Seeing Dead People at Funerals

It was in my 20s that I started having to attend funerals and viewings.  That whole death circus thing we do in western society is so odd to me and was to me then.  Well, actually then it was more creepy and morbid and horrendously sad.  Now it's odd.  The first dead person I saw attending his own funeral was a very much loved and respected member of the church family.  Stand-up kind of man, great dad, loving hubby, someone everyone liked and respected.  He died from a terminal illness in middle age, really a hard kind of a loss for family and friends alike because of his dynamic personality and charm.

The viewing was difficult enough.  Emotional energies were off the chart, as was to be expected, and the snarky gossipy stuff going on in people's heads was too!  That's another story for another time, trust me, it's a hoot!  Back to the viewing.  I kept thinking I was seeing a human shape moving through the room, but, being in such a situation, it's really difficult to turn to another person in the line to ask, "Hey, did you just see that dead person moving around the room? Or, was I just imagining things?"  Granted it would probably be the topic of conversation for a while outside the funeral home, but, definitely not the type of thing one says in "polite company" at a viewing.  Long story short, I felt cold breezes in the room, and was really beginning to believe that I was seeing someone moving about like they were visiting with the mourners and the family.   Because the hour was late I paid my respects and left, not wanting to stay longer so I could avoid my inevitable question about the "phantom" I kept seeing to some poor unsuspecting person at the funeral home.

At the funeral the next day, held in the funeral home, there was a very large crowd of people, occupying all the folding chairs and standing respectfully around the room.  The family entered and took their places at the front of the room nearest the casket.  The church organist played beautiful music this man loved in life, his family spoke of his life and their love for him, and, then it happened - the dearly departed walked through the door to the room where the service was being conducted, walked straight down the aisle, kissed his wife on the top of her head, hugged his daughter, patted his sons on their backs, walked over to the casket to stare at his own corpse, shook his head at that sight, turned walked back up the aisle, waved hello to me because I could see him, then left the room and faded away into nothingness.  Just walked out and faded away.  Snap! Just like that!  He paid his farewells to his family and left "POOF!"


It was weird, wonderful, confusing, and fascinating all in one breath.  The first time I had seen a dead person that I knew personally since my sister died all those years before.  Proof positive to me that "we" exist after the demise of the skin suit we put on every day and proof positive that those who die are "whole" the moment after their deaths because this man had been quite ill before he past and the spirit that walked into that room was healthy, robust and full of love and zest for his next role.

Seeing dead people at funerals doesn't always happen for me, but, when it does, it usually teaches me something or provides me with messages about life after death that I needed to learn for my existence in my own skin suit. 

I have more stories about dead people at funerals.  I'll share them with you eventually.  But, for now, this is the most important one.  The very first of many dead people out of the casket and walking around among the living before the funeral ever started.

Growing Up Weird

Well, we have established that I grew up a bit differently than a lot of other kids my age.  I talked to my dead sister, I heard thoughts eminating from other peoples' minds.  I saw people who were dead...   and I saw and felt things that weren't physically there.  Not things like a chair, or a book, or even a person.  No, nothing normal like that.  I mean like clouds of emotions, the presence of "something" other that what was physically present in the room with me - with the family - with friends.  I felt and saw"stuff" just like you could reach out and put your hand on it, felt and saw stuff.

We lived in a really neat house.  There was a gas fireplace in the living room, a landing at the top and bottom of the staircase that went upstairs, a great porch with a porch swing out front, a creepy walk-in attic, a cozy kitchen, a spooky basement and the dining room had a great big window you could stand at and see the entire back yard.  It was an awesome house.   I have such fond memories of that house.  My first memory of seeing and feeling something no one else saw was in that house.  It was the day of my sister's  funeral.  Back in the 1950's kids didn't go to funerals.  It just wasn't done.  So, my dear Granma babysat the 3 of us - my brother, my new baby sister and myself.  It is a clear distinct memory for me.  Granma was standing at the dining room window looking outside at the backyard and telling my baby sister about the birds at the bird feeder and the clouds and all the kinds of things one tells a baby.  Moving from the living room into the dining room to talk to Granma, I saw a HUGE black semi-transparent cloud filling the room behind her and the baby. It felt icky and heavy and really sad. When I asked her "Granma, what is that?" pointing at the by now GIGANTIC cloud of darkness, she looked at me with the most puzzled face and asked me what I was looking at.  "That's a cardinal.  This one is a sparrow," she told me thinking I was asking about the birds.  When I protested that I wasn't asking about the birds, she asked me what I was talking about.  "The cloud, Granma, the cloud.  What is it?"  Thinking it was the fluffy white ones floating in the sky outside, she proceeded to try to explain to a not quite 6 year old about real clouds.  "NO!!!!! The one behind you, going all over the room!!!!"  "There is no cloud.  I don't see what you are talking about," she patiently explained.  "But, Granma, there's a great big black cloud in the room I can see through!!!!"  "Sweetheart, Granma doesn't see it.  But, if you do, well, I guess you do," and off she went to change my sister's diaper.  Just like that.  Basically, it was like she lovingly "humored" her granddaughter because she herself didn't see or feel what I had seen and felt. 

That evening, after the funeral, when Mom and Dad came home, Granma told them about me asking about a dark cloud in the dining room.  She told them she thought it was probably just a trick of the light coming through the windows in the dining room and that it was nothing to worry about, just me grieving the death of the sister I adored and tried to entertain whenever I could.  How do I know this you ask.  Well, having missed my folks all day, I snuck down the staircase after I was put to bed to listen to them talking to Granma. I just needed to hear their voices to feel comforted that they were home. They were in the dining room and their voices were easily heard from the staircase in the living room.  It struck me that then that what I saw was something that the grown-ups thought was weird, unusual, odd - whatever.  Not even 6 years old and feeling weird, feeling different from the rest of the world because I saw and felt a dark cloud that no one else saw or believed that I really saw and felt. 

Weird continued on from that day.  That was the night Lis started talking to me at bedtime.  That was the day that I started perceiving emotions and the ways they can manifest themselves in a household.  That was the day that I knew in my heart of hearts that I was always going to be considered a bit weird, different, odd or whatever.  It scared the crap out of me to be that different.  It was exciting to be that weird, but, it hurt that no one believed me...  or, as I found out many years later, that they believed me, but didn't want to say so out loud.  My folks were too busy trying to maintain normalcy in the household and grieving privately to have time for a kid who saw things, felt stuff, heard people that weren't there...  they didn't have the time, energy or inclination for me to be "weird".  I didn't understand why I was having all of these things happen to and with me.  They didn't understand or have the patience to either.  We were a mess.  I was growing more weird by the day.  None of us knew what to do with me...              and it stayed that way for a long time.

My sister died and I became psychic

I've been trying to come to grips with the fact that I am a "psychic" for quite a long time now. Actually, most of my life would be more like it. I hear people who are not physically present. I smell smells that no one else smells. I feel the presence of the dearly departed and of spirit guides, angels and others. Using the word "psychic" to describe myself is a concept so foreign to me that it might as well come from the planet Uranus because "psychics" are those folks who do the lecture circuits and help police solve murders and mysteries - not me.

I am the oldest of 3 the surviving kids my parents raised. One sister died before I was 6 years old.  She was born with a tumor that turned out to be a then incurable form of cancer, Wilm's tumor.  She was the dearest, sweetest little sister a kid could have.  I remember her as a special angelic girl. She was also horribly sick for most of her life as I remember it.  When she died we kids were told that Lis went to live with Jesus and God in heaven and that we had to be very good children so we could live there with her after we died when we were much older.  I asked my folks several times why I had to wait to see her when I knew she was with us and trying to talk to us every day.  That went over like the proverbial lead balloon.  My butt sat in a chair in the corner for several hours over a period of days for that thought.  It was a truth, but, still, not something either of them wanted to here, let alone learn that I was experiencing it.

What really got me into trouble though, was my insistence that Lis was visiting me at night after I had been put to bed and told to go to sleep.  She really was coming to visit me.  I saw her.  I hugged her.  I laughed with her and sat talking on the bed with her from about 3 days after her death till she told me she wouldn't be coming back to visit any more because she had to move on.  For those of you curious as to how long she visited - 42 days - 6 weeks - the time it takes to go through the Buddhist Bardo of Becoming - that's how long she visited me every night.  That is also how long my parents would swat my backside once or twice and tell me for the 2nd or 3rd time to "hush and go to sleep for cryin' out loud already!"  Daddy told me once he did see her - one time - but, that I needed to stop saying that I was talking to her because Mom was so upset at her death my talking about seeing Lis was tearing Mom apart.  Mom never did see her.  Nor did she think it was a good idea to be sitting up on the bed every night talking to Lis about death, dying, what both of them felt like to experience, what it was like in heaven, what I would be when I grew up, and the fact that I would be something special to many people and be able to help them just by being myself.  That last bit didn't make sense to me then.  I'm still trying to figure that out all these years later.

So, to put it plainly.  I wasn't even 6 years old yet and my sister died.  I became aware that I was psychic.  It's an odd combination.  But it was just that.  She died and I became what I am now, psychic.