Daniel's View

By Wynoma Herrick

This Story Is True

Most days I feel those of the spirit world around me. I first met Daniel Armstrong in 2010. He looked as real and as solid as you and I.

Although he was unaware of the fact, he had been dead for many decades. Through shared conversations with Daniel, as well as some of his deceased family members, we learn what kept Daniel, an earthbound ghost, trapped in the 1930's Oklahoma Dust Bowl.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475904499

Wynoma Herrick

Wynoma Herrick, lives in Dallas, Texas. Her interest in the paranormal has been strong for several years and has been enhanced by ardent studies and personal experinece. Messages from spirt guides, and some who have crossed over, are as real to her as conversations with best friends.

Book preview

Chapter One 

I went to bed on the night of May 5, 2010 and read for a while before turning off the light as I do many nights. In the last few months it has not been unusual for me to see spirit essences in a darkened room. Last night, out of a group of seven of those spirits two stood out. The first to appear was a man I believed to be in his early thirties. A nice-looking man with dark hair a bit on the long side and a well shaped beard and mustache. He was dressed in an old dark suit and a white shirt. Well worn work shoes that turned up a bit at the toes as though they were too long for his feet completed his look of the early Nineteen hundreds. His face faded and a beautiful little blond haired girl approximately three years old smiled at me. Her hair was long with bangs cut straight across her forehead. She wore a straw hat with the brim turned up in front that framed her face beautifully. There was no doubt in my mind she was a happy child, unaware of the hardships her father faced.

As the spirits faded, I felt compelled to make a sketch of the two of them. I turned on the light, got up and went in search of a drawing pad and pencil. As I sketched the man, the name Daniel Armstrong came to me and I wrote it at the top of my not very good drawing. The little girl made me aware that her name was Alice and I penciled that name above her sketch. Before I laid the pad aside I was presented with the name Louisa Armstrong. I saw no one, nor the image of anyone, but I wondered if she might be wife and mother to Daniel and Alice. I felt the year to be 1933 and the place Oklahoma. The image of Daniel looking toward the west flashed before me and I picked up a pen and paper and wrote these words.

Times are hard, food is scarce, and not one drop of rain has fallen in 211 days.

Another large wall cloud of whirling, rolling sand too dense to see through moved ever closer to the small house that sat on the open prairie. Daniel scooped Alice into his arms and called to Louisa, whom I still did not see, as he hurried to get the child inside before the cutting sands could hit her soft skin.

At this point everything faded before me and I only saw the familiar things in my bedroom. I knew I had received all the information I would get for the time being. I put the papers away, turned off the light and went quickly to sleep.

This morning May 6, 2010 I transfer the information to my computer and hope Daniel and Alice will visit me again and tell me their story. I also hope to learn about Louisa. I am very curious about this unseen woman, and the yet untold story of the Armstrong family.

Normally when I see the spirits or shadow people I momentarily wonder about them. I have never felt frightened by them. Although I have no idea why they are in my home I have become use to them. I must admit where the Armstrong’s are concerned I am interested in a way I would describe as much more than normal curiosity. There is something different about Daniel and Alice. I want to know them. I want to know why they came to me, who they are and what they may have to tell me. They are as real as you and I. They just function in a different energy frequency from those of us still in a physical body. Therefore I issue this invitation to anyone associated with this family to come and talk to me at any time.

A few hours later while I sat for a few minutes in my quiet place I became aware of Daniel’s presence. He tells me he has waited for someone to hear and respond to his voice. He says it is not the first time he has attempted to get my attention as well as others before me. You however, are the only one to respond to me, he says. I have floated in and out of your presence hoping you would become aware of my presence.

I tell Daniel we can communicate as he chooses, be it a soft whisper or a strong voice as well as any visions that will allow him to tell me what he needs to share and why. With a soft sigh and the fading words thank you moving away from me, Daniel Armstrong’s presence is gone. It could be because I am tired, or perhaps the phone call from a sales person trying to make a living broke the connection between Daniel and me.

Chapter Two 

Monday morning May 10, 2010.

I am extremely restless today. Usually I am calm and move through my days in a soft way. I dreamed of my dead husband again this morning, four times in the last three weeks after not dreaming of him once in over a year.

The other thing on my mind was Daniel Armstrong. I pull out a canvas and paints having an image in my mind to paint. What I put on that canvas was nothing like I had planned. When I was through and laid my brush down I had a blue sky with bits of clouds and dirt, reddish brown rolling dirt. I almost feel as though I painted what Daniel sees out his window. Not one single tree or plant was visible in that moment. I would have a hard time living in that place. I need trees and lots of them: tall, short, skinny, fat. I like the sound of the wind in the leaves. I like the bare skeleton of the trees in winter. Others must see another kind of beauty in bare places. I know there is beauty in all things and remember the old saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To me that image was not beautiful but desolate and lonely. If that was my home I think I would dry up and, like a tumble weed, the winds would blow me into unknown places. In this moment I whisper a prayer of thanks for the trees around me. Then I quiet myself and ask Daniel to come talk to me. I sit at my computer prepared to write what he shares with me. Daniel, I am listening.

It is not Daniel who comes to me; it is Louisa Armstrong. She is not what I expected. She looks much older than Daniel. There is a good fifteen or twenty years between them. For a moment I wonder if she is Daniel’s mother but she shakes her head and tells me, no, she is his wife. It is obvious that Louisa is very ill. She is skin and bones. Her thin grey hair is twisted into a small bun on the back of her head. She moves slowly, so weak it takes most of her strength to cross the room. Her house dress hangs from her body and the sand in the air makes it even harder to breath. She tells me she will not live much longer, her days grow short. She fights to stay alive, to be with her family. Without them she would have gladly given in to death before now. Leaving Daniel would be difficult and leaving Alice almost unbearable.

I look up and see Daniel and Alice coming into the house. I see the look on Daniel’s face when he looks at Louisa and I can relate to what I see in his eyes. I saw that same look in my own eyes when my husband was dying. My husband has been gone for seven and a half years and in my time on the calendar Louisa must have been this ill seventy-seven years ago.

This