Tag Archives: after-death communications

Signs From Dead Loved Ones

Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, Photoshops the raven design she made for Silk Oak, an Ithaca-based design studio“The blue heron was flying too close, right at me.” The small group sat around the table, taking turns talking about signs they’d received from their children who died: ravens that stared, the moon suddenly peeking out of a totally clouded sky, a butterfly landing and staying longer than it should, phone calls with no caller, a television that suddenly turned on by itself … I nodded in agreement. Yes, I’d seen that, I’d felt my daughter’s presence. But it had been a long time. I was sad, wondering if maybe my time for receiving signs was over.

The signs I’d gotten were different. Small notes Marika had written would appear at pertinent times. Like the Mother’s Day card I found in May last year. And her drawing of a rabbit, our favorite animal, in a heart with a speech-cloud that said, “Welcome Home Mom.” I’d found it just before leaving on the trip to Australia to scatter her ashes, and then placed it on the mantle by the front door, to be the first thing I saw when I returned home. Sometimes I’d be searching for something and a gift of Marika’s would surface instead. From the time she could hold a crayon, she’d been writing and drawing. During her lifetime, she and I must have stashed thousands of these things away. The “messages” kept popping up the past four years even though I’d long ago cleaned out Marika’s room and scoured the house for any signs of her.

The morning after the group meeting I was searching for my will. When you look for something, you always find something else, I should know by now. Stuck under a pile of papers was this:Signs From Dead Loved Ones, Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, finds a story created by her daughter Marika Warden, who died of leukemia in 2011

Farther and farther I went. I found my mother she went with me.
I went back up. I gasped for air. W
[h]ere was I. I was on land! I am magic!
I am a beluga whale. I was just made. I looked at my creator for the last time. She was gone. I was falling deep into the water! I heard a soothing sound like a lullaby. I started swimming.

 

What signs have you experienced or heard about? Do you believe in signs from after death?

My Daughter’s Voice

My Daughter's Voice - MarikaInMoon - Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops her daughter who died of leukemia at age 20, Marika Warden, in front of a full moon.“I have a message for you from your daughter,” I was told twice after my daughter died. “She wants you to know she’s all right,” was the gist of each message. But I was already engaged in conversation with her.

A year after Marika died the messages from family and friends were mixed: get over it; take all the time you need to grieve; let her go; you will never get over this. Talking to mothers whose children died decades ago, I learned that losing a child is not something one gets over. Ever.

“Stay with me,” I begged Marika as I walked her dog and looked up at a full moon. Nighttime in the driveway was the time and place I felt closest to her. Sometimes there was no moon. Sometimes I reached out to her in the middle of the day. After a while she followed me on my hikes in nearby gorges and I heard her voice whenever I passed a sushi stand in my travels.

I had talked to my daughter before she was even born. She would kick me and I’d watch my middle bulge and change shape. When she was a baby she echoed my words. As a toddler she asked a lot of questions. She boldly talked back to me as a young child. It wasn’t until she was a teenager trying to break free of me that our communications broke down. Then, when she was a young adult, during the almost-three years in the wilds of cancer, in and out of hospitals together, we hardly talked. But I’m talking to her now.

She kicks me. And almost daily I hear, “You can do this, mom,” and “Mom, get a life,” and – “Sushi?”