Dearly Departed and Phone lines: Spooky

A few years back, in a post I can no longer find, I related a strange story:

A friend’s mother had passed away after a long illness. Now, her illness began with a stroke she had suffered mere weeks after retiring from her job as a civil servant. The stroke left her without speech. She could say “Merry Christmas,” and used that whenever she wished you well (and really, what a wonderful wish for anyone, anytime), and she could say, “good, good, good, good,” which was her usual response to most things. But when she was very glad, for instance, when she was happy to see you after a long absence, she would say, “1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,” with a big smile on her face.

She was saying, “I am happy; this is the best thing; it’s great.”

It’s a one.

A few weeks after her death, her grieving son was driving home from visiting his sister, and it was the wee small hour of the morning. As he drove, he talked aloud to his mother, telling her how much he missed her, and adding, wistfully, “I wish I could know you were happy…”

At that bizarre hour, his beeper went off, and when he lifted it, he read: “1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1”

This morning, I heard that our friend’s father passed away, at age 83, and I called her to condole. As she described what the past few hours had been like for her, she went into perhaps more detail than she would normally, and suddenly, the phone call was interrupted.

Silence on my end; I couldn’t hear a word she was saying, and called, “hello, hello?”

And then suddenly she was back, and she said, “I have no idea what just happened…”

I joked, “perhaps your dad did not want you telling me what you were about to say?”

“He probably would not have wanted you to hear what I was saying,” she agreed. “Oh, my gosh, that’s weird!”

Reminding her of the episode with the beeper and her brother, I said, “your parents are SPOOKY with telephones.”

She laughed. I hope she was able to get some sleep, later on.

When my father died, I had dreams, often, at the beginning that he was calling me on the phone, talking to me over the phone lines.

There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

But then again, “we believe in the communion of saints.”