away, she had lost a lot of weight and looked emaciated. After grandma had passed, I had seen her more than once. The first time I had seen her was late one night when I was up watching tv. I had seen something in the reflection of the fireplace next to the tv. I turned around to see who was walking behind me that late at night. Then I saw her. She was walking from one side of the room to the other. She was wearing a long white dress. I knew who she was immediately. I saw her long red curly hair. She had a slight glow to her. She looked like she was walking about 6 inches above the ground. She was looking straight ahead. I couldn't say anything. I couldn't even move. I just watched her slowly walk from one side of the room to the other. She looked really healthy. She was so beautiful. She didn't look at me or speak. She was gone as soon as she appeared. It was absolutely incredible.
I had another encounter with her as well. I was dreaming. I do believe that our loved ones can visit us in our sleep. In this dream, I was in the same pajamas that I fell asleep in. I got out of bed and looked into the mirror. It was my body and pajamas, but the face and hair were my grandmas. She looked so healthy and beautiful. She looked at me and gave me this really big, beautiful smile. It felt like it was her way of telling me she was ok. I believe she was telling me goodbye. It felt so real. I woke up feeling so great, and with a big smile on my face.
My paternal grandparents and I were so very close. We spent a lot of time together and were always in our own little world. In 2017, we lost my grandpa to heart failure. It was so devastating. That loss had a big impact. About a year or so later, I had this vivid dream with him. I was at a crowded house party. I started walking up this flight of stairs, walking through people, and spotted a familiar face at the very top. It was my grandpa. He was out of place in that crowd of people. He was the most clear while everyone else were just blurs. He gave me this big smile, and I gave him one right back. As I reached the top of the stairs, we extended our arms out to each other. I gave him this really big, tight hug. I could actually feel the mass of his body as we hugged. It was just like I used to hug him. I somehow knew that I couldn't talk to him. I just knew that this was our chance to say goodbye and get one last hug in. I reluctantly had to let go. We gave each other one last smile, and kept walking. I woke up knowing that I was visited by him. It was amazing.
My final story, is a goodbye visit from our dog. His name was Cash. We had fostered him originally, then adopted him. He was a 3 year old lab. Cash had epilepsy. He would have seizures even while being on medication. Cash and I had really bonded. Over a holiday weekend, he had fallen into what they call cluster seizures. He had one after another. We had brought him into the emergency vet, and we eventually had to make the terrible, heart wrenching decision that all pet parents dread, and we lost our boy. When we got home, my husband and I went into our bedroom and let ourselves take some time to grieve. We had our other lab in there with us. Her and Cash were very close buddies. While Don and I were on the bed talking about him, our lab, Grace, suddenly looked up startled. She locked her eyes on something or someone and followed them with her eyes. What she was watching was at her height. She even jumped out of bed, and followed it sniffing. Her tail even started wagging. She was excited to see this being. She was familiar with them. I knew it was him she was seeing, when she walked to the little nook in the corner that he always used to lay in. She walked up to it, excited, and looked down at someone we couldn't see. Her tail was still wagging and her eyes were locked on him. He was there for a moment, then he was gone, and she couldn't see him. It was incredible. We knew it was him saying he's ok. He was saying goodbye.
These experiences were so great. I still look back on them and smile. Ive been so lucky to have those experiences with my loved ones. Thank you so much for joining me again this week. I appreciate the patience of these postings being a little off with the holiday season. I hope to see you again next week. Please submit your own stories and Id love to write them for the blog. Have a wonderful holiday season. Ill see you back here on Sunday.