Tag Archives: death

They Come A-Calling with Their Smells

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Last night, someone passed through my apartment, someone who strongly smelled of fast-food fried chicken, like Popeyes.

In recent days, I’ve smelled pork chops, hash, and a blueberry pie, all from separate individuals. I have no idea who they are. Another individual came through smelling strongly of bleach.

All strangers.

People who have died during this pandemic period of time and are checking out the open doors that some of us maintain.

I can feel their confidence growing as they find someone noticing them. They’re finding their way around their new landscape, learning the rules of being on the other side.

They’re not unhappy, just curious, wanting to seek out ways of communicating with their loved ones. Testing us, total strangers with those open doors, in learning how to make contact.

You’re probably saying, these are smells normally in my apartment. Actually, no, they’re not. I haven’t used bleach in years. I’m allergic to both pork and blueberries, so neither are found in my apartment, and I have never made hash. I’ve eaten plenty in my younger days, but I’ve never made it.

While I share two walls with neighbors, in the four-plus years I’ve lived here, odors from these other two apartments have never leaked into mine. And, the front door has been closed as we await spring, so no odors aren’t coming from there.

How can I tell these are people on the other side? Because the odors come and go. Suddenly, the scent is there, and then, once I’ve noticed them, it’s gone. They’ve moved on, probably to test more doors or to finally try contacting their loved ones.

That ability is called clairalience. It’s a psychic gift of spiritual smells.

These folks aren’t the first souls to visit me, letting me know they’re nearby via their scents. A best friend who died suddenly owned four cats. Her home never smelled like a litter box. Ever. Yet, I always know when it’s her because of the cat smell. Over our forty-plus years of friendship, she had many cats. For some reason, many ended up sick, needing good veterinarian care, which she provided. Several died too young. I’m sure on the other side, she was happily reunited with them all. So, it made sense that a litter box was her signatory scent for me. Still is. She doesn’t visit as frequently now, but her goal has always been to push me forward with a particular pet writing project we shared. I’m working on it again, as a result of her visits, her insistence.

Another woman, someone I knew but hadn’t seen in probably half a year, visited me upon her death, but I was puzzled by the pee smell. When I asked about it with someone who was close to her, that person said yes, that was how she smelled in her last few months. Her few visits with me shortly after her death were more about her checking out the open doors than anything else.

My ex-mother-in-law came frequently upon her death. Her pot roast was phenomenal, so it only made sense she appeared with that scent. Her first visit was for a particular, personal reason. After that, she appeared a few more times, just to visit.

When my father visits, he usually comes with the smell of his early morning toast or his pipe tobacco. I say usually, because in the beginning, just after his death, he’d play with my TV or VCR, turning it on if I turned it off, or vice-versa. Spirits love to play with our electric appliances: lights, computers, TVs, stereos, etc. Because we are all energy, electricity is a natural conductor for them. With his history of repairing TVs and then later computers, for him to play with mine made total sense. I could hear him chuckling every time I called him out.

These are just a few examples of the many people who have visited me with their smells.

Have you ever noticed a familiar smell in an unlikely place or at an unlikely time, meaning the scent isn’t associated with your current location or time of day? If so, you probably were visited by someone you know. Someone from the other side.

As these people move through my apartment, I acknowledge them, wish them well, and continue to be amazed at the tremendous love that surrounds them. No doubt, there will be many more souls this coming month or two while the pandemic ravages our country.

I wonder what my scent might be when my time comes? I’m hoping it’ll be Chanel 5, my favorite cologne, and the only cologne I can wear. That or old books.

The Circle Crows Event

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Crows and ravens are birds of high interest to me. They’re attached to mystery, death, darkness both of night and of the psyche. These birds are extremely clever, intelligent birds who like to collect objects, the shinier the better. Science has shown that they recognize humans as individuals.

Crows and ravens are totem birds for me. As I learned about totems, it was the bald eagle that was my first totem bird. The crows and ravens came later and are still currently part of my totem clan.

Because they are important to me, I pay attention whenever I hear a caw or croak as to where am I, what am I doing, or what are they doing, and how many are there at the time as numbers have meaning, as well.  These birds are usually solitary creatures but when they are together, there’s a specific reason why.

  • They are considered messengers in many cultures and often as messengers of a future event.
  • They are the guardians of their area: they will sound off seeing someone or something new nearby, as they watch from the tops of trees or building rooftops.

Recently, I was in the process of closing my step-father’s house, removing the last of the furniture and any remaining personal items. The house was for sale and we were close to getting an offer.  My step-father who is 89 had been born in the house and lived in it his entire life, except for the few years when he was in the service during the Korean War and when living with his first wife, to whom he was married for only two years. When he and my mother married, she would move in with him, but their marriage would last only five years. They were still friends when my mother died.

I had hired a team—a middle-aged woman and an old man, as they called themselves—who were moving his goods to an auction house, where everything would be sold.

Halfway through the move, we noticed birds circling above the house. They were crows, quietly circling at the height of about two tall trees. They weren’t cawing, but I could tell they were crows by their silhouette. There were about two dozen of them. Immediately, I had goosebumps.

For forty-five minutes they circled. Continuously. Every time we came out of the house, we looked up and there they were.

We came out of the house for the last time. The two movers carried that last load to their trailer parked out by the street.

I locked the door, shut the screen, and walked out from under the porch canopy and looked up.

The crows were gone.

Goosebumps popped up on my arms and along my spine. I’d never seen crows circling like that before or for that length of time. Nor had I ever seen that many in one place, acting as one.

Suddenly, I realized that they had been signifying the end of an era for my step-father and signifying a new beginning for a future buyer.

As I walked to my car, I realized their circle had represented the ever circle of life.

Mike McGuire’s Send Off – January 19, 2016

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We said goodbye today (Jan 19) to my second cousin, Michael David McGuire, who died suddenly last Wednesday, the 13th.  The service was beautiful, the memories bringing both tears and laughter for family, friends, and his beloved working family from the Michigan State Police community throughout many locales.

My father’s family is large.  While I know my first cousins once removed (my father’s cousins) well, I don’t know my second cousins the same way.  I was the first born of the second cousins, which easily number several dozen or more, some I’ve yet to meet.  My aunt and uncle were only three years older than me, with some of dad’s cousins only eight or ten years older.  As a child in the middle of this big boisterous family, I preferred listening to the adult conversations, sitting in a corner of the big farmhouse kitchen, than playing in the parlor with the little kids.  The adults’ laughter was always infectious.  Still is today.

As for all of the second cousins’ kids, well, I can’t keep track of them all.  In fact, I’ll confess that due to my living in the South for a decade and a career kept me away from a number of reunions and family gatherings, I have a lot of catching up to do.

When I was growing up, from time to time, because I was older, I was asked to babysit for my second cousins, which included Mike and his younger brother, Robert.  The job was always an adventure, as they were close in age, would collaborate with each other and hide from me or be investigating something they shouldn’t.  They were always in action.

The next time I would saw him, over 20 years later, he was an adult, married, and with kids.

Unfortunately, because we are a large family, there are many funerals and today was one of those days.  While we always enjoy reuniting with family members and being introduced to kids and spouses we may not have met, we never like the circumstances, such as was today’s event.

I attended Monday’s visitation and while driving home, I sensed Mike’s presence, but I didn’t hear anything.  Just a comforting presence.

The next morning, however, when I got up, I keep hearing the word, “Giddy up!”  All that morning I heard it said as a gleeful exclamation.  Not a part of my everyday vernacular, I knew I was hearing Mike’s voice.

During the service, that included a bagpipe, the Michigan State Police guard,  who additionally provided a flag to Linda, his wife, recordings of favorite music, there was one particular silence where I felt the urge to say “Giddy up, boys.  Giddy up.”  The urge was strong and I sensed it would bring laughter, but I refrained.  As confident as I was that this was Mike speaking, I questioned the timing.

As fellow troopers got up one-by-one and started telling stories about Mike, including hearing he would tell them to “Saddle up,” as they rolled out on various duties, I discovered he was all about making people laugh, that he enjoying laughing as much as he enjoyed his family, fishing, and his work.  Saying “Giddy up” in that silence was something Mike would have done.

Mike was a marine who served in the Gulf War, with a commanding presence due to his height and demeanor.  He served undercover, provided governor protection, to name a few of his various teams, and had been a medical first responder with his local fire department.

The love and affection his family, friends, and police brethren have for him was easily felt.  Deemed as a tough guy, he also had a soft heart for his family, friends, and the people he served, and anyone who needed help.

Mike was only 52, far too young to be gone.  The service was truly a celebration.  As a collected group, we provided him a fitting, loving send-off, which was surrounded and sheltered with his presence.

Giddyup, Mike.  Giddyup.

 

Kathy and the Other Side

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I could start in the beginning, but that would be boring.  Instead, let me begin where things got interesting.

Kathy and the Other Side

             Early September 1993 – Her hair gone, her skin was thin with a translucent milky-blue hue.  Huge eyes dominated her otherwise now sharply sculptured face.  She was just forty, with three young children.  It wasn’t fair that this once vibrant blonde beauty, who had sat beside me in the Florida State University football stadium in past eight years as we’d whoop our chants and cut the air with our “tomahawks” as the Seminoles carried the ball down the field against the Canes, the Tarheels, and so many other teams, had to suffer for two of those years with breast cancer.  And then, she was pregnant with her third child, excitedly so.  Successfully, she and her husband Jody welcomed their beautiful second son into their family.  And then, she discovered that the cancer had returned.

I remember the early coolish weather, the sun filtered through the pines and other trees in the yard.  In a room fixed up special for Kathy, my family and I took turns going in to say goodbye.  When it was my turn, I couldn’t help but notice how thin she’d become.  Huge glasses made her face look even more gaunt.  We hugged tightly, and she said goodbye.  Neither one of us spoke of the time two years earlier when she had begun her second battle with the cancer, when we had spent half a day together, sitting in her kitchen, bright with Tallahassee sunshine, talking about our extreme curiosity of life after death.  That was where we made a pact.

Two weeks later, Kathy was dead.

The pact: if she could, she would contact me after she died.

#

            I had moved to Tallahassee in the summer of 1988 and lived there for a year before moving to Cairo, located in the southwest corner of Georgia, about thirty-five miles from Florida’s state capital.  I got to meet and know Kathy and her husband, Jody, right away.  They were a fun couple, with two small children.

Not long after the move to Cairo, I began having premonitions and other events began happening.  I wondered if our home’s location had anything to do with the experiences.  I shared some of these happenings with Kathy, which is how we came to make our pact.

That was when Kathy died.

Time passed, about eight months.  I’d been a writer for sometime already, but now I was writing twelve hours a day, working on a book, coming out of my office only to get food and beverage or to sleep.  During the day, I was alone in the house with my husband at work and my two girls in school.  I was in my office as usual, at the computer finishing a book for a publisher’s deadline.  My fingers keyed letters into words and sentences . . .

A soft voice called out my name.

My fingers paused above the keyboard.  I looked at the door.  No one was there.

The clock told me the girls were still in school, my husband at work.  I listened.  Inside the house, the only sounds were the whirring overhead fan, circulating the air-conditioned air to offset the one-hundred-degree South summer heat and humidity that cloaked the house, the soft hum of the computer as it idled, and the steady tick of the wall clock.  Outside, the unmistakable buzz of the katydids—a sound I had come to love—became a backdrop to every other sound.  I could hear the buzz from inside.  Not hearing anything else, including a voice, I assumed my imagination was at work.

I returned to the keys, and was quickly engrossed in my story again.  I heard my name called again.  Only this time, it was said louder than before.  And the sound was distinct.

I froze.  Slowly, I rose from my chair, my heart racing, my mouth dry.  Cautiously, I moved to the door.  I half-expected one of the girls to jump out at me, screaming, “Boo!”  They delighted in hearing me scream or gasp with fright, a hand to my heart to steady the racing beat.  They didn’t jump out at me.  No one did.  There wasn’t anyone there.

Yet, ever so slowly, I stuck my head out the door, allowing peripheral vision to search either side of the door frame quickly.

I looked to the right.  No one was there.

I looked to the left.  The hall was empty.

My adrenalin high, my armpits sticky from fear, my breath trembled as I exhaled.

I’d been holding my breath.  For a few moments, I was rooted to the spot . . . waiting.  For what, I didn’t know.  I shook off the feeling and returned to the computer.

A few weeks later, I heard my name called again, then a rattling in the hall closet that was closest to my office.  It was a closet that I used as a pantry for canned goods.  I ignored the noise.

Minutes later, it happened again, but this time the added ping of the doorbell sounded for no apparent reason.  I say no apparent reason because frequent brown-outs, as I called them, occurred on a weekly basis, a hick-up in the power where the lights would blink, the computer’s battery backup would buzz, the fans would slow down due to no power, the VCRs turning off and then back on, the clocks blinking requiring a reset, and the doorbell would ping.

This time, however, the only sound had been the doorbell.  The computer battery didn’t buzz.  The VCRs were silent.  The lights and fans remained on, steadily doing their jobs.  There had been no brown-out.

As before, I went to the office door and looked down the hall.  This time, I moved toward the pantry/closet door where I thought I had heard the rattle.  Almost at the closet door, I went through a cold spot.

Goose bumps ran up and down my body.

I had heard about cold spots and how they depicted a sign that you were walking through a dead person’s soul or presence.  But I shook off the thought.  It was nearly 100 degrees outside.  There’d been no cold spot, I tried to tell myself.  But deep down, I knew it’d been a cold spot.  Extremely cold.

I opened the closet door.  Nothing.  I shut the door.

I shivered.

I heard my name again, only this time the sound was nearby, almost a whisper in my ear, as if someone was speaking to me, standing behind me.

“Kathy?”  I whispered.  “Is that you?”

“Yes,” she replied, softly.

I smiled and felt her smile back.  “We had it all wrong,” she gushed.  “Our image of God, our souls, our purpose.  Everyone has it wrong, everyone.”  Kathy was a devote Catholic, so I was curious how it was wrong, so I asked.

“What’s it like?”

Her voice was filled with joy.  “I can’t describe it, but it’s all about joy, love, and awareness of what we’ve done, who we are.  It’s about knowing.  Having all knowledge.  It’s wonderful!!!  The church has it so wrong.  So wrong.”  I asked her what she meant by that, but she didn’t answer me.  Instead, she repeated how much love there was.  And then she left.  My questions of wanting specifics went unanswered.  Kathy would not be the one to provide me with those answers, but she had provided a window into the unknown for me.

I was ecstatic that she had made contact and that our questions about death were being answered.  I was strangely comforted knowing she was around.  At that time, I didn’t tell anyone.  I didn’t want anyone to think that I had gone nuts.  I wondered if anyone would understand, including my family.  Up until that time, I’d been experiencing various small adventures of mysticism, but I couldn’t explain what was happening, so I kept my experiences to myself.  How in the world would I be able to explain this experience with credibility?

Interesting enough, several months later, I decided to share with my family what I’d experienced and Kathy’s visit.  Lo and behold as I talked about the odd ping of the doorbell, my youngest daughter, said, “And then it sounds like cans moving in the closet?”

I stared at her.  “And when you walk in the hall–”

“There’s a cold spot,” she announced.

“That’s Kathy,” I said.

The two girls looked at each other, both talking at the same time.  “Don’t tell me anymore,”  and “I don’t want to hear it.”  They walked away believing but also in denial.  It scared them too much.

A couple of weeks later, Kathy contacted me again.  Like the time before, I was working in my office and heard my name called.

“Kathy?”

“Call, Jody (her husband) and tell him to tell Deirdre (their oldest child) no.”

I hesitated.  What if Jody laughed at me?  Would anyone be able to understand what was happening to me?  Did I understand it?  Kathy prodded me and I argued with myself.  I suspect she heard my arguing with myself, because a short time later, she was gone.  She had given up.

How in the world would I call Jody and explain to him that his dead wife had contacted me with a message to give to him.  I couldn’t make the call without feeling foolish.  And yet, I wanted to call.  I decided to think about it.  From time-to-time, the request weighed heavily on me but then some task would present itself and the thought would be gone again.

Six months later, I ran into Jody.  He looked frazzled as any man who had lost his wife and was left with three young children to raise on his own would look.  I asked if six months earlier he’d had a problem with any of the kids.

“Yes, with Deirdre,” he said, shaking his head remembering.  “I had to make the first biggest decision regarding the kids since Kathy died.”

“What happened?”  I held my breath.  I wasn’t interested in knowing the details, or even what the problem was.  All I wanted to know if his answer had been yes or no.

“I told her yes, and I have been regretting it ever since.”

Then and there, I vowed that if in the future anyone who had died asked me to deliver a message to the living, I would do it, regardless of how awkward it might be for me.  Little was I to know that years later, I’d be asked to deliver a difficult message . . . or two.