True stories of father's concern and continued love and guidance from beyond the grave

FOR MANY OF US, the father is the symbol of security, protection, wisdom, and affection. In dream symbolism, the father also can be a figure of one's conscience. It might not be surprising, then, that even after a father's death, people have experienced his spirit providing messages of comfort and encouragement. Here are some true stories of those fatherly ghost encounters.

A FATHER'S MESSAGE

About a year after my friend Jeff's parents' died, Jeff and his wife took some inheritance money and bought an old Amish farm. The house required major renovations to bring it up to "English" living standards, so my husband and I traveled up to the farm to help out with all the work needed to be done.

That night after dinner we all sat around the fireplace and talked. About 10 p.m. we all decided to go to bed. We fell asleep the minute our heads hit the pillows. But the minute I fell asleep, I saw Jeff's dad sitting at a poker table with cards in hands. He was laughing and then he stopped. He looked me in the eyes and said, "Go tell Jeff it's going to be okay."

I woke right up. The house was black and dead silent. The thought of getting up and stumbling through a black, cold, silent house to go wake up Jeff and his wife to tell them I had a dream didn't seem reasonable. I started to doze off again when Jeff's dad was back at the table. This time he looked at me very seriously and said, "Go tell Jeff it's okay.

Now!"

My eyes instantly popped open. I sat up, my husband was sound asleep. I nudged my husband and he mumbled, "Leave me alone." I decided to try to go back to sleep. I fell asleep and there was Jeff's dad again. This time his eyes were watered up and he said, "Please, go now and tell Jeff everything is going to be just fine!"

When I went downstairs in the morning, Jeff's wife was up and yawning. She quietly said to me, "After we all went to bed last night, Jeff sat on the couch and finally broke down over his parents' deaths." She went on to tell me that Jeff had never cried or talked about his feelings toward his parents' deaths until last night. She said she tried to comfort him, but he asked me to just go to bed and leave him alone to think.

I asked, "Did Jeff's dad play poker a lot?"

She smiled and said, "Yes, he was obsessed with it and played every weekend with his buddies for years."

Later that afternoon, when Jeff and I were alone in the barn working, I told him this story. He stared at me intently while I spoke. I saw his eyes light up and I knew: I finally got his dad's message to him. - Grace

DAD WATCHES US

My dad died on January 7, 1994, and this happened at his wake at our house. A lot of people were there to pay respects to the good old man. Our house is a two-story, Spanish style house with big windows.

The wake was on the ground floor and no one was on the second floor because they were all afraid to go upstairs into the bedrooms. Everyone was at the ground floor when a neighbor of ours just walked up to me and asked if someone was upstairs. I was curious so I also asked why. He just said that someone was looking out or peeping out of those big windows upstairs, staring at people passing by. They could see him from across the street.

I went out of the house and across the street just to see what they saw... and it was true enough! I saw a figure in the window facing the street looking out, peeping at people who went in and out of the house. I wasn't sure who that person was, so I ran in and went upstairs... but I saw nothing or no one.

I went down and out again and the figure was still there, visible to all of us! I mean about five or six people at the same time. Then I realized that the figure was so familiar to me and so manly. I concluded that it was my dad, letting us know that he was there still and taking care of us all. That's when I cried… and little by little the figure faded away. - Mamu

SAVED BY DAD'S VOICE

I learned of my dad's death in a prophetic dream a month before it happened. In the dream I was living in a two-story townhouse and I was waiting to hear from my dad. I was told he was dead and was handed my dad's ashes. When I had the dream, I lived in a one-story house, but when he died a month later I then lived in a two-story townhouse and his ashes were brought to this house.

After he died, I moved into his house - the very house he died in. He's here, and at first I was kind of freaked out at his presence, but now I'm used to it. A year ago, my brother and I were sitting in the family room when we felt dad come into the room. We felt him standing between the two of us, and my brother heard dad say to him that I was in danger. The message he got was that I had three days that I had to be very careful because something was going to happen.

That's when I started getting images: the images were of the freeway I take to work. But in the images I was in the direction of home and it was at night.

The first two nights went by without incident, but on the third I was driving home and me and the car next to me were playing a leap-frog kind of game. He took off and I was just about to give chase when I heard my dad's voice say, "Don't! It's happening now!" and 20 feet in front of me all hell broke loose. Every car on the freeway bounced off each other and whatever else was in their way. I was untouched, but thinking of what could have happened still gives me chills. - Mmorse

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