This isn't an experience of my own but of my Grandfather... My Granddad on my mother's side passed away a couple of years back. He was just about to turn 81 when he died and was quite a religious man. His health wasn't good for the past few years of his life and he was in and out of hospital regularly with chest infections. He was not in anyway senile though... He became quite tired and didn't chat so much towards the end but he still had his wits about him. He used to tease me about my hair which was always multi-colored at that point - he would ask me to dye the little hair he had left the same colour.
About a year before he passed away, he told my aunt this story... He was lying in bed, just wakening up as the light came through the windows and he saw his mother standing at the end of the bed. He said she was not the old woman she had been when she died. Instead she was young and dressed how he remembered her when he was a child. She was standing at the end of the bed surrounded by bright light. She told him she was waiting for him but it was not his time yet, but that she would be waiting for him when it was time.
My aunt burst out into tears on hearing this, that side of my family are very religious Irish people, so my aunt of course believed he had saw his mother. He had no reason to lie and I have no reason to think it was 'just old age' or seeing things because he had never mentioned anything like this before and wasn't senile. As I said, he died about a year later. My uncle who he lived with, found him staring intently at the cross on his wall as he took his last breath.
At his wake, his coffin was laid out and people came to mourn and see him. I told my aunt I did not feel like he was gone at all and she said she felt the same. Maybe it just hadn't sunk in that he was gone, but I was later left to look after my young cousin who was about 3 years old and I was trying to keep him entertained when I suddenly felt that someone was watching us from the doorway. I turned round and of course there was no one there. I was a little spooked but felt strongly that it was my granddad watching us. I don't know why but I don't feel like he was lingering around long-term, I felt like he was still with the family until he was buried.
Loading comments....
