Signs our loved ones give when they pass away...

I was wondering if we could have a discussion about stories relating to “signs” that loved ones give after they have passed away. If you feel these stories are just our imagination, I would like to hear from you as well, but please be respectful.

As a kid, a friend of mine told me about how the night after his grandfather passed away, his grandfather appeared to him at the foot of his bed just before falling asleep. My friend thought that his grandfather was just saying good-bye on his way to heaven. He hadn’t had another experience with respect to his grandfather since.

Back then, I was trying to be respectful but felt that it was just his imagination, until it happened to me…

I believe my mother was an angel sent to earth. She was a “typical” housewife who took care of four boys (me, three brothers) and my dad. Her passion was helping others. I never knew another person like her. She only gave and never asked for anything in return. An interesting thing about her is that she loved to keep notes, birthday cards, calendars, etc from her family. She was always thinking of you and let you know by dropping notes in hidden places (like school lunch, etc).

A few months ago, she was taken to the hospital and we were informed that she had heart failure due to diabetes. This was very unexpected. She was always healthy as an ox. The doctors tried their best, but after a long, traumatic day, they informed us that there was nothing left that they could do for her and sadly she passed away. We were devastated (and exhausted after an entire day of crying). I still can’t believe she’s gone.

Afterwards, my brothers and my dad went outside for a cigarette. I went off on my own and sat down on a bench to say a prayer and to say good-bye to her. It was dusk and quickly getting dark. The night sky was clear and dark blue. After I said my prayer and told her I loved her, I looked up towards heaven. In an instant I suddenly noticed that there were clouds in the sky that distinctly formed a “smiley face”! The clouds were orange (from the sun setting) and formed two eyes, a nose, and a curved smile underneath! There were absolutely NO OTHER CLOUDS in the sky. And, I’ve never seen a curved (smile) cloud before.

I quickly ran to my wife and asked her if she saw what I saw and she said she did. We then ran together to my dad and brothers and we all stared in amazement until the clouds dissipated. We couldn’t believe it! We were laughing… It was amazing. It was like a huge weight was lifted from our chests. We felt good again (for a while) and knew that that was her telling us she was alright and not to worry. The funny thing is, is that the “smiley” face note is just the way she would have done it too.

At her funeral, my dad’s aunt (who is into paranormal and psychic stuff) asked him if he received a sign yet and he told her that story. She said that was absolutely her and definitely was a sign.

PS – My brother was in LA for work and had an airplane ticket home the day mom died. For some reason, he decided to change it and take the red-eye home the night before which allowed him to say good-bye before she passed on. I believe God got him on the early plane and that mom held on until he got there.

Please feel free to contribute your similar stories. I sometimes wonder if I was just imagining it or that it was just a coincidence. Contributions from you will help reaffirm that it wasn’t my imagination and that these things do happen to many people. Again, I would also like to hear from people who think it was not really a sign, but just a “natural occurrence”… but again please be respectful. Thanks!

Sorry for your loss. I have 2 stories as well.

First, my grandfather's brother died in WWII. My great grandmother told the story many times of the night he died. He appeared at the foot of her bed and said something like "it's time for me to go...I love you" and then vanished. She didn't know that he died (well she did know in her heart from the sighting) untill a couple days later when it was confirmed.

Second, my boyfriend died of kidney cancer in 1999. The day before he died he kept saying "Grannies coming to take me". His Grannie died 4 months earlier and was very close to him. I was beside his bed that night and something woke me up with a jolt. I looked over and knew that he was gone....he was still warm so it didn't happen too long before that. I think it was him letting me know he was gone. There's a little more to that story but I'm at work now and don't feel like crying.

Thanks. I'm sorry for you as well. I know it's hard to talk about. I get choked up about it as well. I was kind of hoping that this would help us understand that they aren't really gone, just in a better place. Thanks for the stories... very interseting. When you feel up to it, I'd love to hear the rest of it.

I'm so sorry for the loss of your mother. When you described her you could have been describing my mother, so full of love and so generous. I totally believe that death is just the soul leaving the body behind, just as it enters the body at birth.

My mother died 17 years ago and I have had many signs from her. The night of her death, I was sitting outside in the cool but calm desert evening, with a blanket wrapped around me. Suddenly a cold wind came and blew the blanket open and I almost dropped it. Then it abruptly went back to complete calm. Somehow I knew that this was a sign that she was ready to go. I went in to awaken my father to let him know it was time. Then he, my sister and I all stood around my mother while she peacefully slipped away.

One night, shortly after her death, just as I was going to sleep, I heard her say my name. Loud and clear. Another time, when I was feeling terribly depressed, I suddenly felt her arms around me. I have had many experiences like this, not only from my mother, but from my sister and others.

In all the years since her death, I've never really felt like she was gone; out of reach. I have her picture displayed and when I need her comfort (that only a mother can give) I know she's there. I can feel her.

My sincere coundolences for your mother.

Personally, when analyzing signs, i try to be as more skeptical as i can (this doesn't mean i want to debunk it), so the clouds forming a smile could be a coincidence, since clouds often form shapes.

Anyway, the fact that there were only those clouds, the fact that you saw them only after you're prayed for your mother, and that they were forming a smile, makes me think that IF it was a coincidence, it was a pretty odd one indeed.

Personally, i've got one story: more or less 4 years ago my grandmother died, in a hospital, after a 12 hrs struggle. Me, my parents and our closets relatives were all in the room with her. Well, i don't remember exactly when, if i recall correctly one or two hours before she died, i gave a quick glance towards the window, and on the curtains saw the shape of a person. It was like a frontal silhouette.

It lasted only for a second or two. I immediately rushed to the window, to see if there was someone in the building in front of us. No one. And, even if there had been someone, given the position of the sun, there was no possibility their shadow could have been projected against the curtains.

No one else saw it, and i haven't managed to find a "normal" explanation, or something to "debunk" it.

My mom told me this story and I've always loved hearing it...
My mom was close to her dad. He had been a smoker all his life and was dying of lung cancer that had spread to the brain. One night he was in bed and everyone knew he would be gone in a couple days. My mom was supposed to go out with my dad on a date. She thought she shouldn't go but he firmly said to go. Her brother and sister all had plans to go out and he all told them he wanted them to go.
Shortly after everone was gone, except my grandma, who was there by his side, he died.
My mom was very upset and guilty. Part of it was the fact that he told her to go when she felt she should of stayed. But obviously he didn't want his kids there when he went.
Another part was that he was an atheist and didn't believe in God. She was afraid of where he was.
A couple days after he died. My mom and dad were up in her room watching TV. She was crying to herself and thinking about her dad. All of a sudden she heard a voice whisper in her ear, "Don't feel guilty." She quickly looked around and then asked my dad if he had sad anything.
He looked at her as if she were crazy and said no, he hadn't.
That has always made my mom feel better, because she feels that it was her dad that spoke to her, and even if he didn't believe in God in human form, he is alright now and in heaven. I told her most definately is.

Hi everyone, I am very glad that this post is up. Well I am looking forward to seeing the end of 2005 as it has been a very hard year. In february I lost my great grandmother with whom I was very close. While I was at my grandfathers house during the days before and during the funeral I had the most realistic dream I'd every had I was standing in the entrance of her house as I always had whenever we said goodbye, She was exactly as I remembered her in my favourite times she told me it was time to go and I distinctly remember telling her I didn't want her to go and asked what it was like. She told me that when she left her body she was carried by all the bodies of love as she said. I gave her a hug and two kisses as I always had and left and that was it I have not heard from her since. This makes sense as I assume a woman like that would be taken into heaven immediately. Fast forward to May of 2005 and my grandfather is in the hospital with cancer. After a gut wrenching few weeks watching the strongest man I'd ever known lie in a bed unable to get up and struggling to breathe he left the city for his hometown where he passed away the next night. Once again in the same house I have another dream remembering my grandpa exactly as I remember him in my favourite times. He told me distinctly not to worry which kind of perplexed me he mentioned my favourite and most respected uncle and told me to help him as much as I could ( Which I now realize he was shouldering the load for the funeral of my Great Grandmother and my Grandfather) These are the only instances I have had of apparitions or dreams I have asked for more and one night I rmemeber seeing my greatgrandmother but I haven't dreamed about them even in the slightest since. I know that they are in heaven but it turns my stomach thinking about our souls not existing and the end just being nothing it is truely my greatest fear. Thanks for listening.

My warmesrt thoughts to all those with a loss.

Both of my parents died when I was young. On the night DAd died at the hospital I was home sleeping but was repeatedly disturbed by a song in my dreams, it was so clear it woke me up over and over again. It is not a song in English but part of the lyrics go:......"no matter what has happened we are friends forever, I love you". I had a phone call at 3am. that Dad had pasted away peacefully.
My husbands mother a lovely woman who died of cancer, visited him once woke him up, stood at the end of his bed and gave him some very serious advice. He was amazed, and he hardly believes in the other world.
WIS

Boy, this thread really makes me miss the people that I've lost too. It's comforting to know others feel very much the same way. Condolences to all.

Ok, here's one that actually brings a smile to my face. My great aunt Sadie lived right down the road from us.
She lived in a house that she and her husband had run a butcher shop in the bottom floor and lived upstairs. Her husband and son died young and she lived there for quite awhile by herself. The butcher shop was then closed and the downstairs was pretty much empty.
She had passed away after I had moved out of state and I was home visiting and decided to take a walk down there and look around. I walked through the upstairs that was also very much empty by now and was then looking around the old store downstairs. The thought going through my head was " Aunt Sadie wouldn't like this" as the place was messy and all her stuff was gone. Just then, there was a loud bang from upstairs that sounded like someone picked up a cinder block and threw it down on the floor with all they had(I have Goosebumps thinking about it). I then got the courage to go back upstairs to see if something had just fallen. Not only had nothing fallen, there wasn't anything up there big enough to make a noise like that. The reason I said it brings a smile to my face is that she could be pretty fiery at times.

Craziness eh!!!
My grandfather was hit by a transport while driving on a highway which lead to his death... that night my mother saw him appear at the foot of her bed and he was sayig ''It wasn't my fault".. then he vanished...and I should mention one day I was driving on the stretch of highway where he got hit and right when I drove over the spot where he died a group of crows were sitting on the highway and they flew over my car almost as if they were sending a sign to me. It was certainly strange.

I havn't had an experiance myself. But earlier this year my best friend's (my housemate) Grandma passed away. She passed away at 6:00am in the morning. But at 3:30am that morning my housemate woke up and felt really really sad and started crying then couldn't get back to sleep.

He got the call at 8:30am from his parents saying that his grandma had passed away.

I also last a Very Close friend in spring of 2003. Ever since I started TaeKwonDo, I had started talking to this girl, Sammy. She was a beautiful, petite girl, with a mean Axe Kick that usually left you feeling all dizzy, more so because of phisical pain, than swirling Emotions. After my first BIG tornament in Ft. Worth/Dallas, Texas we had started to get really close, and would start talking everynight on the phone til 3 or 4 in the morning. Eventually we started going out, but it was only for a short while, because we realized that it wasn't love, only a very close friendship. We kept up our long talks everynight, and spent some days together watching movies and eating junk food (Big No-no when you're on a competition team). Sooner or later, she would have told me about her Cystic Fibrosis problem, which she usually didn't talk about. Only then, I didn't realize it was a Serious illness, which a large percentage of people were prevented from seeing their mid twenties. Like I always did, I would joke about anything that would upset her, and tried to lighten up the mood. We never really talked about it until she went in for a Routine Check Up at a hospital, and even then it was, "Oh, that thing you have." She recently got a boyfriend at the end of 2002. So I hadn't talked to her on the phone for months. She was in the hospital two weeks, and I visited her once, and walked around the hospital with her for a bit. Though I hadn't talked to her on the phone for a long time, one March Midnight, I woke up, and wanted to talk to Somebody, and she was the only person I could think of calling. Which was weird because I had a girlfriend, and I would usually talk to her if I felt "Lonely."

That next morning my mom woke me up with tears in her eyes, and told me that Sammy had passed away early that morning. I was devistated. I felt like the world had ended, and didn't really see a future, nor did I care too, I only looked toward the past.

It was just weird to me that I would wake up in the middle of the night, though I do that often. The weird part being that I would have wanted to call her. I found out later that she passed away at 3:00am, after she went into a coma two days earlier, due to Medicine Complications (Nurses weren't checking her blood for Toxins, incase the medications she was recieving, were mixing, and creating a Toxin Hybrid.)

Wow. Thanks to everyone for their stories. It haas helped me validate what happened to me. I'm truly sorry and want to offer my sincere condolences to everyone who has lost someone close to them. Christmas was very difficult this year and your stories hae helped. Thanks.

I told my wife that I started a thread about this subject. She told me a story about one of her friends that goes like this:

My wife's friend and her husband had gotten a divorce a few years ago. Recently, the two started to make amends and become friends again. Then, her ex-husband suddenly passed away, I believe from a car accident. She was devistated and felt sorry that this happend just as they were getting back together. After the funeral was over, she got into her car and turned on the ignition. The song that was playing on the radio that instant was "their song"... the one the couple danced to at their wedding. She felt it was him saying he still loved her.

Aww, I feel bad for your wife's friends.

Well my aunt is pretty much a medium, yet she doesn't know it yet, she thinks she's special, and surely she is. My mother said that she had a sister that died right after birth, strangely enough my aunt was able to see her spirit. She was able to see my great grandmother's spirit and her little sister's spirit. She was able to see her sister's spirit develop into an adult every time she visits as my aunt was growing up. Interestingly enough she is able to interact with them. Everyone thinks shes a little crazy except me, even though I haven't told her yet. My aunt had always been the fortunate one, every though she doesn't realize it. I think she had guidance and protection from the spirits of her great grandmother and her little sister all her life. She went through countless surgery and managed to live. She had a tumor in her brain and had 1/4 of it remove and was still able to retain all of her memories and more.

I believe if you just talk to your love one who pass away they will respond, though they might not be able to talk to you, they will give signs and perform acts of miracles. It's strange I've always been more spiritually attune then other family members, like my aunt, yet our methods are a tad bit different.

The 'signs' are very real.
I've had many experiences myself.
Form my grandfather there were alot of things going on. (For both myself and my mother). All of those things were his way of giving us comfort. Eccept the last thing - which was his way of saying he didn't belong there any more and it was time for him to move on.
From a woman I called grandma and lived with and cared for the last year of her life, I reiceved things from her (as did her granddaughter) that again was letting us know that she was alright.
From my baby brother last year... From him, he lets us know he's good, that he's alright and he also came just to say good bye. He's also helped save my life since he died.
It seems to me that all the signs that are given to us are all for comforting us and saying goodbye.

I'm an engineer and tend to be skeptical of these things. Before my mom passed away, if someone told me about some of the things that have happened, I would chalk them up to mere coincidences. I definitely would have said the clouds were. The hard part for others to understand is that you almost had to be there. It was magical, spiritual, nothing I think that science could have explained. But yet that's the way my mind has been conditioned to think, skeptically.

Here's another on I forgot about:
My wife's grandfather passed away about three years ago. None of her grandfathers kids live in the area except for my wife's mom. A year to the day after the funeral, my wife's uncles flew into town for the anniversary. We met at our house and drove, all in one car, for brunch at a restaurant. On the highway on the way there, a van cut us off. Her uncle, who was driving kind of swerved and said "What the..."! We all looked up to see who cut us off and it was a van from her grandfather's funeral home. They all thought it was there grandfather saying "hi".

One of the most common sighns i have recived when someone has died in my famaly has been white feathers. We used to find small white feathers everywere, in the most odd places, when my Grandad died.

They used to be found in the most random places, like i used to find them in between my blanket and the bed sheets. They were also found in my car.

When i asked a local expert, Tom Slemen, he told me these are common sighns from a person who has passed. It is ment to be a sighn that they have reached the 'other' side and they are at peace.

The same thing happend when my mom died in 2004 and when my nan died in 1993.

Except when my nan died things got a little bit strainger, I was staying in my aunties at the time. She had just split up with her boyfreind, and was crying upstairs. When i went up to see if she was ok, there was a 'spirit' of my nan sitting by my aunty. I know this sounds unbelivable but belive me it happend, and the room had a warm feeling to it. Other things that happend after my nan had died was a lot of stuff moveing and disapearing and then re-apearing later on.

So i belive that if you find these little white feathers, they are a sighn for you too let you know the person who as passed has made it there safe.

Pickle.

I used to work with a fellow who's wife died of lung cancer, though she was a nurse who never smoked.
After she passed on, he raised their two daughters as a single dad. It was about a year from her diagnosis until she was gone.
Around a month before she passed on she told him that she was going to send him some kind of a sign.
He is a very honest, family-oriented, devout Catholic, and I honestly cannot see him lying about something this serious.
Then, from her hospital bed a week before she passed on, she told him she knew what the sign would be....lightning.
I have only been to one funeral in my life, and it was scheduled for 1 P.M., one Saturday, at a local Catholic Church.
As we arrived it was pouring rain out, really hard, the sky was completely filled by very thick, very low overcast clouds, and it made midday as dark as if it was dusk.
We sat down, got settled in, and then boom, thunder, and the lights in the church went out for a couple of minutes.
My friend told me that when the thunder struck, he immediately looked at his watch and, by coincidence, it was 1 o'clock on the dot.
After the funeral was over we came out to find there wasn't a cloud in the sky; I looked in every direction.
Everything was soaked and dripping, yet the sun was shining, making the roads reflect a blinding glare.

I know that it comforted the guy I worked with, you should have seen his eyes as he told us about it.
It was after the funeral standing in the parking lot.
He is a quiet guy, so he started by mentioning the lightning, then he said something like, ' ya know what was odd about that....'
and told us about the two talks he'd had with his wife just before she died.
His eyes told me that it was very comforting to him.
And I totally believed him.
No one else did, and I could see that he could see that, and that it maybe hurt him a bit that they didn't.

I had a grandfather who was probably the most intelligent person I ever knew - always won at chess, could do math faster than a calculator, ect. He was a hardline atheist - there was absolutely NO God.

Well, my gran died and during the weeks that followed, he did a complete 180 degree turn and began to telling everyone that he was wrong. He became very spiritual because he said gran would visit him often for a few weeks after she passed.

I lost my mom when I was 15 years old, to cancer. She was sick for a few years before that. Since my dad worked shift work at the mill, and my brother was off in the Navy, it was up to me to care for her (pills, etc.)

About 6 months after she died, the finality of it all hit me, alone at home one night. I was pretty much in denial up to that point, as she would spend weeks in hospital. It just kind of seemed like she was just gone for a bit. Not actually dead.

Well, that night I said a little prayer to her and told her I hoped she was ok. That night I had a dream that I remember to this day, almost 20 years later...

Its late. Shes callin me from their bedroom. I go in quickly cuz shes being really loud, and I think she's hurting. As I get into the room, shes trying to sit up in bed.(something she hasnt been able to do on her own in a year). I go to help her, and she said "No... its ok.. I can do it.." and she did. It took a second or 2, but she sat herself up and turned to get up from bed.

I was pretty much hovering right over her, waiting for her to fall, but she didnt. It took a few minutes, but she was finally able to stand up. So shes standing there in front of me, she puts her arm around my waist, holds my hand and dances in one circle with me... kind of "waltz" like or something. Then she kissed my cheek and told me she was ok and not to worry.

And that was that. I've never had another dream like that. The wierd thing is, I remember every detail from that dream. I remember that dream more than I do, her now. Was it a product of my subconscience? I dont know. Was it a message from "beyond"? I think so. Does it matter? Nope. Mom's ok. She's not in pain anymore.

Miss ya, ma.