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“Reincarnation Claims and Out-of-Body Experiences Explored”
I hope that I do not totally bore you with this! This story is what began my deeper investigation into the paranormal, and pushed me to finish my book, “Reincarnation Claims and Out-of-Body Experiences Explored” by Karla Hicklin
An unusually warm October 16th morning in 2005, my mother found me shopping in our sparsely populated town. She gently pulled me aside and relayed a horrifying story about my ex-husband dying the night before. I stood in complete shock for a moment,
absorbing the heartbreaking words, envisioning his crumpled, bloody body being crushed and burned in a blazing ball of fire brought on by a tragic automobile accident.
I swallowed hard and finally managed to find the courage to ask how the death occurred.
That day, my world temporarily jolted to a stop as my heart felt pummeled. Although we had been divorced for nearly twenty-years, we managed to become consoling friends over the last fifteen-years of his life. We had formed a pleasant bond of friendship that only divorced couples can locate through forgiveness, caring, admitting the past mistakes and lies, and sharing only truths.
I always imagined John dying in some odd way most of my life. He was, indeed, a unique person who cared about people. Everyone admired his vigor and thoughtfulness. However, his insatiable taste for alcohol and women led him astray more than once. So, when I heard about his strange manner of death, I was still overcome with intense horror and dismay, yet not surprised.
John did not die in a car accident, nor did he accidentally overdose by consuming legal or illegal drugs or ingesting too much alcohol. The bearded gaunt man’s body was found burning in a smoldering campfire while on a hunting trip with my brother-in-law. The offensive scene, the shock of it all, and the fetid smell of burning flesh made Don ill. He attempted to pull John from the dwindling fire, but barely enough of the body remained
to drag out of the small inferno. He was charred and dead.
The following week, I planned my dreaded trip to the funeral home with my brother-in-law, but changed my sorrowful mind about attending the memorial service for no apparent reason. To me, funeral homes are a place to converge and remember loved ones, but I had other ideas. I spent the gloomy week remembering him with my friends that knew John, along with my own family. I later learned that less than one hundred people attended his service up north, which is a low number since he had so many friends. His mother was not there since she died in 1979 while John and I lived in
Colorado. His father died in 2004, and his two sisters were estranged through a previous course of bitter resentments, and he had no living children.
Although I had shunned attending the poorly fabricated, yet thoughtful, memorial service that his other companions put together, I visited the funeral home two days before the remembrance event was to occur. I stood by his noble name that had been neatly placed on the outside marquee, gently touching the glass covering. I sobbed uncontrollably for a few moments, remembering only the good times and the recent telephone conversations we shared. Time stood still for a few more moments, but I knew my brother-in-law was waiting for me at the other end of town. I had to meet him. He needed comforting and friendship after his own ordeal. After all, he found his best friend and former brother-in-law dead.
Before I walked away, I brushed tears away from my cheeks and said a prayer for John. "Please, Lord, guide John through your kingdom and comfort him, Amen." Plodding to my vehicle, and through unbroken tears, I whispered, "We will meet again, dear friend."
As I clumsily walked away and reached my pickup truck, I suddenly remembered the camera in my purse. I had placed the photo taking mechanism in my handbag a
few days before the death even occurred for no reason at all. I turned back toward the funeral home, stood for a moment, and then reached for the camera. I walked closer to the plaque that held his name. I snapped the first picture then slowly looked away to my left. My eyes caught a resplendent rush of flowing rainbow colors emitting from the glass covering. I stood in awe, rationalizing for a moment what I had just witnessed. I dropped the camera, and again, began to weep. I regained a slight particle of my composure within a few more minutes, picked the camera up off the leaf covered ground, and snapped yet another photograph of his name.
The colors did not reappear, but the wind kicked up enough to swirl some fallen leaves around my feet as the shutter made a clicking sound, indicating that a picture was taken. Strange, I thought, since the wind had been calm all morning and continued to remain motionless and still for the remainder of the evening. I felt as if John’s presence encircled me, as if he were peering at me from the sign his name now rested on.
I developed the film a few days later and was slightly shaken at the images I had captured on film. Just as I suspected! He was there! John watched me take those
photographs and placed his own special touch on them. He wanted me to know he was there. He sent me a recognizable sign. One that only I and that only I would know. His grandmother’s maiden name, and also a street name where he grew up with his mother, two sisters and grandmother.
I have shown both pictures to many friends. Only one of the photographs containing a certain image catches the attention of the viewer. Most everyone easily identifies
the figure on the first print. The other picture is not so obvious to them, even sometimes when I point the prominent image out to them. Maybe this significant photo is for my big green eyes only. Within the next several days, dreams regarding eerie types of strange events filled my slumbering nighttime romps that are still obscure to me. They became quite regular and still rip through my dreams on some occasions. Few have meanings that I eventually figured out, and especially the ones that contain numbers.
In one enlightening and eerie dream, John is laughing. He keeps telling me to do the math. I couldn't go back to sleep after that, so I sat up until the dawns’ early light thinking about his heckling message when suddenly it hit me. I began adding. Ten (October) plus fifteen (the day), plus twenty, plus five, (2005). That equaled fifty. Okay. Fifty, I thought. That was his age when he died. That very night, John came into my dreams again. Through his laughter I sensed his jovial personality. "I can’t believe it took you so long to figure out!" he lovingly shouted.
He gave me another set of numbers after I calculated his October death date. His birthday. I began to add the date, five plus twelve, plus nineteen, plus five and five.
May 12, 1955. This counting method gave me the age I was when he died. He's given me two other dates that coincide with familiar dates to us. They both add up to
fifty-six, but I haven't been able to identify what this particular number means.
Numbers were my nemesis and once a difficult task at one point in my life. During high school and college, I struggled to make survivable grades in math. One awakening moment during my college days, it came to me. Math was no longer a rough and tough subject for me to wrestle with. I shared this new found learning information of mine with him around 1994, eleven-years before his passing. He obviously remembered.
Another dream I envisioned and could not understand was about his dog. In his words, he kept asking, almost begging, for his dog. I knew one was already there; BJ, an adorable black lab, but he did have another beloved pet before his passing. I wish I had told someone about the unsettling dream. His other admired four-legged creature, Mojo, was struck by car and died shortly after the uttered pleading words for his brave K-9 were spoken in my dream. I never told anyone, but I wish now that I had. Mojo would still be with John, but at least my brother-in-law would have known beforehand. I really didn’t believe the dream had any merit, but after the number adding dreams, maybe I should have paid more attention!
After yet another startling dream about fireworks going off one November evening, I had immediately sprung up in my bed, sitting straight up, and saw a dancing white grayish flash race by my face. I gasped, grabbed my chest, and searched the bedroom for the glimmering vision, but it was gone. I have never seen the shimmering sight again. I believe this was his spirit causing the ruckus because I suddenly felt comforted, almost as if he was apologizing for frightening me. November has many meanings to me. My dad was extremely close to John, and his birthday is the 22nd. Also, John and I were married in Colorado on the 10th. His grandmother's birthday was the 13th, and his mother died on the 3rd. The date of the flash was the evening of the 9th. Happy Anniversary?!
Shortly after these memorable incidents, I was driving through Saint Louis on my way home. John and I both grew up around the bustling suburbs, so both of us knew the area quite well. There was absolutely no reason why I would get lost. But I did. As I was entering the ramp leading to the concrete super slab we call the interstate highway, I realized I had exited into the northbound lanes rather than the southbound side. I immediately drove to the next exit ramp. I came to the stop sign, made two left turns, and began my climb onto the southbound ramp. At the precise moment I made my first left turn onto the familiar road, one of John’s all time favorite songs came over the radio, performed by Supertramp, "Take The Long Way Home." I was not baffled or shocked at all, but mildly shaken for a moment or two.
The road I turned around at is an intimate trail to him since he once resided off this very lane with his mother during his younger days. I’d been on that certain path several times before and after our lengthy separation, but never did a song come on the radio that reminded me of him. Again, I felt as if he were laughing at me by the selection of music that came over the airwaves. Indeed, I was taking the long way home since I missed the proper ramp the first time!
"So you think you’re a Romeo, playing a part in a picture show." John was always considered the Don Juan of the 1970s and 1980s. So many verses in the song relate to his character.
Other lyrics in the song made complete sense as well. "Lonely days turn to lonely nights, you take a trip to the city lights." Yes, it was certainly a lonely time for me. I missed my friends in the city more so than ever since John's passing. Depression settled into my woeful being for some time. I drove my lonely self one hundred miles to Saint Louis that afternoon and stayed until the evening, visiting with some friends. John sure knew how to pick ‘em!
Other whimsical tunes still come across the radio airwaves at unforeseen times. It seems that old songs I haven’t heard for years are now playing regularly, and for no apparent reason. Lest, I dare not mention that my wide screen television turned itself on one afternoon when I was thinking about him. I'm sure that was a fluke, and it only happened once. Funny, since the program on the tube was about fishing, one of John's favorite activities!
The lights in my home often flicker at times when I think of him. My cats frequently stare off into areas throughout my house, but I never see what they are looking at. Nothing is visible to me! I have heard that children and pets are more readily able to view ghosts!
I just wish they wouldn’t do it when I’m alone! Thank you for your time and consideration.
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