IN LOVING MEMORY OF: JOSHUA CORNELIUS FORD

I REMEMBER WHEN ONE OF MY REALLY CLOSE FRIENDS DIED. He and I HADN'T TALKED IN OVER A YEAR . I GOT TO SCHOOL ON A MONDAY MORNING TO FIND TWO OF MY CLOSE FRIENDS MYESHIA AND ARSHUNTEE IN A STATE  of confusion. With A HIGH PITCHED SCREAM MYESHIA RAN TO ME AND LATCHED HERSELF AROUND MY NECK. HE'S GONE NIKKI, HE'S REALLY GONE." I WAS SO CONFUSED I ASKED ARSHUNTEE "WHAT'S WRONG?"
I WAS IN SUCH SHOCK WHEN ARSHUNTEE SAID "JOSH DIED LAST NIGHT IN A CAR WRECK." I  WAS SO HYSTERICAL THAT I THREW MYESHIA INTO A DESK RAN INTO THE HALLWAY AND COLLAPSED. WHEN MY COUSIN SAW ME IN CLASS HE RAN TO ME RESCUE AS USUAL BUT THIS TIME HIS WEAK ATTEMPT TO HOLD BACK TEARS AND COMFORT ME WERE NO HELP. I WAS SENT HOME. THE NEXT DAY MY BUS WAS THE FIRST ONE TO SCHOOL AND AS ME AND AMANDA WALKED THE HALLS A FAMILIAR VOICE AND FILLING RANG IN MY EARS. IT WAS JOSH! I RAN TOWARD HIM AS  I DID  Knowing  HE WOULD BE GONE BY THE TIME I GOT THERE SO I STOPPED. HE WAS GONE .I CRIED.  I FELL INTO THE ARMS AF MY FRIEND ALEX. I REMEMBER JOSH TELLING ME HE'D BE BACK TO SEE ME EVERY NIGHT if he died. I SNAP BACK TO REALITY AS ALEX HOLDS ME EVEN TIGHTER, Saying DON'T WORRY You are okay. AS I REPLAYED HIS DEEP VOICE IN MY MIND, I NOTICED I WAS CRYING. THAT NIGHT JOSH CAME TO ME AND HE SPOKE TO ME HE TOLD ME HE LOVED ME AND  I WOULD BE OKAY, then HE DISAPPEARED.

 THE SENSE OF SINCERITY AND LOVE IN HIS PRESENCE WAS GONE.  12/28/2004

LOVING GRANDMOTHER VISITS

I HAD JOINED THE RCN IN OCT. 1974, MOVING FROM MY HOME TOWN IN ONTARIO TO HALIFAX NOVA SCOTIA. I HAD DECIDED TO MAKE A CAREER IN THE RCN (CANADIAN NAVY). I MET A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN WHO MARRIED ME , PLUS  MY NAVAL CAREER.

I COULD BE HOME VERY MUCH AS I WAS ALWAYS AT SEA FOR GOOD LENGTHS OF TIME. BUT I HAD HURT MY BACK WHILE AT SEA, I HAD TO GET A OPERATION WHICH RESTRICTED MY MOVEMENTS IT WAS AT THE TIME THAT MY BELOVED GRANDMOTHER DIED. I COULD NOT ATTEND THE FUNERAL. DUE TO MY OPERATION. I WAS VERY HEART BROKEN ABOUT THIS. MY PARENTS UNDERSTOOD BY THAT DID NOT STOP THE PAIN DEEP INSIDE.

ONE NIGHT I JUST COULD GET THE GUILT OUT OF MY HEART ABOUT NOT GOING. I WENT TO BED. ABOUT TWENTY MINUTES LATER ALL WAS QUIET, I SEEN MY GRANDMOTHER STANDING AT MY BEDROOM DOOR. SHE WAS DRESSED IN A KIND OF PINK GOWN. AND SHE JUST LOOKED AT ME AND SMILE. I WAS NOT AFRAID BUT I TOLD HER I LOVED HER VERY MUCH AND THAT SHE COULD GO NOW. ALL WAS WELL. SHE DID. NOW I NEVER TOLD MY PARENTS UNTIL A FEW YEARS LATER. I WANTED THE PAIN TO SETTLE IN THE FAMILY A WEE BIT. BUT I TOLD MY MOTHER AND I SAID SHE WAS WEARING A PINK DRESS MOM DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING BUT TOLD ME THAT WAS THE COLOR OF THE GOWN SHE WAS BURIED IN. AS I SAID IT WASN'T SCARY BUT IT FELT GOOD TO KNOW THE OLE GIRL THOUGHT THAT MUCH OF ME TO PAY A VISIT.
YOURS AYE, PAUL R. MILLS...November 21, 2004                         

Seeing Things

Since I was eight years old I have been able to see things and hear things that no body else can. I don't mean I can see spirits, what I am talking about is the past and sometimes what I think is the future. The sounds I hear are not only voices, but also things like horses running past my window, Indian drums beating in the distance, and even laughter of children. The phrase "If only these walls could speak, what store they could tell" and they do.

I can be sitting a room, watching TV, and I will begin to "daydream" as my mother would tell me. And it started, like I said, when I was only eight years of age. I couldn't control it at all. When it was over I would snap out of it and have no memory of what just happened until what seemed like hours later. Now, when it happens I can pull myself out of it if I want to. But sometimes I don't. It's like I have fallen into a dream and it's the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen, and I don't want to come home. Unfortunately for me, it ends sooner or later whether I make it or not. I only stop the bad ones. The ones where parents are fighting and their children hide crying in the corner, or a mother has just said good-bye to her son and husband because they had to go fight a war.

My mother would get very angry with me because these visions would interfere with my schoolwork. I was failing my classes because I was having fun watching other people live their lives in their realm from ours. At supper I wouldn't eat because one would come to me. There was nothing I could do until I was nearly twelve when I would draw myself out slowly. Eventually, I got to where I just wouldn't allow them. The scary thing is; I can remember nearly half of them today.

The Fifth Cardinal

On January 26, 2002, my best friend passed away, she had been diagnosed with Cancer two weeks before her death. Her physician told her she had a very short time to live. About three days before her death, we talked about her meeting with her late husband, my late husband and son. I asked her to send me a sign that she was okay, she agreed she would. On the afternoon that she died, I returned home and my grandson was looking out the back window, he called my attention to a female Cardinal feeding on the ground, he then saw a male Cardinal, another male Cardinal, yet, another male Cardinal, and another male Cardinal, a total of 4 males and 1 female. There was my sign telling me she was okay. We figured the female, of course was her, one of the males was her husband, another my husband, another my son, we could not figure out who the 5th one represented. Later on in the evening, I received a telephone call from another close friend telling me that her husband had died that same afternoon...we felt he was the 5th Cardinal. Living in Vermont, we are fortunate to observe a pair of Cardinals...never have we seen 5 together at one time. To me this was my message from the other side.

Touch by An Angel

I was driving to the Jemez Mountains when I felt someone touching my leg. At first I brushed my leg thinking it was something else. I had an overwhelming feeling that someone who had passed to the other side was touching me.....But it did not feel like it was the spirit of anyone I had known that passed. The windows were up and there was no air conditioner on in the vehicle (nor heater), so it was not "wind" brushing on my leg. I was being touched by someone who had passed...I felt it strong and clear. When I arrived home the next day I received word from my dear friend's mother that he had passed. Then immediately I was overwhelmed with the "knowing" of who it was that touched me...It was him.

Family Love

My sister was killed in 1989. A few weeks after her death I had a dream that a good friend of my husbands, that had died a few years before my sister, was knocking at my front door. When I looked out to see who it was, I said to him, "You can't be here you are dead." Then in my dream I went back to bed. As I was laying there I heard someone throwing stones at my bedroom window. So I got up to look out the window and he was standing there under the street light looking up at me and said, " I just wanted to tell you that she is all right."

Then in 1998 my mother lay dying in the hospital, after a while she could not respond to me when I would talk to her. I would ask her to squeeze my hand, but she couldn't. I would tell her to go and be with my sister, that it was okay. Then she raised her hand and waved as if she saw someone at the foot of her bed. Fifteen minutes later she died. I believe that she saw her daughter that she had buried on that same day 9 years earlier.

Guardian Angels

First you must know that this story is completely true. Second I must tell you that when my dad was a child, about 8 or 9, 1 of his best friends parents had commit suicide in our back bathroom.

Well, it was a couple days after Christmas, December 27th, 1999 to be exact, and my mother was letting us kids have a little party where we would all exchange gifts. My friend Brittany, and my 2 cousins Caitlin and Anika were there as my guests, and my 2 twin brothers invited only their closest friend Tony.

It was great in the beginning, we all watched movies and exchanged our gifts while eating leftover Christmas cookies and food. We decided to go to bed after watching our last movie, Austin Powers, at about 1:00 am. Of course, being the girls that we are, we stayed up talking about guys for half a house before drifting off to sleep. My Mom had turned the heat up to 80 degrees so none of us would be cold, so we had little for blankets.

At 2:30 am, exactly an hour after we had all finally gotten to sleep, I woke up, and my room was FREEZING. I was all twisted in the blanket that had been over the 4 of us, shivering. I sat up and noticed that my light was on, and heard sobbing, so I went to see what it was. Anika was sitting just outside of my door crying. When I asked her what was wrong, she wouldn't tell me in front of everybody, so she took me into the bathroom. There she told me that she had seen a white figure walking through my room and had stopped when it saw her looking at it and started talking to her in a womanly voice, but it was too blurry to hear. Anika was so scared she called her mother and had her come pick her up. Caitlin and I had both woken up after Anika, but Brittany was still sleeping. We tried to wake her up to tell her to come into the living room, being afraid to stay in my bedroom, but she wouldn't budge, so Caitlin and I covered her up with extra blankets, and went to the living room.

We woke up the next morning and watched The Haunting, when something in my head said clear as a bell 'Go check your window, check on Brittany.' Something must have been said to Caitlin also because we both looked at each other and darted for my room. It was even colder than before and in the dark of the morning (we woke up at 5 and couldn't sleep again) we saw a bluish tinted light hovering over Brittany and unlike when we had left, my window was wide open along with the curtains and the blind. I don't know why this happened with her but it did, so we woke her up and she started coughing and brought her to the living room.

New Years passed and all my friends and relatives were still kind of scared to sleep over at my house, but less then before. On January 6th, I stayed home from school. I didn't have much wrong with me, but I had a sinking depressed and distressed feeling in my stomach all day. I was panicky and couldn't sleep the whole night, so I just took the day off.

I didn't finally start to drift off to sleep until about 7 PM, but then I smelled smoke. The panic feeling instantly set back in and I darted up and saw flames rising from the back of our dryer. I ran down the stairs when I heard screaming, and saw smoke filling the basement. I could hear Devon screaming still, so instead of going back up, I went down to get him. Well, the other twin, Derek, didn't know we were down there and he closed the door, blocking off any oxygen source we had. I finally saw Devon, he was OK, but panicked, as was I. My thoughts swerved and I threw up all over the floor from the mix of all my feelings.

Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, a blast of air hit my face as my Mom opened the door and said 'if anyone is down here, you need to come up,' and Devon and I could NOT move. We were almost frozen, shaking and coughing not knowing what to do. Just then, it felt like someone was carrying me up the stairs. I looked below myself and couldn't see that anyone was touching me, but I quickly grabbed Devons hand. My legs were bent as I had fallen down, but my knees weren't touching the stairs as I was carried up them, dragging my brother behind me.

We all got out of the house safely, and went to stay with Anika. We wondered if what she had seen on December 27th was trying to warn us that something would happen, and wondered if the ghost she had seen had also been the one responsible for the reason my brother and I are still alive. My grandfather died a few days later, and the only thing my mother could think above the sadness what the fact that she was only picking out one coffin instead of 3.

But that is not the only experience we've had with something helping us. Last winter, almost the EXACT date, my father, who is a VERY heavy sleeper, woke up to the faintest of beeping noises. He went down the stairs to the basement, once again, to see that our carbon monoxide detector had been going off, and it was at 127. He quickly got us out of the house, but none of my family would have been here right now if something hadn't of woken him up.

It is now October, and we haven't been helped by our guardian ghost, but every now and then when you are by the back bathroom, she likes to flick the lights on and off a few times ... probably just to let us know that she's still with us.