"Can they still see or hear me?"

Some of the questions I get asked most frequently are; "Do they know what I am doing?", "Can they still see or hear me?", "Are they still around me?"

When our loved ones die we miss them terribly but they don't miss us because they are still with us. Almost every time someone asks me one of those questions I get flashes of information immediately. I call it the proof response....or your loved ones showing off! The flashes that I get are always present-day within the last couple of weeks or days and they are usually silly little things that my sitter was doing by themselves.

Some of my favorites that I can remember:

"You were picking out paint colors, he likes the lighter color better!" from a husband who passed to his wife.

"You were looking at a paper map on your table trying to decide where you wanted to go." From a grandfather to his 20 something granddaughter. Do 20-year-olds still use paper maps?

"You were yelling at me because the darn sink is still leaking and I was supposed to fix it." From a husband who used to fix things in the house all the time but he didn't get around to the sink yet.

"You were thinking about buying new couches, I liked one of the two you picked out but not the other!" From a loving, but strongly opinionated Mom to her daughter.

"Why did you pick THAT photo of me for the funeral and WHY was it so darn BIG!?" From a brother to his sister.

"You were finally taking down that ugly wallpaper in the bathroom that I hated!" Husband to wife.

"You were planting flowers in your front yard, they are red, it was quiet and you were thinking about your Mom", she was with you.

And my favorite..."The toilet was overflowing and there was complete chaos, the bathroom was flooded and people were running around trying to fix it!" My sitter's response was priceless. She went from shocked that I saw that, to anger about the situation and said "that wasn't funny, that was horrible!" to laughing about the craziness that it caused and then tears that her loved one was there and saw what was happening!

I know, for myself, that I have had my loved ones around me for simple things

like gardening questions, house projects that I didn't feel quite confident about working on, and even cooking advice I didn't ask for. They are at your weddings, family reunions, and holiday gatherings. They see you got your promotion at work and they see that you graduated from college and they're very proud. They brag that they held your child's spirit before you held your child in your arms. They love that you still talk about them and they are always there when you ask them to be, even if you don't feel them. If they are there for the little everyday things of course they're going to be there for the big things too.