It will not likely surprise the reader that I have read a lot of books about the paranormal, anomalous events, and spirituality. I have a strong interest in books on the “survivability” of death, and have since I was young. There are a lot of books about near death experiences as well as about interesting experiences that the living have when people they know have passed on. It is actually quite common for people to have some type of communication with a loved one after they have died, or to receive some kind of sign that the deceased is “alive and well” somewhere. Of course, many people write off these experiences as part of the grieving process or as something to fulfill a psychological need to communicate with their loved one again. I personally take such stories seriously, believing that the deceased are likely able to reach out to the living. The communication is frequently subtle – a dream that seems especially real or the scent of a signature perfume. Effects on electrical devices is also common, with lights or appliances going off and on, along with the strong sense of the deceased’s presence.
After death communication also takes place via phone calls, as improbable as that seems. The living person will answer the phone and hear, often in disbelief, the voice of a loved one who has passed on, whether recently or a long time ago. The call is brief, with the deceased letting the person know they are OK and love them and then it just trails off. No dial tone or hang up sound when the conversation is over. The calls often have that long-distance sound to them, for those old enough to remember long-distance calls via landlines.
My mom and I experienced such a phone call when I was a pre-teen. My grandmother had died when I was in junior high school, though I don’t recall the exact year. She had been ill for many years with multiple myeloma, a form of cancer in white blood cells. I didn’t know her very well as we lived in different states and during periods of her illness, I was actually a little frightened of her (she would scold my bad piano playing, for example). She and my mom didn’t have a bad relationship, but I don’t think it was ideal, either.
The following story took place a year or so after my grandmother died. Mom and I were in my parents’ bedroom late one afternoon after I had come home from school. I don’t recall what we were doing, maybe catching up on our days or catching a few minutes of TV on the little set that was in their room. The phone rang (a landline in the 1980s) and I answered it because I was sitting next to it. A woman’s voice asked if my mother was there (I didn’t recognize the voice, but she did ask for my mom by name). I said she was and handed the phone to my mom, who said “Hello?” Then, I watched my mom’s reaction to whatever the person at the other end of the line said. She paled and went from standing to sitting on the bed. She said, “But you can’t be. My mother is dead.” The person talked a few more seconds and then my mom just looked at the phone.
“What was that about?” I asked my mom. She said that her mother had called to let her know that she was OK, and then the call just ended, without a dial tone or anything that you would have expected to hear. My mom was obviously shaken by the experience and didn’t know what to make of it, except to say that it was her mother. I wish that I had known my grandmother’s voice well enough to have understood right away who it was. It was a brief moment, but one that I have remembered well over the years. It hardly seems like it could have even taken place. How on earth do souls interact with technology? And maybe, a woman called who happened to sound like my Nana and it was a coincidence that my mom had the same name as the person the woman was calling for. But given my lifetime of experiences, I tend to think that my grandmother really did reach out to my mom.