As the years moved by the changes of life began to happen including the arrival into the world of my two sons, both with which I have a loving and very psychic connection. My eldest son and my father were inseparable, a bond that was made before his younger brother arrived almost three years later.

There was such a strong love between them that seemed to bring a softness to my father I had not seen before and one night after bath time something quite unusual occurred. While my father was visiting, this otherwise placid and gentle-natured child threw an enormous tantrum when I tried to tuck him into bed after dinner. He sobbed and held his arms out to the bedroom door.

'I want Granddad!' he screeched 'I want Granddad to tuck me in' My father came up from downstairs to see what the noise was about and I explained that I didn’t know, but my son just seemed to want him and him only and was inconsolable.

Two weeks later it was found that my beloved father had cancer. I felt then that somehow my son must have known that something was wrong, even at just four years of age.

My youngest son arrived a year earlier. He was also very sensitive even in his early months and whenever he was sleeping and I would think of him, he would wake up suddenly and not settle again for a length of time. I had to learn to distract my thoughts away from him so that we both could sleep!

Because of his illness my father was not well enough to get to know him well although I know he loved him dearly. My son was just 18 months of age when unbelievably and unexpectedly one evening, my father passed to Spirit.

My mother was travelling to Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge with my brother to escort my father back home, having successfully completed his cancer treatment. Before they reached the hospital, dad had a sudden heart attack and was gone.

Life could never be the same without him in those dark empty days and weeks that followed, and we as a family struggled to understand why the man who we adored and respected could have been taken. I wanted to believe that Dad had gone on somewhere higher but I didn’t know much about the subject and I was still nervous about it all. Apart from feeling that he was close to me on the night that he passed and again several days later, there was nothing else to make me feel that my father was still with us although I knew instinctively that he had not really left us.

My mother and I thought about going to a Spiritualist Church on several occasions but somehow never went because I think my father's request not to go searching, that he made years before, was still in our mind and we did not know where to go or what to do to find comfort. I had never met a medium before and the only one that I had heard of was the late Doris Stokes who I thought was marvellous, and so began reading some of her books which were a help to find some of the comfort I was hoping to feel, but I needed proof directly from my father that he was still there.

It was my eldest son who brought that to me when something he said one late afternoon made me think.  He was six years old at the time and dad had passed away the year previously.

I called him to come downstairs for tea, but at first he didn’t appear. When he finally came I asked him what had kept him. He replied cheerfully 'I’ve been playing chess with Granddad' I looked at him for a moment, unsure of what to make of the statement 'Have you? Who won?'

My son sighed with a smile  'Granddad of course, he always wins'

I remember the hairs on my neck standing up. Although my father was not known as a regular gamesman he had been partial to a game of chess many years ago when we were children, and it was never mentioned to my son.

As the weeks and months passed my psychic experiences intensified, almost spiralling out of control. The most vivid of dreams were continuing night after night and I was getting no proper rest.  Whenever the phone rang I not only knew who it was but why they had called. There were crowds of people talking in my head all at once but I couldn’t make out what they were trying to tell me, and I would frequently wake up in the night suddenly to see the strangest things before my eyes. This included faces indented into the wall and Roses climbing rapidly up the wallpaper!

One night I was so disturbed by these that I had to be retrieved from inside of a wardrobe where hiding to escape from it all, not realising at the time that the Spirit World only wanted my attention and did not want to harm or frighten me. Because I felt afraid I perceived that this was something unpleasant that was happening, although unbeknown me at the time it was really something quite wonderful.

I knew that I had to take some kind of action when, being permanently exhausted, I began constantly seeing the next few moments of my life just before it was happening. That was it, enough was enough! Whatever this was I needed to find someone who could help me to understand it and turn it off for good.

As ever Spirit were listening and the biggest change was about to arrive....

Next time - My Spiritual Mary Poppins!

Donna Stewart Copyright 2018