Embracing the Spirits: True Stories of My Encounters With the Other Side (20 page)

immeasurable peace.

For those who cross prematurely like Nigel, where there

will always be some regret for their actions; no matter how

inevitable choosing to die felt at the time. Once physical-

ity is taken out of the equation, the spirit gains clarity, seeing beyond the immediate pain which lead to their physical death.

A moment after this photo was taken, Nigel delightedly

smashed the snowball over his sister’s head!

164 The Interactions of Others

With this broadened perspective comes a sense of one-

ness; whereby the spirit becomes very much aware of their

loved ones’ pain. It is these souls who try so very hard to get through, to show their families that they are still around and the love between them will never die.

So in Nigel’s case, he was indeed very lucky to have a sis-

ter who is in tune with the spirit world. Both Nigel and

Nikki were sensitive enough to offer each other comfort, by

acknowledging that they were still very much a part of each

other’s lives.

And for those who perhaps aren’t as in tune to the spirit

presences around them, rest assured that your loved ones

remain close despite their physical deaths. So if you have even the slightest inkling that your loved one is around, be sure to acknowledge them: say hello, tell them that you know they

are there and that you love them. If you are wrong and they

weren’t there at the time, no harm done.
But
if your loved one was indeed paying you a visit, you would have just given them

the greatest gift imaginable.

Fire!

It seems that my friend Nikki is by no means alone with her

spiritual experiences, as evidenced by the story she told me

about her good friends, the St Clair’s …

For the most part, the spirit world is subtly enmeshed

within our own; its occupants mingling unobtrusively among

us. There are times however that spirits see fit to manifest, or produce physical effects which leave no doubt as to their presence.

Their motivations for tangibly interacting with the living

vary as widely as the spirits themselves. Some spirits may be

The Interactions of Others 165

trying to offer comfort by showing themselves to their loved

ones. Or perhaps they are simply providing proof of their

survival. Less benevolent presences may have more sinister

motives; and create disturbances to deliberately incite fear. In these instances, the ghostly manifestation may be an expression of unhappiness, confusion or in extreme cases, rage.

And as was the case with the St Clair family, a spirit may

appear in order to deliver a well-intentioned warning. You’d

have thought that living in a three hundred and fifty year old house, one would expect it to have its ghosts. Despite the

unexplained noises and disembodied footsteps, Vincent and

Anouk refused to acknowledge that their house could be

haunted. They were grounded by their busy home and work

lives, with little time left to entertain the possibility of ghosts.

Their three children however were more sensitive to the

presences which lingered within its walls, particularly young

Camille. The St Clairs’ youngest daughter had no doubt that

their home was haunted.

In addition to the unexplained noises, Camille was pro-

vided with further proof of the ghostly presence. One evening

during dinner, she saw a figure materialise across the room. It peered at the family through the glass of their large aquarium, scrutinising them as they ate. By the time Camille was able to absorb the vision before her, the ghostly presence had gone.

Despite her insistence that she had just seen a ghost,

Camille’s parents remained skeptical. It would take more than

a child’s supposed glimpse of an apparition to convince them

to think otherwise.

Not long after the dinner-time visit, the St Clairs awoke

to find a candle mysteriously burning in the kitchen. Since

the old house was largely constructed of wood, Vincent had

166 The Interactions of Others

banned the children from using candles in the house. He was

paranoid that their beautiful home would burn down.

The children were rounded up and quizzed as to who had

broken the cardinal house rule, but they all insisted that they would never have been so irresponsible. They were well versed

in the risks of living in an old wooden house.

Over the course of the next two weeks lit candles began

appearing all over the house, usually first thing in the morn-

ing. Even more unnervingly, the St Clair’s were also frequently greeted by the burning candles when returning home after an

outing.

Unable to comprehend the mysteriously appearing can-

dles, and deeply anxious about the associated fire risk, the St Clairs spoke to their neighbours. They wondered if they had

been playing tricks on them. Or perhaps someone was trying

to scare them and had been sneaking into their house.

The neighbours insisted they knew nothing and the mys-

tery deepened.

Of some comfort amongst the disturbing, inexplicable

events, was the fact that the candles always seemed to be carefully placed out of harm’s way. They would most commonly

appear in the upstairs bathroom, well away from anything

that could possibly catch light. On many occasions the can-

dles were placed in the bathtub. It all began to feel increasingly odd.

By now the candles had spontaneously appeared no less

than twenty times over the course of two weeks, and the fam-

ily were beginning to feel frightened. Whilst the energy in

their home didn’t feel negative, there was an unmistakeable

heaviness which seemed to be pervading their home. Antic-

The Interactions of Others 167

ipating the next burning candle seemed to have put them

increasingly on edge.

As much as the St Clairs longed for peace and normality,

further strangeness was on it’s way.

Whilst running a few errands in the city, Anouk was

approached by an dishevelled-looking vagrant. He insisted on

giving her a playing card, which happened to be the nine of

Spades. Uncomprehending, Anouk looked up at the man as he

spoke.

“You will be in luck,” he told her. “The nine of spades

brings luck and good fortune.”

He looked at Anouk meaningfully and then hurriedly

walked away.

Anouk dismissed the man as an oddball and swiftly forgot

about the card.

The following day was a Sunday, and the St Clairs were

uncharacteristically going out. Sundays were usually reserved

for quiet family time; a peaceful respite from the chaos of the working week. But friends had invited them out for dinner, so

they decided to break their stringent Sunday routine and enjoy a family outing.

What happened next would change their lives forever.

Neighbours told them that no more than ten minutes after

they left, a massive explosion tore through their house. In no time at all, the St Clairs beloved home was engulfed in ever-mounting flames. There was no chance of saving their beauti-

ful old house; it was razed within minutes.

Had the St Clair’s been home, they would have undoubt-

edly perished.

Of course their first thought was that their fears had been

realised and that the randomly appearing candles had been

168 The Interactions of Others

responsible for the fire. The family’s devastating sense of loss was intensified by a feeling of dread. It seemed as though the presences in their home had been hell-bent on destroying

them.

It was only once the source of the fire was determined that

they were forced to think otherwise. The subsequent investi-

gation confirmed that the fire was the result of a faulty heater in the upstairs bathroom. It appeared that an electrical short circuit had caused the devastating explosion. Interestingly, the lit candles had most often appeared in this very bathroom,

prompting the St Clairs to radically change their way of thinking.

The way the candles had been placed out of harm’s way

was particularly telling; they had never been left where they

could set something else alight. It seemed their silent benefactor had been trying to warn them all along.

It was some weeks later that Anouk chanced upon the

strange man in the city; the one who had given her the suppos-

edly lucky card. She approached him without hesitation.

“The day after you gave me your card my family lost every-

thing in a house fire,” she said. “I thought you said I’d be in luck!”

The man looked bemused.

“And so you were,” he replied.

“How can that be lucky?” she asked.

“You all lived, didn’t you?”

And that’s when the full-force of the past few weeks struck

her; her family
were
incredibly lucky. Not only did they all survive a potential tragedy, Anouk was filled with the conviction that they were indeed blessed. Not least because their family

The Interactions of Others 169

had a ghostly protector; who determinedly tried to warn them

as the imminent explosion loomed.

These days Vincent and Anouk are much more accept-

ing of the reality of spirits; after what had transpired it was impossible to think otherwise. They felt indebted to their persistent ghostly protector and now think of the mysteriously

appearing candles fondly. So much so that as they settled into their new home, they couldn’t help hoping that their previous

home’s unseen occupant had come along with them.

The White Dove

Spirit contact with deceased loved ones is more common than

most people think. Death does not sever the bonds of love

which unite family and friends, and the emotions which con-

nect us during life remain just as strong after our loved ones have passed.

Spirit visitations are not always outwardly obvious, and

quite often cause us to question whether we experienced them

at all. They may be so subtle that we miss them altogether,

no doubt causing no end of frustration for the spirit folk trying to make contact. They may take the form of dreams or

synchronicities, or may be as tangible as a familiar smell suddenly wafting into a room. Some spirits are able to manifest

even more substantially, creating physical disturbances to let us know that they’re there. Some even hurl photographs of

themselves off walls or mantle pieces … a sure-fire way of garnering some attention!

In many instances, spirits employ the use of signs and sym-

bols in order to make themselves known to us. They may, for

instance, repeatedly show us significant words or numbers,

often enough for us to rule out the possibility of coincidence.

170 The Interactions of Others

After my friend, Maureen’s father passed away, she kept see-

ing a car with the numberplate
DADDY.
Of course at first she thought it to be little more than a fluke. But as the days went by and she kept repeatedly seeing the same car in the middle

of a busy highway, she came to accept that the ever-present

numberplate was a sign from her dad.

Another friend also had the privilege of being on the

receiving end of a post-death visit from her father. Fortunately for Lesley, she was in tune enough to pick up on the perti-nent signs and symbols, leaving no doubt whatsoever that her

beloved dad was close by.

Lesley’s father, Wilfrid was not quite eighty when he suf-

fered a debilitating stroke. Although he lived for another four years, the stroke precipitated the onset of vascular dementia, which saw his mental state steadily deteriorate over the coming years. After enduring a relentless decline in both his mental and physical health, by his eighty fourth birthday, Wilfrid’s body had begun to shut down.

As Lesley and her family surrounded Wilfrid’s bed, their

emotions were running high. By now entirely immobile, Wil-

frid was enveloped in the love of his family as they honoured what was to be his very last birthday.

By the time Lesley returned home that evening, she was an

emotional wreck.

“I just sat on the edge of my bed and couldn’t stop cry-

ing,” Lesley told me. Despite Wilfrid being unwell for so many years, she felt unready to let him go. She still felt ill-prepared, and asked her guides and guardian angels to give her a sign

to warn her when Wilfrid’s death was imminent. Unsure why,

she asked them to show her a white dove. Perhaps it was an

uplifting image which signified love and freedom, a positive

The Interactions of Others 171

symbol to counteract the bleak pall of death which lay wait-

ing on the sidelines.

A week after Wilfrid’s bedside birthday gathering, his wife

and daughters had congregated at his nursing home once

again. After a lengthy visit, Lesley and her sisters decided to make their way home. A spur of the moment decision saw

them take a slight detour, in order to take in some of the local Christmas lights. Since it was December 17th and they felt

anything but festive, the sisters hoped that the lights would

perhaps stir up some Christmas cheer.

Lesley was particularly taken with one beautifully-dec-

orated house just around the corner from her own. It was

adorned with all manner of beautiful decorations, the most

striking of which was a beautiful white dove. It sparkled with hundreds of tiny white and gold lights, the very sight of which took her breath away. It was only later that evening that its significance suddenly dawned on her; the dove was the sign she