I would like to start out by saying that I do not know if this is a ghost story, angel account or a hallucination brought on by the grips of the late stages of lung cancer. To me it has been a comfort as well as a confusing instance. To make it even more interesting, this happened on the very first real day in our new home where we now reside.
My father-in-law was taken to the Emergency room here in Elkhart last November with flu like symptoms that would simply not go away. Being in his seventies, we thought he just needed a stronger medication than we were able to get over the counter. He has a strong dislike for doctors. Medical treatment should be given by a Medicine man and he was very angry with us as doctors just want money. They do not care about your health physically or spiritually so we had a time getting him there to begin with.
After a battery of tests it was found that he had an advanced stage of lung cancer and the doctor refused to release him on the grounds that he felt Dad may not make it very much longer. On that vote of confidence, we brought him back home. He had been living with us since our daughter was in kindergarten and this is his home. Wherever that dwelling might be, this is where he belonged.
Dad outlasted all of the doctors estimated time lines. Slowly his health declined and we were able to get his Medicine man to come out to the house to treat him only a couple of times this last year. With the help of hospice, we were able to give him the care that was needed, but he then required twenty-four hour care. The economy being what it is, we could not afford to pay for an in home nurse and a live in facility was out of the question. So I became his primary caregiver.
In essence, he became my child. I changed him, fed him (when we could find something he was able to keep down), encouraged him, complained with him and loved him just as I do my daughter and son. I carried him when he could not walk any longer and told him no one else really mattered when none of his other fifteen children would come out and visit. I never left the house unless someone else was present, which caused strain on my family as there were plays, college entrance seminars etc., that I was unable to attend. But this is where I was meant to be at this point in my life. God kept me here for a reason.
We had one load of belongings to bring over here on the third of this month, so we decided to call it quits for the night and sleep in our new home (we had to move, we were relying on my husband's paycheck and that was just not quite enough). At two thirty in the morning, my four year old came running into my husbands and my room announcing that Papa told him there was someone in the house and he was to come get me or my husband. My son chose me.
Without question I got up and searched our entire home and came up with nothing so I just started opening boxes and unpacking, while watching Dad. He said the "someone" was about six foot tall, walked through here with confidence and said nothing when he walked past Dad. Dad felt comfort, not fear. We left a light on wherever Dad slept as he had developed a fear of the dark, and if I had to quickly get to him there would be no obstacles. It could not be a case of Dad not being seen.
We brought the last load in and said goodbye to the old homestead to begin new life here the morning of the fourth. Dad asked me if I liked my new home and if I felt safe here. I assured him that I did and thought he would also. Dad got worse. By four in the afternoon he was speaking a language I do not know while looking intently into my eyes. He pointed to my son, so I walked out of the room and sent him in.
My four year old and Dad were "conversing" and I had no clue what was going on. We called in the hospice nurse at seven but by seven thirty Dad was gone. I apologize, this is still very fresh, so emotions overcome me as I write this. The nurse has no explanation as to what went on between my son and my father-in-law, she has never seen or heard this before. The Medicine man feels my child was preparing another "child for entry into a new family" and the pastor thinks Dad was speaking in tongues.
What about the being that Dad saw in our home? Did he see my husband walking through earlier and misplace time when telling my son to get us? Surly he would have recognized him. In all the time I knew Dad, he was a firm believer in the spirit going directly to Heaven or purgatory and NOT walking the earth for any stretch of time. What were my son and his Papa discussing? And what were they speaking? My son, bless him, says he will tell me when I'm ready.
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