This weekend I found out why my youngest son sleeps in his father's Kingsize bed when he could be sleeping in his own double bed, in his own huge bedroom and it has nothing to do with the slight differences in the sizes of their beds.

          In fact my son put it very plainly and simply, when his said, "...because the lady that sits in that chair ... all night scares me, and the only one that comes into daddy's room is that man... "  This was so ordinary to him that he never even looked up from his Nintendo DS or stopped moving his thumbs in rapid succession.

          Oh, right.  Silly me.  I mean...of course...the lady, the man.  Truthfully, to the casual observer, their father lives alone.  "Honey, can you tell me what the lady looks like?"

          "Yea," still playing the video game, "she looks a little like you."

          At that point, my older son piped up and explained that he thought he saw someone who might have been the same woman.  He explained that if it was, she has been hanging out there for years.  He had remembered seeing her as far back as when he was about four or five.  He remembered she used to stand in his doorway by the paper-plate spider that hung from the top of the doorway.  Then he told me that sometimes he would even call my name at night, thinking it was me, then give up when "I" didn't respond.

          So, this must be a great grand parent of the boys?  My oldest has been doing this easily for as long as he can remember?  I continue to be astounded at the ease with which they both handle the onslaught of images and information they receive.  My oldest son sometimes describes it like a conference that he has to tune out.  Sometimes I wonder what possesses me to reassure them.  Who am I after all.   I mean really, they are handling this gift with such finesse.  But...it is all they know.

Keeping Cool

     
          Somewhere in the middle of my tossing and turning last night I heard a whispered, "Mom, mom.  Can you tuck me back in?"

          "What time is it?" I mumbled.  I can tell that from where I sit now, I'm not sure I was even totally awake at that point, but I do remember him pushing aside some things on my nightstand to see the time.

          "Almost 3.  Oh, and there's been glowing orbs in my room again."  I could see him now, illuminated by the brightness of the digital numbers on the clock.  He stood by my bed surveying the room, much the same way an eagle surveys the land below, his head moving slowly back and forth.  I assumed he was seeing something, but I don't always ask.  Honestly, I don't always want to know.

          "OK, honey, let's go."  He padded down the hall skillfully as if he'd been up for hours, while I, on the other hand, stumbled down the hall toward his room as if I had just staggered home from the local bar.  Noticing that the bathroom light was still on, I made a beeline to the left, shut the light off, and then headed into his room.

          He had already fixed his covers and arranged the cat in his favorite spot.  My son met me at the foot of his bed and gave me a hug.  "They're right behind you, mom," he whispered into the dimly lit room.

          Again, I realize now that had I not still been in my sleep-induced fog I might have panicked.  My body might have immediately released the adrenaline required for a fight or flight response.  But I was a bit sleepy, so I casually responded with a "Who, honey?"

          "The glowing orbs, mom.  I guess it's Pop Pop and your Gram. They are right behind you."

          I didn't panic.  I simply told him that it was peaceful to know that they were keeping such a close watch over us.

          "I hope it didn't hurt their feelings."

          "How?"

          "Because I tried talking to them and asked if they were angels or spirits."

          Right or wrong, I told him of my assumption that his inquiry was not the kind that would have upset them.  That they were far more forgiving than we could imagine.  I tucked him in and returned to my room to toss and turn some more, thankful for the normality of my life.

          Sweet dreams to you and yours, here and there...

Spirits and Guides and Orbs, Oh My.

          Ok, so let's talk about that sleep that I cherish so much but get so little of.  Before we do that, since misery loves company, would you be so kind as to shut down your computer or other reading device and log back in at some other more unreasonable hour to continue reading, like say...3am.
          Excellent, now I feel better.  Today we were all suffering from migraines (yes, we all get those too) because none of us got any sleep last night.  Was it a full moon, was there a major shift, or have we all "leveled up" (as my son calls it because that's what happens to the characters in his video games) our frequency?  Last night was a wild night.  For some reason I was up before midnight, and shortly after that the dog was looking to go out.  This by itself was fascinating because only hours before, she had stolen one of my son's melatonin pills off the counter.  Naturally, after recovering from my initial panic, I figured she would be out for the night.   Then there was the spiritually based experience of each of my sons that caused them to wonder in multiple times between the hours of two and five.  Sound like a regular night at your house?  Keep reading.
          I'll cut to the chase and get down to what really kept us up.  My son was being contacted by a number of people while he was trying to sleep last night.  While all warm and cuddled under his comforter, almost dozing off, he heard a man call his name.  Of course, being a polite young man,  my son replies, "What?", but he hears no response.  A little while later the same discourse occurs again, but this time it's a woman's voice calling his name.  According to my son, this goes on several more times over a few hours.  Occasionally, he's the call would be his name and at other times he's hear someone call "Boy".  Each time his reply when unanswered.  It frustrated him enough that he finally said, "Look, if you're not going to tell me what you want then I'm going to go back to sleep."  At that point, one of the voices, apparently reprimanding the others, yells "stop" and my son also picked up on a partial statement involving the word tormenting.  Feeling the need to debrief that conversation, that's when he came in to me with wake up Number 4.
          After we talked about it, we considered the possibility that these people might be his guides.  They are the same voices that he's heard before.  At other times they've called his name and asked him why he doesn't answer them.  That was several months ago.
          Knowing that this could go on all night, I prepared for additional wake ups.  Sure enough I was treated to a detailed description of what we believe to be a spirit who visited him and simply "checked in on him". He described it as very similar to the way the heat looks when it radiates off the grill in the summer:  kind of wavy.  "When I opened my eyes, it was sort of standing at the foot of my bed and then it floated, I guess, over to the edge of my bed where my night stand is. I could tell it was leaning over me."  Apparently, that's when he decided he had enough and he came in again complaining that he just couldn't sleep in there.  Obviously, I just couldn't sleep in here either.
          He was getting ready for school this morning when he mentioned off handedly, "Oh, yea.  Mom, those glowing balls or orbs or whatever were zooming around our room again last night too."  With that he headed out the door to school.  "Bye, mom!"
          Wait...again?   How often does that happen?  How many?  Was I the only one losing sleep over this, really?  Is this the way it is for him every night?
          As much as we talk, I always feel like we haven't talked enough.
          I still have questions.  Something tells me I'm going to always have questions.
          Deep breath.
       

Farm House Crossing

          It ebbs and flows, you know.  The ways in which my children experience life on the other side of the veil.  The way they can sometimes see auras, sense energies, and hear from the other side.  The way they vividly see the spirits of those long passed moving through the corridors of our house.  And sometimes they can only see faint images due to their developing gifts.  We have grown to take it all in stride.  The children share what they have seen and heard with the same blasé tone that would be given to the sharing of what they learned at school that day.  In short, my sons' abilities have become part of the fabric of our lives, my challenge is to trust without interpretation.
          Sleep is commodity around our house.  This is due to a number of reasons.  Many of which are related to the spiritual activity in the house, but the problem is deeply rooted in my oldest son's infancy, and although we've had a difficult  babyhood, each phase of life has had its sleep issues.  From bedwetting, to nightmares, to insomnia there has always been something.  During the time of this story, calling out my name in the middle of the night was the soup-du-jour.  Because of these sleep interruptions,  both of my children now understand the benefit of "mommy on coffee".  So when, some months ago, my oldest son caught me tiptoeing down the hall toward the percolating coffee pot, he understood that waiting was in order before recounting what he had experienced the night before.  I could smell the freshly brewed coffee from the stairs and could already feel its salvation.
          After pouring my first cup, I added a few extra drops of flavored creamer and sat down with the weekend's To Do list.  I was lost somewhere between 'groceries' and 'laundry' when my son announced himself by sock-sliding through two rooms and stopping neatly in front of me with the most angelic smile gracing his face.  "Mom?  Have you had your coffee yet?"  I smiled at his whisper.  I remembered how long it took to teach this young person about the sanctity of mornings.
          "Yes," I replied.  "What have you got for me today?"

          "Well, I saw someone in my room last night."

          It didn't take much coaxing for him to tell me about what had visited him the night before.  He told me that he saw a small woman or girl standing over by his brother's bed.  She was looking at his brother and he said that at first he thought she had short curly brown hair, and she was wearing a "flowered nightgown thing".  Then, when she turned to him, he could tell that she was really wearing her hair braided.  It was then that he could also see her mouth moving as if she was talking to him but he couldn't hear her.

          "After she turned and tried to talk to me, I couldn't believe that I could see her and everything about her that clearly and that's exactly what I thought.  I thought, I can't believe this.  I even saw her mouth moving!  I must have shouted it in my head because I think I scared her.  After I thought that, she went away."  On this occasion, his enthusiasm was overwhelming.  He wanted to help this girl, but didn't know what she was saying.

          I, on the other hand, was certain that he had seen my own grandmother, who was rather short at 4 foot 11, with short curly hair.  She also wore flowered nightgowns.  For me the case was closed, but since I had a laundry list of other topics to discuss with my dear friend and medium, I add this to the list and dropped him a text asking him to stop by.  That done I went on with my weekend.
         The next several nights before him came were restless to say the least.  The boys seemed to sleep well, but now I was having the most trouble.  No, it wasn't bedwetting, nightmares, or insomnia.  Rather, the boys were calling out my name over and over in the night.  I was beginning to question my own sanity when the calling out got to be loud and close that I literally whirled about in my bed expecting there to be someone yelling in my left ear.  Shaken, but seeing no one, I put myself back to sleep.  This went on for several nights.  I grew used to it, convincing myself that I was experiencing vivid dreams that were waking me up.
          Well, our friend arrived several days later.  Surprisingly, shortly into his first cup of coffee, he announced that he was being pulled upstairs by a very excited energy.  Naturally, we followed expecting him to make a beeline into the room that the boys shared.  Instead, I rounded the bend at the bottom of the stairs to find him turning the door knob of my room.  Gulp.  Spirits in my kids' room was one thing, but this was getting just a bit too close now.  Was he serious??
          When I hit the top landing, I heard him telling my son, "Someone stands here each night watching."  My dad, I thought.  My friend was standing at the foot of my bed, looking down as if forming the image of footprints in my carpet.  As muted sunlight pushed its way through my shades, he went on and with every word I changed my ideas about who was watching.   "It's a young woman.  She has brown braided hair.  She is wearing one of those flowered farm dresses.  She kneels down a lot."  He demonstrated by kneeling down on one knee.  "Oh, she has a little girl with her.  That's why she kneels often."  After a long pause, "This has nothing to do with your house, but rather the land.  There was once a farm house on this land in the early 1900's.  There was a fire and this mother and child passed in the fire.  The father was not home.  These two people are looking for help because they don't realize that they've died in the fire.  They're confused.  I'm going to take a few minutes with them and see if I can cross them over."
          At that point, my son and I exchanged knowing glances.
          When our friend was done, he answered a lot of our questions.  He told us he was successful in crossing these two people over.  The mother was a bit apprehensive about crossing over, but the young girl was quite excited to go home; she was the one who was pulling our friend to come upstairs to help them.  Once the little girl crossed over, the mother followed.
          He also told us that the mother had tried to contact the boys several times.   In fact, she even tried talking to them and asking for help, but quickly realized that their gifts were not developed enough for them to hear her.  The little girl then turned her attention to me.  She tried to get my attention by calling out to me, "mom", "mama", and "mommy" over and over and louder and louder each night.  Because I was reacting, she knew I could hear her so she kept trying.
          My son and I were dumfounded.  This matched perfectly to his night-time visitation and my own sleepless pattern, but we hadn't had the conversation with our friend yet.  "Why me?"  I asked, my thick head growing even thicker.
          "They realized that they couldn't get through to your kids just yet, so they turned to you.  You have these gifts too...you just have to trust in yourself the same way you trust your children."
          I realized that not only do I have to trust in myself, I have to trust in my children just a little bit more.  When my son told me about that woman, I immediately tried to make it fit into something I knew:  my grandmother. I think this is a danger for anyone, especially when they are speaking with a medium.  I should have taken what my son told me without interpretation.   I also realized that I felt a bit sad that I wasn't going to have a little girl calling for me in the night anymore.  Even though she skipped happily on to her next phase, I missed her just a little.

Protective Energies

I have a good friend who tells me frequently that sometimes I am difficult to understand because I speak with too many idioms.  Having grown up under a rock, she sometimes has trouble figuring out what they mean. It can be quite comical, as she often takes them literally. I use this to preface the continuation of our story because each day when I pick up the boys, I always ask several loaded questions. The first, “Is your homework done?”, usually needs to be asked twice in order to ferret out the truth, which often requires parental skills in managing pediatric avoidance behaviors. The second question “Did you have any visitors today?”, sounds innocent enough, but I’ve learned to ask it because their gifts are developing so rapidly that they are beginning to feel like common place and the boys often forget to tell me.  On this particular day I heard something very different than the expected reply involving sightings of auras, relatives who have passed over or my childhood pets. I didn’t realize those would only be a drop in the bucket.  And so our story continues…

Seeing that it was time to hit the books, the three of us sat down at the kitchen table. The late afternoon sun was pushing itself through the blinds and leaving streaks across the table and floor. The light was just enough to brighten the room but not enough to warm a spot in the corner for Cat to lie. I was foolishly trying to assist with homework and the boys were successfully avoiding it. My younger son suddenly jumped up and turned on my I-pod.  In moments he was gyrating to Usher’s OMG. This is when I knew with a fair amount of certainty that I had lost control. I temporarily threw in the towel and went back to the drawing board. I decided to go back to something they actually found interesting.

“Did you have any visitors today?” I asked my oldest. He beamed at me with a  smile so big it seemed like it would burst off his face for lack of room. I took that as an affirmative and grabbed the nearest Post-it pad ready to take notes.  Soon I was the one being tutored.  My son described a series of experiences with bright shining ball-shapes of light.  He said that one appeared to be sitting in the chair next to him at school, waiting for him in the boys bathroom, and even hanging out at the afterschool program.   In hindsight, the amazement on my face must of resembled the same expression on Richard Dreyfuss’ face during his first encounter in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  I felt a combination of astonishment and respect.

 “I was in the bathroom today and while I was washing my hands, I saw a glowing light out of the corner of my eye.  It was over by the door.  It wasn’t just a ball of light. It had points on it, like it was so shiny.” he said.  “I think it was the same bright light that was sitting in the chair next to me in reading class today, too.” 

 I knew he wasn’t joshing me, so immediately the lioness in me roared into action and began barraging him with a series of questions designed to set my mind at ease.  They consisted of questions like Was it a white light?  How did it make you feel?  Did you speak to it?  Did it speak to you?  Satisfied with the responses, I let him continue.

“Then after school I saw a glowing sort of person-shaped thing.  It was sort of standing, I guess, over by the desk.  I think…I don’t know…it’s hard to explain.” 

I listened intently, trying to make sure I understood.  I had to admit that each time we had conversations like this, which was frequently now, I felt both elation and envy.  I was so honored to be a part of such a miraculous process, to be chosen to raise these children, but I was also a little envious; part of me wanted to see just a little bit of what he could see.

He continued with patience, “When I saw that, an image of Pop Pop jumped into my head, so I thought that it might be Pop Pop following me around today.  Do you think so?”

While I didn’t particularly know for sure, I did remember that earlier in the week I had a conversation with our medium friend about the physical and spiritual protection of the boys.  I wanted to be sure that with all of the things they were hearing, seeing, and generally experiencing, that they were safe.  I also spent a little time talking to my mom and my late dad about the same topic.  Then something occurred to me: Over the years, I’ve learned that each living thing vibrates at a certain frequency.  I’ve also learned that thoughts and actions also vibrate at a certain frequency.  Fundamental physics teaches us that ‘like attracts like’ and that holds true all over the Universe.  When I began focusing energy in the form of thought and conversation on their protection, is it possible I helped to bring that to them.   I don’t know if they were family spirits or angels, but I do believe they were positive, protective energies.  After all, what negative energy would care enough to follow the boy into the bathroom?  Only a loving being would do that.

Until next time…breathe deeply, and see only positive.