A Visit from Dad

On January 1, 2006 at 5:57 AM my father passed away. All of my family was there as we had been keeping vigil at his home for several days knowing the end was near. He had been pretty much unconscious for about 2 days and kept weakening from that point on. It was very difficult to have him go, but he had suffered so over the past year, that we all (my sister, 2 half brothers and step mother) felt he had had enough and was tired. In one of his more lucid moments he had told me he was tired and he did not want to die in the hospital alone, that was about 6 days before he passed. We took him home from the hospital and made him as comfortable as possible. We had hospice care coming in and all spent as much time with him as possible.

As I stated before, he passed away on New Years day. It was a Sunday morning. After he passed, my step mother called our church and one of the Associate Pastors came to the house to be with us. He visited for about half an hour while we waited for the coroner and everything. He then asked what we needed and what we were going to do now. My husband said, well it is Sunday so I say we go to church, that is what dad would have wanted. We all agreed and went home to clean up and get ready for church.

When I got home, I went in and took a hot relaxing bubble bath; I closed my eyes for a minute to relax. When I opened my eyes I saw a white mist shaped like a man standing at the entrance to the bathroom door (my husband made me leave it open because he was worried.) I said "Daddy" and the mist was gone. At that point I chalked it up to exhaustion.

I do not remember the church service but that afternoon, my step mother wanted us to come to the house to pick up a few little things dad wanted us to have. My sister was there with her two girls and husband, I was there with my 2 girls and 2 boys and my stepmother, 1 of my stepbrothers were all there. My stepmother asked me to go up to hers and dad's room and get dad's watch off of the dresser. At the top of the stairs there is a small book case built into the wall. My dad had placed a collectible small brass cannon and brass vase on the middle shelf behind a bouquet of flowers, still visible but blocked by the vase.

As I walked by the book case, the brass cannon and brass vase shot off the shelf almost simultaneously and hit the wall across from the shelves right in front of me. They fell on the floor and rolled to my feet. My niece, 11 years old saw this happen, ran down the stairs and jumped in her father's lap, she would not move. I picked up the cannon and vase and placed them back on the shelf. I went into the bedroom and was looking in the dresser for the watch I had been sent after. I heard a noise in the hallway. Thinking it was a family member I spoke out for them to come in and help me look. No one came, I looked in the hall way and no one was there. I found the watch and entered back into the hall way. I looked down and the brass cannon and vase were in the middle of the floor where they had fallen before. I picked them back up and sat them back on the shelf. At that point my stepmother hollered up the steps for me to grab the brass cannon and vase on my way down because my father had wanted me to take them. I picked them up and carried them downstairs, a little bit bewildered.

While we sat there that evening, dealing with our grief and emotions, the hall light began turning on and off. You could count exactly 120 seconds between on and off switches. I went home that night very late and exhausted.

I go to the house constantly to visit with my stepmother. The hallway has still had strange occurrences especially with items in the middle shelf and the lights in the hall way, both upstairs and down stairs. My step mother pretty much refuses to acknowledge the occurrences and goes on. I think it may be my dad watching out for us a little bit in his own way.