Dearly Departed

By Pat Sweeney

Dearly Departed is a true, fun, easy-to-read book of short stories relating to coincidental and spiritual encounters. A faith in the hereafter and seeing a spiritual presence in the coincidences of life are an asset for personal fulfillment. Understanding the reality of this life, as well as the next, is a key to happiness for anyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781643349015

Book preview

Fairy Dust

If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, I’d walk right up to heaven and bring you here again.

—Author unknown

The phone rang. It was my wife calling on a Friday afternoon in February 1999.

Patrick, come home, she said.

We’re going to play basketball, I said.

Patrick, just come home. I have something to tell you, she insisted. Your mom is dead. She was killed today in a car accident, she informed me.

I went into another world and said, My mom is dead?

My friends were surprised, and I was shocked. The ballgame was cancelled. My friend Steve took me to my home in Louisville, Kentucky. Robin and I quickly made plans to drive to St. Louis, Missouri, my parent’s hometown. We decided it was best for Robin to drive.

As she drove us along I-64 toward Missouri, I sat dumbfounded about the death of my mom. I had seen her the prior weekend. She was the picture of health for a sixty-eight-year-old woman. On the ride, whenever I would start to get upset about my mom’s death, the strangest thing would happen to me. I would feel and hear the sprinkling of fairy dust on me. I’d say that again: I would feel and hear the sprinkling of fairy dust on me. Instantly, my thoughts lightened, and I would be at peace with my mom’s demise.

This sprinkling of fairy dust occurred many times on the four-hour ride and many times during the wake and funeral. Other strange things happened during the funeral. My three-year-old niece would sit and draw pictures of a ghost while talking about Mimi. Mimi was her name for her grandmother and my mom. She was too young to understand the situation but nonetheless would sit and draw ghostlike pictures.

Our dog would normally follow my wife, Robin, everywhere she would go. But on this occasion, Robin would go into the basement and would get a strange, eerie feeling that she wasn’t alone, although no one else could be seen. All the while the dog would sit at the top of the stairs and whine.

The process of the funeral was terribly difficult for the family. The morning of the funeral, my dad stated that he had been up all night praying for composure for the family members. It was therefore enlightening to me when a friend marveled at the composure we had during the wake. During the events of my mom’s funeral, my dad agreed upon his demise to give me a sign of his presence after death. I will get back to this later.

Robin and I stayed for two weeks with