Enjoy the Paranormal Day Party!
May 3, 2016
As always, I’ve been browsing the paranormal shows on TV, in search of true-life ghost encounters that seem substantial and honest. I recently saw two accounts on “Celebrity Ghost Stories” that really caught my attention: the stories of Dee Wallace and Della Reese. As I watched their stories—which they recounted with such honesty and emotion—I was reminded that, in moments of need, a strong bond of love between people really can reach across the boundary between life and death.
Actress Dee Wallace, who has been in 75 movies (including “The Howling” and “E. T.”), told of a paranormal experience involving her father. Growing up in Kansas City , Kansas
When Dee was a teenager, her mother finally separated from her father, and she took Dee to visit him on Christmas Eve. Dee described how he seemed so embarrassed during that visit. And then, that February, she got the news: her father had committed suicide. He had shot himself in the head.
That night, grieving alone in her room, she blamed herself for not doing more to help her father. “Maybe if I had loved him just a little bit more …” Later, while she was lying in bed, she was startled by a bright light that appeared in her mirror. Eventually it moved out of the mirror and “hovered into the middle of the room”. And she heard her father’s voice: “Hi, button nose. It’s daddy.”
He told her he knew she would be blaming herself—and he reassured her that his death was not her fault. Then he told her he loved her. She was profoundly moved by his words of comfort; she thanked him, and told him she loved him, too. Then the bright light moved back into the mirror and faded away. Years later, Dee Wallace still thought of this visit as a very special gift from her father. And she felt “forever grateful that this last moment with him was with his light, not his darkness.”
Singer and actress Della Reese described her own true-life encounter with a parent who had died—her mother. The “Touched By An Angel” star told the story of a house she once bought, a house with a swimming pool where her daughter could play. About a month after they moved in, the two of them were enjoying the pool together. The air was cold, and Della told her daughter to stay in the pool while she went inside to get some towels. Feeling chilled herself, Della dashed toward the patio doors leading into the house—not realizing that her daughter had closed the doors. Della crashed through the glass, and fell into the jagged pieces that had showered onto the floor.
Terrified and bleeding, Della couldn’t get her footing on the bloody glass, and she cut herself even more as she tried to struggle up onto her feet. Her daughter ran to get their neighbor, a doctor. Terrified that she would bleed to death before help could come, Della prayed for someone to help her. And then she felt strong arms slowly pulling her upright; she got onto her feet and went to one of the patio chairs, sinking into it. A familiar fragrance came to her—cold cream and vanilla, her mother’s scent—even though her mother had been dead for ten years. Then Della heard her mother’s voice gently telling her that she was going to be okay.
Della’s neighbor did arrive, and he summoned an ambulance that took her to the hospital. As she lay on a gurney with two doctors standing over her, she heard one of them say that he wasn’t sure they could get blood into her quickly enough to save her. Again, she felt terrified she would die—and again the scent and the comforting presence of her mother came, telling her she would be okay. Her mother stayed with her until after the blood transfusions began. And—in spite of having lost 7 pints of blood, and needing 1,000 stitches to close her wounds—Della Reese did survive. She had no doubt it was the presence of her mother that had saved her.
Two amazing stories. And I’ve heard similar ones from people who were visited by a deceased loved one in a moment of crisis. I think all of these stories serve to demonstrate the power of love between people: a power that can reach out, even across the boundary between life and death, to bring comfort when it’s needed. Just one more of the wondrous aspects of our existence in this remarkable Universe.
Ann Young
Author—Fantasy, Mysticism, Paranormal Fiction … and Fact
