The most difficult death I ever had to face was my mother's. For most of my years I didn't think I would survive the time when that would come around. It helped that it was a process that I had a couple of years to get used to. Having to watch her suffer also helped me to let her go even though much of what I thought was suffering, mom didn't seem to mind at all. I think she enjoyed having most of her kids/grandson trapped at her side. It was almost worth it to her.
There were times I thought that mom made some kind of pact with some entity, that she would take on this dying thing, if she could have most of her family out visiting more often. She already had a good bit of my free time but I did have to have a little bit of a life for myself. When it came real close to the end, I think she may have regretted that deal because we heard her mumble no, no, no in her sleep on several occasions, toward the end.
I don't know what happens to us when we die but I have been trying to come up with something I will find appealing. Remember my need to have a soft place to land.
My twin sister, my nephew and I, all took turns staying with mom around the clock. It was more often my turn because the others said they didn't want to be alone with her when she clocked out. It didn't really matter that much because I was also going through another crisis that had me teetering on the edge of sanity.
We had mom in a hospital bed in the middle of her large living room where we could eat, fight, watch TV and carry on other activities, all together as a family. I slept on an old curved sectional every night in that room. Fortunately that only occupied about two hours a night or I would still be stuck in a position where I could only look at the floor.
One night while sitting watch with mom, a friend called to invite me to go on a ghost hunting adventure with her ghost hunting group. I knew she was a member of that group. Jane was a photojournalist for our local paper. She learned about this group from an ad she found in her paper. At first, when she saw the ad for anyone interested in ghost hunting, she wondered if it was the Holy Ghost they were after. She called and was relieved it was real ghost they were after. She joined up. She had invited me to go on other occasions but I wasn't really interested in spending dark nights running around graveyards.
Well this night she called, she told me they were going to a graveyard not too far from where mom lived. My mom was asleep, my stepfather was home hiding in his bedroom, and I didn't have anything particularly exciting on my agenda, aside from self pity, so I thought, why not? It was a time between Christmas and New Years so not many in the group would be going. I was to meet them at the graveyard at 9 pm and keep my truck lights on until someone came to get me.
I did go but I clung close to my friend. I didn't look or listen for anything. I did watch where I stepped since, with the way my luck was running, I didn't want to fall into any open graves. They all had tape recorders and cameras. They flashed lots of pictures and made recordings.
We all met at the group leader's car afterward to have some hot chocolate. It was a pretty cold night. I got to see a couple of their picture albums where there were pictures from previous hunts. Wow, they had some interesting pictures. Lots of orbs, little circles of light, some smokey looking stuff they called ectoplasm and a few shadowy figures. I went home that night and did a web search to read about that phenomena. It was very interesting.
Well I forgot all about that until the day mom moved up. She went down quick. She ate like a pig for most of her illness. When she couldn't eat anymore she was ready to check out. My ghost hunting friend was there when mom died. We had been friends since childhood and she had recently lost her own mom. She was close to my mom and since she couldn't be there when her mom died, she wanted to be there when my mom died.
Mom made arrangements to donate her body to one of our state university medical schools. Since she couldn't have a career in medicine she wanted to make a contribution in another way. My sister notified the funeral home and they made the arrangements for the medical school to pick her up. She died around 5pm but they couldn't come to get her until 9 pm.
Shortly after mom moved up and we had everything arranged, I stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. I felt this little flutter on my arm, like something trying to get my attention. I remembered that Jane, the ghost hunter was there and she had her expensive digital news camera with her. I went into the house and asked her to come out and bring her camera. I told her to take my picture. I asked mom, if she was still there, to give me a sign. The picture Jane snapped showed me surrounded by a blue aura. I took the camera and snapped a picture of Jane. No aura. I called my nephew out and had Jane take a picture of him. He was surrounded by a even more amazing gold aura. He was her favorite. Mom would have dumped the rest of us for him.
I called my sister out and the aura that surrounded her was lavender. When they took mom's body away I had Jane to take another picture. All the aura's were gone. For the rest of the week we all took pictures all over the house and it was full of orbs. We got them on all of our cameras, the cheap ones and Jane's expensive one.I called the couple who led the ghost hunting group to come over that week to check out the orbs. I asked if they had ever had this experience before in a house. They said no. I asked if they were ever invited over to anyone's house who just lost a loved one? They said no. Figures.
The orbs were only there for one week. Then they were gone. I had never seen any of these things in any other pictures I took at mom's house before. I don't know what they are or what they represent but I assumed that maybe it was mom, picking up a few of her other friends who have already passed, to make one last visit with the family. We couldn't have her funeral for a week after she died since her husband had been out of the country on a church trip. The entire family spent the week at mom's house. The orbs stayed close by.
I think the auras represented a last hug. Just a guess. What do you think?
No time to edit so good luck reading this one.
Carol
18 comments:
Carol, in another case of uncanny synchronicity, see the post I made on the previous thread while you were creating this thread.
There were also a couple of posts made at the very end of Craig's thread last night after mostly everyone had gone to bed and a new thread had already been put up. I made one of them. More synchronicity.
I probably neglected to mention to you that last week, hubs and I went on the ghost tour at the Stanley Hotel (of Stephen King). There was a lot of discussion and photo evidence of orbs and apparitions people had captured on cameras. The room we stayed in was angled across from and looked directly into the window of the infamous Room 217. There's no A/C at the Stanley, and all the windows were open at night with cool ghostly breezes and wafting curtains. The floors creak too and it certainly was not beyond imagination that we were not alone.
You needed to take pics. The orbs show up on the pics. You can't see them without the pics. They move. If you take several quick shots, the orbs are in different places.
I didn't have time to add some orb pics but I still can. I have already made some edit changes. That is nice to be able to do after I post.
When my nephew got married, I couldn't go but my sister his mom, was there. In one of the pics of my sister and my nephew together, there is a huge orb. I know it was mom.
I have shown some people my pics and it made them really nervous, like it might not be compatable with their religious views. I can see how it can be compatable with my views of God.
I think there is a transition time after we shed our bodies. We can travel around at that time. Maybe we can come back later and see how things are going with loved ones?? I like that idea.
I saw your posts Ivy and loved them. I am going to enlarge what you wrote and put it on my wall. My friend, the neat freak who never leaves her clean house, also needs to read it.
Maybe those orbs represent a parallel universe?
Carol, I will have some more ponderings on your topic, but not tonight. My computer is "acting up" like it doesn't want me into this. It's blinking in an out and that could lead to a "mis-post."
I thank you for the topic, though. You may not be religious, but you are certainly highly spiritual.
Carol, just checking to see if my computer will let me back in on your blog. I wasn't kidding about it acting up on your thread.
My late sister is the one who once told me "not to eff with the spirits." She had enough moxy to be the one to haunt me. She told us she would if she could.
Don't be afraid of the spirits Ivy. Their angels watching over us, keeping us safe.
Thanks, Carol. My sister is acting as guardian angel to a bunch of us. There's one or two in the family who would benefit by a thorough haunting however.
"nite. Even on central time, the evening wanes.
Why does the possibility of life after life seem to scare people? Just another adventure. I found the experience to be comforting.
I had a friend and neighbor, who spent a lot of time out here on my river. He taught me many things about the river. He would come over often to my house and we would sit out by my pool and discuss life. He called them our pool side chats. I made him his favorite drink, Old Charter and coke. He liked his drinks pretty strong. After a couple of hours of visiting he would wobble home.
He also had cancer and died about a month after mom died. He never got to see my camp but I know he would have loved it. I think that maybe he helped me find it. I often feel his presence out here.
Way past my bedtime.
Ivy, maybe some of the flashing your computer was doing was when I was pulling off the post to do editing. I keep noticing the big bo bo and trying to fix them.
This post must have scared Chloe right out of here.
If you will look through some of your old photos, you might find some orbs in them that you have never noticed before. You may have thought they were just flaws in the picture.
There is a book written by these two guys, one a professor of theology, and the other a NASA scientist, that explores these phenomena seen in photographs. The book is titled "The Orb Project". Their orbs pics make mine seem pretty puny.
Carol, you remind me of my friend in the mountains who has a completely rational and scientific explanation for everything. Her career was always in science - teaching school, field biologist, chemist and pharmaceuticals. She finds her spirituality in the natural order of the universe. That is comforting too as the photo on your next thread shows.
Hi Carol, I don't know if you are still reading comments on this ponder. I am so sorry to hear of your mother's death. Your mother was a lovely woman. Your pictures with the aura's are amazing. I just keep going back and looking at them.
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