Mum's dead but is she?

[SpuddlingInTheGarden]

Lost my dear Mum 2 years ago. I've got her ashes in a lovely box in my sitting room. We were due to have a family get together to celebrate DS birthday. I was thinking to myself that wouldn't it be nice if when we are all there in the sitting room, she could give us a sign, if I asked her, by flickering the lights to show she is still with us.

Fast forward to DS birthday get-together. I was feeling down and had forgotten about asking her for a sign (I'd have felt very daft anyway!). We were playing a board game and the light flickered for a few times. Everyone noticed. I said nothing.

Wishful thinking?

Not the first experience I've had. I was walking to the estate agent with mum's house keys to hand them over following completion after selling her home (our family home of 50 years). Obviously I was feeling very sad. A few steps away from the estate agent, a small, fluffy white feather floated towards me and literally landed in my open hand.

Yes, probably just a bird flying by, but I felt strangely comforted.

That's because everyone has the ability to link. That person was linking but probably didn't know it. Or had picked it up psychically.

I agree entirely. When I was younger we used to do the ouija board for fun. There was def

The thing is, these may indeed be signals, but we're all going to die and I'm not sure I fancy an afterlife that involves hanging around making lamps flicker and feathers float by. I'm not saying this in a spirit of cynicism - quite the opposite. I just think the idea that after they die people are waiting in the wings to send us signals is overestimating our own importance in the grand scheme of things.

As someone who has lost both parents, I fully understand the yearning for such signals. But it seems a very reductive view of the afterlife.

I agree entirely. When I was younger we used to do the ouija board for fun. There was definitely some energy moving the glas. It wasn’t being pushed. I don’t think it was sprits of dead people but something made it move and spell out messages,

Get the electrics checked.
That's the message she's sending you.

She'll always be in your heart and whilst you still can remember the sound of her voice you'll have that with you too.

I wish I had video of my dad chatting to camera. He could have recorded a whole set of standard responses and eye-rolls for me to cherish.

With all due respect, it's a thread for anyone- WWW, public forum you asked a question.

You have to be open to all sides of the discussion.

I think some people spend too much time on aibu 🙄

Some people lack empathy though. Instead of going to another thread they have to have a dig. Sad.

You need to look up the ideomotor effect if you would like to know why the planchette moved, seemingly of its own accord.

That is WILD! How fascinating.

Sorry to hear your mum is terminally ill. ❤

No one was using the story of Hamlet as proof of anything, though - just citing a quote relevant to the conversation <shrugs>

Last year on the anniversary of my mothers death, my then 20 month old as I was putting him to bed kept saying 'nanny nanny' and sort of pointed. She died before he was born but it was strange. I was very stressed in work thinking I was going to be sacked too. Next day I found out I was being made redundant but would get 3 months full pay. I think she came to tell me through my son.

I actually think believing that a loved one might send signs (through dreams, birds, feathers, lights flickering, or mediums) can feel comforting, but it can actually stall the grieving process and make it feel never ending.

My friend’s dad died at least 10 years ago. She has been to see mediums many times. I hate these charlatans that take advantage of vulnerable people like her. We all know how they operate.

When I think of my dead parents, I just think about memories. The comfort for me is they lived good, long lives but as before they were born, they are nowhere.

I completely agree.

Science just isn't advanced enough. It is like space, we know by probability there has to be a nother life form, a planet that sustains life like us, but does us being unequipped to find it mean it isn't there? Of course not.

Okay, so I've just put on my Dad's play list (songs he liked and some I connect with him too). A song is added that I did not add! It is very very appropriate, jesus! There is something there, I don't care what sceptics say. Some sort of energy of the dead is in the atmosphere, until you experience it you won't feel this.

Oh yes that’s reminded me too! Our Alexa once randomly and out of the blue played 3 kids songs in a row - all ones my mum sang to me and we hadn’t played before. Nothing like it has ever happened since! I sort of try to forget it as was so weird

My mum died 2 years ago. She visits my garden every morning in the form of a little red robin. I find comfort in thinking she could be sending that little Robin to see me. Logically I know he’s lived in my garden for years previously. But still, I always say ‘good morning mum’. I am probably the least woo person you could meet, have zero belief in ghosts or anything supernatural, but I swear shes sat on the end of my bed a few times in the night as well. I fully believe grief is not something we can or should ‘get over’. I don’t feel grief needs to be or even can be processed, we just have to live with it. If something like this brings comfort, and causes no harm to anyone else, there’s nothing wrong with it.

Lovely quote, and very apt :)

Right. Imagine thinking "Oh, this woman's mum died, and she holds a beautiful idea about her mum contacting her that is utterly and totally harmless and offers her great comfort - I don't have any proof at all she is wrong, but I am going to go with the notion that absence of proof is proof of absence - so I think I might try to void my bowels in her comment section instead of just buggering off somewhere that doesn't trigger me so rabidly".

Mental cases.

Right. Too many times people mean "stop grieving" when they say process grief. Grief is the last honour we do for those we love, the last gift we can give them in this life, and it never leaves us, but it changes from an overwhelming cacophony to become a background song and stops making our lives harder once its bite loses its savagery.

True grief changes us. If you have loved someone deeply you never completely stop grieving them, and it is good to allow those feelings to flow through us and take a moment to honour our dead if something reminds us of them.

It is only if it stops people from having relationships, working, having a fulfilling life, makes their lives unbearable that grief becomes a problem. People experiencing complex grief do need assistance to move past that.

But this certainly doesn't apply to you or to the OP, and this "well it makes things worse for you to think your mum is nearby!" is just another stick to beat people with, often misused by those who cannot bear the notion that there is far more to the universe than they could possibly understand or know.

Some people cannot stand the words "I don't know" and live their lives trying to pretend otherwise, worse they cannot bear anyone having beliefs they do not share, and like to pretend they're trying to be helpful when they're just trying to be unpleasant for their own warped reasons.

I am so happy for you that you have your robin and your comfort from your mum.

@thebabayaga2025thank you. That’s a really lovely post and put into better words than I could.