One could call me a dabbler in the spooky. Instead of running away from things that go bump in the night, my curiosity gets the better of me, and I just have to investigate. Needless to say, I’ve amassed a plethora of ghost stories and head-scratchers in my day. I have a couple favorites that I’m compelled to share because to me they absolutely prove that we endure after death. Today, I’m going share my favorite. Buckle in because it’s a long one…
On a day just like any other, one of my coworkers, Stephanie, was complaining about how her stomach had been bothering her for the past couple days. We both didn’t think too much of it though. Perhaps it was something she ate? I suggested a bland diet for a few days and we both went about our business. The next day she texted our work group to tell us that she took her 90 year-old mother to the hospital and they were admitting her as well. She joked about them being “roomies” at Cayuga Medical. The following day she learned that they had found a large mass on her ovary so they set a date to remove it. She joked with us that she was being “spayed.” We’re in the animal field so using that terminology tickled all of our fancies. The very next day her kidneys and liver shut down. It happened so fast that medical staff were just not prepared. I’m guessing that tumor had pretty much strangulated and blocked everything nearby.
Steph passed away on November 25th, 2017. We were informed of her death by a coworker who just happened to see her obituary in the newspaper. It was all very surreal. We all thought it was a mistake. It had to be her mother who had passed, not the person who was texting us and cracking jokes the day before.
When someone dies that suddenly and you work so closely with them, it causes major whiplash. I was so accustomed to her presence in my life; eight hours a day, five days a week we existed only a feet away from each other. For so long, I just expected her to walk right through the door again. My subconscious didn’t get the memo that she was truly gone. It’s been several years and I still catch myself looking for her car in the parking lot at work. Needless to say, I took it hard and to make matters worse, it was very poorly handled at work, but that’s an issue for my therapist.
Fast forward a few months to July, 2018. My beloved senior dog, Petunia’s health was rapidly declining. She was suffering from a progressively worsening tracheal collapse and it was stealing her joy. I knew that her time was coming to a heartbreaking end so I set up an appointment to have her euthanized. The day before I took her in, we went for a walk around one of her favorite places, the Cornell Arboretum. There’s a special grove of trees there where I feel like the veil between worlds is paper thin. I go there when I want to speak with passed loved ones because I’m confident that they’ll easily get the message there. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. The place feels otherworldly. So I walked Petunia into the grove and I introduced her to the other side. I told them that she was on her way and that I’d like some of my loved ones to help her get to where she needs to be. I specifically called on Steph and my friend Chris. Both had passed recently so I figured they might be lingering closest to our plane of existence.
A month passed, Petunia was gone and I was generally moping through life. One day in August, at around 6 am, I had the strangest, most lucid, vibrant dream of Steph. She came to the lab to check up on things and then attended one of our staff meetings. No one else could see or hear her besides me but everyone trusted me when I told them that she was there. I acted as a spiritual translator of sorts during the meeting. Someone asked where she was at that very moment and we circled around Steph and hugged her incorporeal form. We all cried and it was just beautiful.
I told my manager about the dream and she noted that it makes sense that Steph was doing the rounds because she had just seen on Facebook that Steph’s family were about to embark on their yearly pilgrimage to Virginia beach. This is Steph’s absolute favorite moment of year and she spends about 6 months preparing the menus and itinerary for the trip. This vacation was serious business to her so it makes sense that she was visiting her work crew one last time before she went on vacation with her family. I thought all of this was such an interesting coincidence but put it out of my mind for the rest of the day.
The next morning, I received at text from my manager just after 6 am saying that she had the strangest dream about Steph and that she can’t wait to tell me about it. I hustled into work that morning, waiting with baited breath to hear all about it.
In the dream, Steph was in the lab, looking around. My manager asked her what she was doing there and she verified that she was just passing through and wanted to check in. Steph asked why I wasn’t in that day and my manager told her that I haven’t been the same since Petunia had passed. Steph told my manager to tell me that she had received my message. Steph came and got Petunia and delivered her to exactly where she needed to be. I immediately excused myself, called my mother and cried. My manager didn’t know that I had walked Petunia into the thin place and asked Steph for help. No one knew.
This made me question a strange Facebook message that I’d received about a month before from my friend Chris, who had passed away about a year earlier. I had seen the text before, when he was alive, but it just happened to randomly send again. At the time, I just excused it away assuming that it was just a Facebook glitch but in retrospect, I think it was his way of also telling me that he heard me that day in the thin place. That’s never happened to me before or since.
So that’s one of my many spooky stories. I hope you enjoyed it. There’s more to come!
The Unmaker 