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After Justin’s wake, one of my fraternity brothers, Al told a story about how he had been on his patio before dawn, lighting a smoker, and heard a whoosh sound. He was wearing a headlamp, and turned to see a huge owl, less than 10 feet away on a branch overhanging his patio. They stared at each other for over a minute, then the owl flew to the roof of the house and perched on the gutter for a few more minutes, peering at Al. It turns out that was the night Justin died, and I’m convinced that he was saying hello/goodbye to our good friend Al.

Of all the signs Justin has shown us, raptors (owls, hawks, eagles, osprey, etc.) have been the most spectacular. And we’ve seen a lot of them. I believe it’s safe to say that we’ve seen more hawks in the past four years than we did in the previous six decades.

Detractors might say that these birds have always been there, and we’re just noticing them more. There may be some truth to that, but Justin actually told us to watch for hawks through two different mediums.

One may wonder how it’s possible for spirit to show us signs through intelligent creatures like hawks. Perhaps it’s because they can control at least two things:

1. Hawks are just following their instincts, soaring around aimlessly until they spot something of interest. So, it’s likely that spirit can get inside the bird’s head and convince it to zig instead of zag at the right time.
2. Similarly, people don’t have an exact plan all the time. So one could imagine that spirit might direct our gaze while we’re driving (or walking). They can also influence our departure times and speed.

This results in us looking in the right direction at the right time for a raptor to come soaring or swooping nearby. Perhaps letting out a call to get our attention.

For us, these haven’t been mere sightings. Frequently the birds have gotten right up in our face. I can comfortably say to detractors that we’d definitely remember seeing that before. Here are just a few examples:

Justin’s girlfriend, Melissa told us that Justin once pointed out a bald eagle at Walden Pond. He told her about how you can recognize them from the white head and tail. Months later, when Melissa was driving to VT to help us spread Justin’s ashes, she started wondering if she’d recognize a bald eagle if she saw one.  Just then, one flew directly in front of her car.

In the summer of 2019, Justin’s cousin, Becky got married (to Ian) in Bristol RI, near Narraganset Bay. During the vows, an osprey (aka sea hawk) circled directly over their heads. It was so thrilling that Ceri pointed it out to her sister, Megan, and even Justin’s brother, Ray commented on it after the ceremony.  A few months later, Ceri was driving to the grocery store thinking about that incident, and a hawk swooped down and flew in front of her car.

After pulling into our driveway in February 2020, Ceri saw the shadow of a big bird on the ground. When she looked up to see what it was, a hawk swooped down between her car and the house (a gap of less than 10 feet), and circled right above her so she could see it through her moon roof.

Ceri and I had scheduled Justin’s second memorial pool tournament in April 2020, but needed to postpone due to Covid. So instead, we hung out with our neighbors, Anne and Dan Ferguson on the cul-de-sac (aka circle) between our houses. Just before 4:00, when the tournament was originally scheduled to begin, a hawk soared low right over our heads.

A month later, we again met Anne and Dan on the circle. And when their son, Mark arrived two falcons flew over, and then a hawk. The hawk later soared directly over our heads and circled a few times. Mark and Justin had been friends when they were younger, so this display seemed appropriate.

After one of our Covid lunches with the Fergusons, Dan and I drove to West Acton Creamery to pick up ice cream for everyone. After we parked, I saw a hawk flying right down the middle of the road (Rt. 111) at eye level. This was in the center of town, and it couldn’t have been more than 20 feet away from us. I even had time to point it out to Dan, and we watched it fly by, swoop up, and land on a telephone pole next to our car.

Ceri and Ray were on our back deck on Father’s Day of 2020, and a hawk flew across the yard, straight at them, about eight feet off the ground. It changed directions at the last second, and soared into the woods. I was just coming outside, so I missed it, but I heard the gasps of excitement.

Justin’s cousin Miles snapped the picture of the hawk perched on the Holden St. sign used for this post, remembering that Melissa used to say Justin was her Holden Caulfield (from “The Catcher in the Rye”).

Introduction:

I’m starting to realize that spirits¹ aren’t like genies in a bottle, waiting around to do our bidding. They have their own thing going on, whether it’s reviewing their life, preparing for their next life, or going through a cycle of deep learning². But if and when they choose, they have the ability to make things happen in our world, which we typically call signs.

When Justin first reverted (back to spirit), we experienced signs quite frequently. We’d smell his cologne, and cigarette smoke several times a day. We’d hear noises upstairs in his room, like footsteps and thumping (as if he was getting out of bed or sitting down at his desk). And he’d play a game with my wife, where she’d hang a bathroom towel against the right end of the rod, and later find it moved one inch to the left (with no one else in the house). She’d push it back against the end, and the next day it would be moved again. 

About a month after Justin reverted, one of our cats stood on his hind legs for over a minute, which he’d never done before. It seemed like he was staring at something we couldn’t see³ (as if Justin was playing with him). A few months later, we asked about it through a medium, Chuck King, and Justin said, “yep, that was me.”

Chuck also told us that Justin is in the house a lot, “he wants to make sure we don’t forget him”, and that he’ll let us know when he’s around. Then Justin jokingly asked if we “wanted him to flick the lights again.” I then remembered that I’d recently seen the lamp over our couch dim briefly. Even though that tends to happen when our furnace kicks on, I suspected it was him because I was really close to the bulb at the time, and it felt special. The following father’s Day, I was playing chess⁵ with his brother Ray, and the same light dimmed twice. It happened again the following Halloween.

The really intense activity lasted a little over a month. Which makes sense because many cultures and religions believe that spirits will stick around for 40 days after they leave the body.

But what’s the point? Why do the spirits of our love ones give us signs (besides wanting to make sure we don’t forget them)? Perhaps to understand, we can put ourselves in their shoes.

While it’s difficult picturing what it’s like to be dead, most of us can imagine being in a foreign land, far from family and friends. Say we have to leave in the middle of the night for an extended trip to American Samoa, but forget to leave a note. On arrival, we’d want to tell the people we left behind that we’re ok, and that we’re still supporting them. We also might want to tell them about this new place we’re discovering. But due to the distance (and lack of internet and cell service), our only options are post cards and unreliable telephones.

The situation is similar with spirits trying to communicate with us. But they need to deal with ‘the veil’⁴ instead of distance. And for them, dreams, signs, and visions are a good way to send messages, like our postcards.  And two-way communications through a medium is like a telephone call (albeit with 1920s technology).

Dreams:

Like us, spirits probably want to achieve the highest impact for the least amount of effort. And getting inside our heads could require less effort than interacting with material things, such as moving objects (although making noises seems to be popular). And what would be easier than orchestrating our dreams, where we’re already one foot in the spirit world?

I’ve had many dreams about Justin. The first was about a week after he reverted: Justin had decided to start drinking early in the morning. I was against it, and we argued. Then he pulled out a bag of weed, to show he was going to smoke that all day instead. I believe this meant that he can now do whatever he wants. This is similar to when my wife, Ceri and I were having dinner with a medium, Diana Harris, and she described a man sitting near us with his legs crossed and smoking a cigarette. Ceri said that sounded like her father, and that he used to smoke. Diana’s response was that he can do that now because it doesn’t matter.

Once, Ceri had a dream where there were three separate Justins. One was dead, wearing a hoodie, and facing the wall. She carried him downstairs (this may have been to give her closure, because after finding him and calling the cops, they wouldn’t let us back into his room to see him). The second was spirit Justin, who was encouraging to her, saying that he planned to help his brother Ray deliver cookies. The third was golden and radiant (I assume that was his soul⁶).

Ray once had a dream where Justin said, “Here’s my message to you, you’re gay” I asked Chuck about this, and Chuck said, “[Justin] is laughing about it terribly. I wonder if he was just doing that as a joke.”  I said he used to say that all the time, “hey Ray, you’re gay.”  Then Chuck said, “I like this kid, even in spirit he busts his brother’s balls.”  Justin told Chuck that his point behind the dream was, “He [Ray] knows it was me because I said it all the time.”

Dimes:

Coins are a common sign for spirits to leave. The website, ask-angels suggests that leaving something of value is a metaphor for us being valued by them.

Justin leaves dimes everywhere for us to find. Once, Ceri found three dimes in unexpected places around the house, and the next day found one in the middle of her desk. Another time, she was talking to her sister, Megan about the transcription⁷ of her session with Diana Harris, and found a dime on her calendar, which was a surprise because she uses that all the time.

We went to Vegas in November of 2018 in order to get away for two firsts: Justin’s birthday and Thanksgiving. When we got there, Ray found a dime in the bathroom of our room. I found two dimes on a video poker machine. Then as we were heading out for Thanksgiving dinner, I found a dime on Ray’s bed (after putting all the coins on a table next to the TV). We got back from dinner and found another dime on the desk.

The day after Christmas, we invited Melissa (Justin’s girlfriend) over for game night. She dropped some change out of her pocket, and a dime rolled around the table and landed at Ceri’s feet. The next morning, Ceri found another dime on the couch.

One morning, while in the middle of writing this post, I felt something in my shoe. After walking around for a while, I took off my shoe and found a dime.

Dragonflies:

There’s something spiritual about dragonflies⁸, and we’ve seen a lot of them. The day after Justin reverted, we were sitting in our back yard with Ceri’s siblings, and there was a big dragonfly hanging out with us. Ceri’s sister, Megan held up her finger and it sat on it for a while.  Then it flew over to sit on Megan’s husband Bob’s shoulder, and Megan said, “I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but the dragonfly smiled at me, I know he did.” Which sounds like something Justin would orchestrate.

On our trip to Vegas, a dragonfly hovered around our car while we were waiting to get into Red Rock Canyon. This was unusual because they usually hang out by water, and we were in a desert. One time, Ceri, Ray and I were driving to a Mexican restaurant, and a hawk (more about hawks in the next post) flew over our car, and then a dragonfly started flying around inside the car. One way to look at these signs is that they show Justin is very present with us, and the waiter who sat us gave us an extra menu, thinking there were four of us.

While writing this, I noticed a huge green dragonfly flying around inside the building where I work. Usually all we see is fruit-flies and hornets. I brought it outside.

Conclusion:

In the spirit⁹ of transparency, I have to admit that I grouped these particular signs: dreams, dimes, and dragonflies together because the title sounds cool, and Justin loves alliteration. In the next post I’ll talk about hawks and other birds, which form an incredibly strong bond between Justin and his family. And later I’ll cover sights, sounds, and smells (pardon the alliteration).

Notes:

1. When I refer to spirits in this way, I’m talking about people who have successfully crossed over. Those who haven’t crossed are known as ghosts, and aren’t covered in this post. Justin told us through a medium that he was led into the light by my parents and Ceri’s Uncle Rob, so he qualifies as a spirit
2. The Afterlife of Billy Fingers, p. 32
3. It is suggested that cats (and dogs) can see spirits because their vision covers a larger spectrum than humans
4. The veil represents the division between spirit and matter. Saint Germain calls it a cross roads.
5. Chess was one of the things Justin and I enjoyed doing together. Other favorites were shooting pool and listening to music
6. I use Bob Olson’s definitions for spirit and soul (from his book Answers about the Afterlife). Here, the soul, aka the over-soul is the eternal part of us, constant through all our incarnation. The spirit is a small part of the soul that inhabits a body in a particular lifetime, and therefore continues to have the same personality as the reverted person.
7. All of our sessions with mediums are recorded, and I transcribe them. This particular session was just Ceri and Diana
8. Across many cultures, dragonflies are a symbol of adaptability and transformation
9. Pardon the pun

We lost our son, Justin to opioids in July 2018, and thus began the arduous but fascinating quest to find him again.

Of course it wasn’t fascinating at first, just painful. But after the initial sense of loss began to fade, it became apparent that Justin wasn’t really gone, we just couldn’t see him anymore. At the time of this writing, we’ve communicated with Justin (through mediums) nine times. So it’s clear that he didn’t actually die, he just left this dimension.

While Justin was alive, I spent 23 years teaching him about the world. I felt qualified because I’d lived on this planet many years before he was born. But now things have reversed, and he’s the one with access to all the answers. And maybe I can find out what life is really all about before it’s too late. So instead of being depressed about how much I miss the Old Justin, I’ve chosen to embrace the New Justin.

Besides seeing mediums, I’ve been reading about the afterlife, and attending various workshops, to become familiar with different ways of getting in touch with spirit. And as I apply what I learn to my life, I’ll be able to share insights with others through this blog.

As for the painful part, Justin’s absence initially kept resurfacing in my mind as a problem I couldn’t solve, which was an unfamiliar, and maddening feeling. Everything else I’ve encountered, no matter how serious, such as totaling my car, or losing a job, could be fixed in some way. 

But thinking about Justin’s absence felt like a steel door I couldn’t break through (no matter how hard I pounded on it). As months passed, and I started exploring ways to connect with him, I began picturing this steel door as the entrance to a dungeon, or prison cell, with a small barred window at eye level. And that window, which represented dreams, mediums, and signs, was now the only way to communicate with my son.

Regarding signs, my wife and I have learned that when we see hawks, eagles, and other raptors, it’s Justin’s way of letting us know he’s still around (he has many other ways, which I’ll cover in future posts). There also seems to be a connection with blue jays and cardinals.

I thought about these feathered signs while watching The Shawshank Redemption recently. Red (Morgan Freeman), was reminiscing about Andy (Tim Robbins) who had just escaped from their prison: “I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.” I’m beginning to realize that Justin is now free as a bird, like Shawshank’s Andy. One medium (Diana Harris) described crossing-over as busting out of a spacesuit or Halloween costume. Remember how confined Scout was while wearing the ham costume in To Kill a Mockingbird? Now Justin has escaped the shackles of life (perhaps part of an early release program), free of gravity and time. Which makes us the prisoners, and banging on that steel door has actually been me trying to get out.