Peering Through the Veil
Mary McGrath, in “Crow’s Feet”, wrote a story about a possible visitation from her departed mother.( https://medium.com/@marymcgrath-81047). The story tells of a conversation with her mother they had before she died, and later a possible sign of or visitation from her after her death. From my experience with working with grieving families, and from my own experience, I take her story as not only “Possible”, but “Probable”. I have seen many such instances myself, and have heard about many more quite astonishing stories from families I have served. Then I had an astounding visitation myself!
To give you context, I recently wrote about my own visit to a well-known Psychic Medium in our area here on Medium.(Psychic Medium Visit Showdown!). Jun, 2022 The message I am now writing about was from my father. This was surprising, because of all the people I had hoped to hear from during a reading, my father was not on the list. We had never been close, and I didn’t think that he had really ever noticed me much, other than perhaps a source of irritation, as we were polar opposites on most life issues.
The message she gave me, from him, addressed that. The message went more-or-less like this. “I bet you didn’t expect to hear from me. I am sorry about some things that happened between us. I didn’t know how to do what I needed to do. I see now I should have spent time with you when I could. I visit you often, but you aren’t looking for me. I most often visit you as a red-tailed hawk, but you don’t see me.”
There were many more very clear messages in this visit to the Psychic from others that were also unexpected, and there were some I expected or hoped to hear from that I did not. Those are fodder for more stories and I’ll save them for another inspiration, but there was a very clear instance that happened soon after this visit that shocked me, and really made me notice what was happening around me in a clearer way.
I was driving north of our rural Iowa town, on the way to do a graveside service. Out in the middle of the farmland and ahead of me on the side of the road I spied a hawk sitting up on an electrical pole. As I was approaching, the hawk dropped off the pole and flew towards the roadbed, coming right alongside my passenger side window! He flew alongside my vehicle, right at window height for several seconds, and then of course couldn’t keep pace, and he veered off. But the hawk had been a mere arm’s length from my window, and had looked right at me, as I was driving. I could plainly see his eyes, his feathers, his beating wings!
Certainly, the words from the Psychic Medium I had visited were top-of-mind, but I had never seen anything like this. I grew up a farm kid, quite used to country roads, and I’m near 70 years old. I’ve logged a LOT of miles on many country roads with never having had an instance where a bird approached my truck and flew alongside my vehicle!
As a Certified Celebrant working with hundreds of families over the past years I can recall so many wonderful and unusual stories that are tucked away in my brain. Many have to do with instances such as this one that seem that they just can not be coincidence. I do not believe in coincidence. We just have to learn to recognize the messages that come to us. Messages such as a butterfly that will approach during a graveside service, and land on the shoulder of the grieving spouse. Why on them, particularly in the crowd, and no one else? Why does a robin actually come and land on the shoulder of someone? A wild robin. I’ve seen it happen, and only in the context of grieving.
I have come to realize that we just need to relax and trust the message when we recognize the signs and symbols, and that the message is for us, and take the comfort it brings along with the instance. Why question something that we cannot explain anyway? Why debate the issue that has no clear answer? I believe very confidently in the survival of our conscious soul beyond our death. I do believe that the veil between our loved one who has departed, and ourselves, is thin, and very much real. Although there is learning to do beyond this existence, my belief is that after our death we still wish to have an ongoing connection with those we have loved in this life, and we may go to some extraordinary lengths to make that happen. To let them know we still walk with them. To let them know they are not alone on their journey towards us.
Thank you for following along on this thread of thought about “Life After Life” and messages from our departed loved ones. If you have not worked in an industry such as the one I am in, you may scoff at these ideas as “quite a stretch” in logic. You will find many stories like this one with only a slight bit of searching. In closing, I offer one of my favorite small poems gleaned from the internet.
It says, “God bless this tiny little boat, and he who travels in it….It stays afloat for years and years….and sinks within a minute!” Our days are swift in this time of travel and learning. Ernest Dowson 1867–1900 wrote those cryptic lines in a poem that resonates still today. ( You should look-up and enjoy the full text.)
“They are not long, the days of wine and roses: Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream.”
Life is a journey. The destination should not be our focus. We should be living the moments, loving those we need in our lives, and helping others along the way. And, looking for what comfort and help we can find as we go along our way.