Embracing the Spirits: True Stories of My Encounters With the Other Side by Barbara Parks (bill gates best books TXT) 📕

could set something else alight. It seemed their silent benefactor had been trying to warn them all along.

It was some weeks later that Anouk chanced upon the

strange man in the city; the one who had given her the suppos-

edly lucky card. She approached him without hesitation.

“The day after you gave me your card my family lost every-

thing in a house fire,” she said. “I thought you said I’d be in luck!”

The man looked bemused.

“And so you were,” he replied.

“How can that be lucky?” she asked.

“You all lived, didn’t you?”

And that’s when the full-force of the past few weeks struck

her; her family were incredibly lucky. Not only did they all survive a potential tragedy, Anouk was filled with the conviction that they were indeed blessed. Not least because their family

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had a ghostly protector; who determinedly tried to warn them

as the imminent explosion loomed.

These days Vincent and Anouk are much more accept-

ing of the reality of spirits; after what had transpired it was impossible to think otherwise. They felt indebted to their persistent ghostly protector and now think of the mysteriously

appearing candles fondly. So much so that as they settled into their new home, they couldn’t help hoping that their previous

home’s unseen occupant had come along with them.

The White Dove

Spirit contact with deceased loved ones is more common than

most people think. Death does not sever the bonds of love

which unite family and friends, and the emotions which con-

nect us during life remain just as strong after our loved ones have passed.

Spirit visitations are not always outwardly obvious, and

quite often cause us to question whether we experienced them

at all. They may be so subtle that we miss them altogether,

no doubt causing no end of frustration for the spirit folk trying to make contact. They may take the form of dreams or

synchronicities, or may be as tangible as a familiar smell suddenly wafting into a room. Some spirits are able to manifest

even more substantially, creating physical disturbances to let us know that they’re there. Some even hurl photographs of

themselves off walls or mantle pieces … a sure-fire way of garnering some attention!

In many instances, spirits employ the use of signs and sym-

bols in order to make themselves known to us. They may, for

instance, repeatedly show us significant words or numbers,

often enough for us to rule out the possibility of coincidence.

170The Interactions of Others

After my friend, Maureen’s father passed away, she kept see-

ing a car with the numberplate DADDY. Of course at first she thought it to be little more than a fluke. But as the days went by and she kept repeatedly seeing the same car in the middle

of a busy highway, she came to accept that the ever-present

numberplate was a sign from her dad.

Another friend also had the privilege of being on the

receiving end of a post-death visit from her father. Fortunately for Lesley, she was in tune enough to pick up on the perti-nent signs and symbols, leaving no doubt whatsoever that her

beloved dad was close by.

Lesley’s father, Wilfrid was not quite eighty when he suf-

fered a debilitating stroke. Although he lived for another four years, the stroke precipitated the onset of vascular dementia, which saw his mental state steadily deteriorate over the coming years. After enduring a relentless decline in both his mental and physical health, by his eighty fourth birthday, Wilfrid’s body had begun to shut down.

As Lesley and her family surrounded Wilfrid’s bed, their

emotions were running high. By now entirely immobile, Wil-

frid was enveloped in the love of his family as they honoured what was to be his very last birthday.

By the time Lesley returned home that evening, she was an

emotional wreck.

“I just sat on the edge of my bed and couldn’t stop cry-

ing,” Lesley told me. Despite Wilfrid being unwell for so many years, she felt unready to let him go. She still felt ill-prepared, and asked her guides and guardian angels to give her a sign

to warn her when Wilfrid’s death was imminent. Unsure why,

she asked them to show her a white dove. Perhaps it was an

uplifting image which signified love and freedom, a positive

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symbol to counteract the bleak pall of death which lay wait-

ing on the sidelines.

A week after Wilfrid’s bedside birthday gathering, his wife

and daughters had congregated at his nursing home once

again. After a lengthy visit, Lesley and her sisters decided to make their way home. A spur of the moment decision saw

them take a slight detour, in order to take in some of the local Christmas lights. Since it was December 17th and they felt

anything but festive, the sisters hoped that the lights would

perhaps stir up some Christmas cheer.

Lesley was particularly taken with one beautifully-dec-

orated house just around the corner from her own. It was

adorned with all manner of beautiful decorations, the most

striking of which was a beautiful white dove. It sparkled with hundreds of tiny white and gold lights, the very sight of which took her breath away. It was only later that evening that its significance suddenly dawned on her; the dove was the sign she

had asked for!

Two days later, surrounded by his loving family, Wilfrid

Ashley Freeman quietly passed away. After four years of hard-

ship and struggle, he allowed himself to transition into spirit.

Despite their forewarning, Lesley and her family were shat-

tered.

That evening as she lay in bed crying herself to sleep, Les-

ley was suddenly overcome by the sense of someone being

in the room with her. She rolled over slowly, and gasped at

what she saw. There on the side of her bed was Wilfrid, sitting serenely as though he hadn’t a care in the world. His legs were crossed nonchalantly and he was reaching for Lesley’s forehead. And as he calmly stroked her brow, he smiled … word-

lessly reassuring his daughter that he was absolutely fine.

172The Interactions of Others

Even now, almost five years after Wilfrid’s passing, Lesley

still gets teary at the recollection.

“I wondered if