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They lost loved ones to covid-19. Then they heard from them again

2021-06-25T15:59:07.587Z


The covid has prevented many people from saying goodbye to their loved ones. But several of them have experienced encounters after his death


(CNN) -

They never ran out of things to talk about.

It was obvious from the start.

He was a former Maine lobster fisherman, muscular and with a powerful baritone.

She was a freckled redhead from Wisconsin who worked in corporate recruiting.

They talked about everything from science fiction movies and their love for Bon Jovi, to whether the

Lord of the Rings movie trilogy

did JRR Tolkien's books justice.

He asked her permission to kiss her on their first date.

She said yes.

When Ian and Michelle Horne got married, he wore a purple tie on their wedding day because it was her favorite color.

Over the years, they got matching tattoos and nicknames from the movie

The Princess Bride

.

He called her Princess "Buttercup" and she called him "Farm Boy Wesley."

They made plans to visit Ireland this year and celebrate her Irish roots.

Then came the pandemic.

Last fall, after a long battle, Michelle Horne died of complications caused by Covid-19.

Ian Horne's "superpower," as he called it, was gone.

They had been married for almost 10 years.

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But shortly after his wife's death, the morning radio host from Wichita, Kansas, wondered if Michelle was still talking to him.

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He was going to work in the dark shortly before dawn when he saw something strange.

About two dozen lamps surrounding the highway had turned purple.

They looked like a lavender pearl necklace shimmering in the night sky.

Michelle and Ian Horne.

The couple were married for almost 10 years.

Ian Horne took it as a sign.

"Michelle knew that was my route to work that I take every morning and it was the route she took on her last trip to the hospital," says Horne, who hosts his morning show on 101.3 KFDI as "JJ Hayes."

"I remember just smiling and feeling very excited at the idea that Michelle was around," he adds.

Encounters with deceased loved ones are not unusual

The covid-19 pandemic has already killed more than 600,000 Americans.

Many of us never had the opportunity to hug or say goodbye to loved ones who died alone and isolated in hospital wards for fear of the spread of the virus.

But there is another group of survivors of the pandemic who say they have been given a second chance to say goodbye.

They are people who, like Horne, believe they have been contacted by a loved one who died from the coronavirus.

These experiences can be subtle: relatives appearing in hyper-realistic dreams, a sudden scent of fragrance worn by a loved one who has left, or unusual animal behavior.

Other encounters are more dramatic: feeling a tap on the shoulder at night, hearing a sudden warning from a loved one, or seeing the entire form of a recently deceased relative appear at the foot of the bed.

These stories may seem implausible, but they are actually part of a historical pattern.

There is something in us - or in our lost loved ones - that does not accept not being able to say goodbye.

And whenever there is a massive tragedy, such as a pandemic, war, or natural disaster, there is a corresponding increase in reports of people seeing the dead or attempting to contact them.

After massive tragedies like wars, many Americans have turned to ouija boards in an attempt to contact deceased loved ones.

The 1918 flu pandemic triggered a "spiritism craze," when Americans turned to séances and ouija boards to contact their deceased loved ones.

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, there was a wave of people who reported sightings and even conversations with those who had died.

When a tsunami hit Japan in 2011, killing at least 20,000 people, so many people in Ishinomaki reported seeing loved ones appear that a book and documentary were made about this city of wandering ghosts.

"These kinds of reports are normal in my world," says Scott Janssen, an author who has worked for years in the hospice field and studies these experiences.

"It would make sense that in a pandemic or other event that causes mass deaths there is a numerical increase in reports and experiences, given the shared pain and trauma."

These experiences are so common in the psychological realm that there is a name for them: ADC, or "after death communications".

Research suggests that at least 60 million Americans have these experiences, and that they occur across cultures, religious beliefs, ethnicities, and income levels.

Many of these encounters occur in the twilight state between sleep and wakefulness, but others have been reported by people who were awake.

Bill Guggenheim, co-author of

Hello from Heaven

, a book that explores ADCs, believes there is a spiritual purpose behind the visits.

"They want you to know that they are still alive and that you will join them when it is your turn to leave your life on Earth," he writes.

They want to assure you that they will be there to greet you and greet you, and perhaps even to help you, when you make your own transition.

A meeting in the dining room with a beloved aunt

ADCs can fulfill another role in the world after Covid-19: reassure people who could not be with their loved ones when they died.

Consider the story of Jamie Jackson, an office manager who lives near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and her beloved "Aunt Pat."

Jackson's aunt died of a heart attack last summer, following complications from Covid-19.

Jackson says her aunt was like a mother to her, someone she spent summers with and accompanied to the hospital on her routine medical visits.

But when his aunt fell ill with covid, Jackson was unable to visit the hospital to reassure her.

"That was the hardest," says Jackson.

"You cannot say goodbye and you cannot be there as an advocate for your loved one, which is difficult because you have someone who is in the hospital, who is scared and not used to being alone."

The gloves worn by the pallbearers are placed on the coffin of retired agent Charles Jackson Jr., who died of COVID-19 in April 2020 in Los Angeles.

Covid-19 restrictions prevented many from saying goodbye to loved ones in person.

However, seven months later, Jackson says he heard from his aunt again.

It was December, and Jackson was putting up Christmas decorations around the house while Bing Crosby was singing Christmas carols.

Christmas was one of her aunt's favorite holidays and she loved to decorate.

Jackson's trash can was filled with the same ornaments that once belonged to his aunt.

Jackson says he left the trash can in the hallway to grab something, and when he came back he saw a translucent figure leaning out.

It was the figure of a petite woman, with the same haircut, hair color, and white blouse and blue pants that her aunt used to wear.

Jackson froze.

His heart began to pound.

He fled to the dining room and began to cry.

When he returned, the figure had disappeared.

He says it was his aunt.

"It was overwhelming," says Jackson.

«It is difficult to explain in words.

I was touched.

It is obvious that he is here and that he visits me ».

A cold hand on a shoulder and a smell of perfume

Some paranormal encounters after COVID are even more dramatic.

One woman says she was literally touched by a loved one who died of complications from Covid-19.

Marie Pina teaches English as a Second Language in Manitoba, Canada.

He says his mother, Inez, 79, was about to leave the hospital last November when a Covid-19 outbreak occurred in her ward.

She tested positive and was isolated.

He returned home the following month, but had lost his strength.

About four months after his diagnosis, his mother died.

The morning of her mother's death, Pina says she was looking for her slippers in her room when she felt a cold hand on her shoulder.

He turned and saw his mother sitting next to him, staring and expressionless.

He looked 20 years younger.

"His touch was cold, as if he had just come from outside," says Pina.

Family members gather to care for a deceased relative at Continental Funeral Home on December 20, 2020 in East Los Angeles.

One day not long after that morning, Pina reported another classic ADC feature.

He was preparing a spinach soup, one of his mother's favorites, when he suddenly smelled the fragrance associated with his mother: a combination of White Diamond perfume and his mother's Chi hair spray.

"The smell was very strong," says Pina.

“My husband and I stood in the kitchen in amazement while he mixed the soup.

We could both smell it.

It lasted about five minutes before evaporating. '

Talk to people who have had these experiences, and many will recognize that perhaps their minds created the episode.

Others insist the visits were too real to deny.

Jackson, who lost his aunt, says it is almost irrelevant whether they are real or not.

Its impact is real, he says.

They made him feel better.

"If I needed to see it and it made me feel better and that was it, that's fine," he says.

«I tell people that if they don't want to believe me, nothing happens.

I don't need to explain to other people.

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Some paranormal visits are not so welcome

Other ADCs are scarier.

Some paranormal experiences happen to people who are not reassured by them.

"Some people are scared of these things and they certainly don't look for them," says Janssen, the hospice worker.

«For some it clashes with the vision of the world or religious beliefs.

Some people receive visits of this type years after the fact, when they are not grieving, or they receive visits from people with whom they have fought and from whom they really do not want a visit.

Many victims of covid-19 died alone in hospitals, which prevented family members from closing the cycle.

Creepy ADCs are also common in wartime.

War memoirs are filled with the stories of combat veterans reporting chilling visits after the death of fallen comrades or even enemy soldiers they have killed.

In the classic memoir

What It Is Like to Go to War

, Karl Marlantes, a Vietnam veteran, wrote how the ghost of a North Vietnamese soldier he killed haunted him years after he returned home.

In a surprising passage, Marlantes recounts how he exorcised the ghost of his enemy.

He organized a private mass with a priest at 2 a.m. in an old church, where he says he saw the spirits of the enemies he killed and the comrades who died under his command take the seats.

Even his late grandparents appeared, smiling as if they approved.

Psychologists who work with veterans often hear these kinds of stories, says Janssen.

"I have been in this for a long time and I consider it an almost universal (phenomenon) that after a particularly hard confrontation, in which many people from your unit are lost, it is inevitable that some of these troops will receive visits from their comrades," he says. .

An unusual bird sighting and a cry in the night

Horne, the radio host, claims to have had other encounters after his wife's death.

Shortly after his death, he was sitting on his backyard deck when a cardinal perched on a branch in front of him.

Cardinals, according to folklore, usually appear when loved ones are around.

Horne was struck by the bird because he says cardinals don't usually show up in Kansas in the fall.

Horne says he has had times when he has clearly heard Michelle call him at night, "Ian, wake up!"

"It's like she's in the room with me," he says.

It's enough to wake me up, even though I have a deep, hard sleep.

Call it an auditory hallucination or whatever you want, but I definitely hear it.

Perceived messages from deceased loved ones can be comforting but also unsettling.

Both signs comfort him, in part because Horne remembers how Michelle struggled so hard to live.

He says his immune system was weakened after he received a kidney transplant several years ago.

When the pandemic hit, they both feared what would happen if she caught the virus.

After her worst fears came true, Horne comments that at first it seemed like Michelle would survive.

She had to spend a long stay in the hospital, which included the placement of an artificial respirator, but she was discharged last October.

She struggled to improve, but there were times when Michelle's natural optimism waned.

Horne says he once told her, “I am a burden to you.

You don't deserve this.

You should go.

He continued to encourage her at physical therapy.

"I was in it for the long haul, for better or for worse," he says.

However, Michelle's body did not have the strength for that.

He died of a heart attack last October, his body weakened by Covid-19, Horne says.

He was 50 years old.

  • The pandemic took away his business, but he managed to reinvent himself by helping others

Horne's radio audience has joined him.

He has shared his story on air and has been featured in local newspapers.

Talking about Michelle is cathartic.

"I feel like a person dies twice: once when they have their physical death and the second when we stop saying their name," he says.

Any chance I get to talk about Michelle, I'll take it.

Purple lamps in Wichita, Kansas, which Ian Horne believes are a sign of his late wife.

However, in a strange way, Michelle may still be talking to Horne, even after seeing those purple lamps for the first time.

When they were married, Horne developed a ritual with Michelle.

She worried about her safety by driving to work in the dark every morning.

When he arrived, he would reassure Michelle by sending her a text message: “I'm here.

I love you".

The purple lights of Wichita continue to shine.

Horne continues to see them on their morning commute.

It's like Michelle responds with a similar message.

Not sure how long the purple lights will stay on.

He called the city of Wichita and they attributed the faulty lights to a faulty lot.

They told him they were going to replace the lights.

You are in no rush for that to happen.

"I sincerely hope they don't," says Horne.

I'll always believe Michelle made them purple.

Whether it has done so or not is up to the reader or the viewer to decide.

Can you explain it… I think it was a way for Michelle to accompany me on my commute to work.

coronaviruscovidCovid-19 loved ones

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-06-25

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