Ah, a topic near and dear to my heart!!

When I was a small child, my room was at the top of the stairs and it was small, too. My parents were across the hall and my grandparents were next to me, but I would have had to get up and go to them if anything were to bother me. I used to hear a very deep male voice calling my name, and it never used Micki, always Michele. I would do the old blanket dive and put my fingers in my ears. After a while it stopped talking to me. Eventually I shyly told my grandfather about it and he asked me if I had ever answered it. I said no and he told me that it had stopped calling me because I had ignored it. I told him I was afraid and he said that nothing in that realm was ever going to hurt me--it was the beings in THIS world that I needed to watch out for. He also told me that when he passed away, if there were a way to let us kmow that he was OK, he would do it. I waited for that and, lo and behold, it happened. I went to a new job, where NOBODY knew me at all. It was my very first day on the job and I didnlt know anyone. One of the secretaries was talking on the telephone about going to a psychic in Lansdowne, near where I lived. I overheard her and told her I could give her directions. She asked me to go with her and she would pay for a session for me to thank me. I said I would take her, but didn't really think I wanted to have a session. When we got there, the girl went in and did her session. The psychic came out afterward and called me in. She did a reading (among other things she said I would never have kids (which I did not), my husband would die before I (which he did), and a few other things). Before she started she had told me when she was finished I could ask 5 questions and she would try to get the answers. After the reading, I said, "Someone close to me has died and I want to know.....". Before I could get another squeak out, she said, and I quote: "Your grandfather says to tell you that he is fine and with your grandmother. They will always be around you and will be waiting for you when it is your time to go to the next plane of existence." Gramps was a big believer in the after-life. He was a wonderful, weird man that everyone loved and respected. He taught me so many things, and then he showed me that there is an after-life.

I also watched my mother "talk" to her parents before she died, and Tim to his mother and others. Yes, I believe in spirits. Not ghosts...spirits. Ghosts are those horrible things in horror movies. Spirits are angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven, and the spirits of those that have gone before. I know that Tim and Gramps and Mom and Grandmom and all the others are up there at our "shore", having a blast. They are waiting and watching for me and mine, and we will all be together again there. I believe in that. I couldn't stand it if I did not. I refuse to believe that there is just an end. Your life goes on in another plane of existence, one where there is no pain or suffering. That is my firm belief.