Paranormal Story Archives
May 2002 – Page 20

Message from Nanny
by Jean F.

My very first psychic experience happened when I was about seven, while sitting at the kitchen table writing a letter to "Nanny," my paternal grandmother, who had been ill for about a year by that time.

Years earlier, Nanny had taken care of me while my mother was caring for my dying father in the hospital. He was her "favorite" child and I was his only offspring (even though he had been married more than once). "Nanny" was born the 11th of March, and I, the 10th; so, she always told everyone that I was her "birthday present." We were very close.

As I sat by myself with paper and pencil, I remember that I had written, in clumsy block letters at the top of the page, "DEAR NANNY." At that point, I guess I lapsed into a kind of trance. I remember trying to move my head and hands, but I was unable to. It was as if my body was frozen. In a moment, a figure that appeared to be my Nanny just "materialized" out of thin air and seemed to be floating about five feet off the floor in front of me. While I could make out the shape of her body, it was as if it was made of a material that I could see through. I tried to move my head up to look into her eyes, but was still "frozen" where I sat and could not!

Nanny began "speaking" to me, although it was more like I just "heard" her voice in my head rather than heard it with my ears! She spoke to me for what seemed to me like a long time. She told me that she loved me very much, and that I would be told that she had died, but that I was not to cry or be upset about it because she was in a wonderful place. She told me she was not in pain anymore and that she had reunited with my [deceased] father and that she was very, very happy. She also told me that, in the future, she would always be near me, watching over me, so I was not to "miss" her because she would still be here with me. Then the figure of Nanny dissolved completely and I was able to move once again. I dashed into the living room and told my mother that I had "seen" Nanny, but she dismissed me, saying something like, "That's nice, dear," and went on reading her newspaper.

The next morning my mother received a phone call and she told me, in a very serious voice, that Nanny had passed away in the night. As she told me this, she was looking at me intently, I suppose in order to judge my reaction. I told her I knew all about it because Nanny had told me the night before when I saw her in the kitchen.

Over the next several weeks, my mother broached the subject of my grandmother's death with me many times, trying, she said, to make me understand that Nanny was gone forever and that it was okay for me to cry and be sad about it. Of course, I did not cry nor act sad because my Nanny had specifically instructed me not to!

Finally, in desperation, my mother took me to a child psychologist to find out why this child of hers, who had been so very close with her grandmother, was not showing any outward signs of grief about her passing! My mother insisted it simply was not normal! After a few sessions with the psychologist, he told her it seemed as though I had had a great deal of emotional attachment to my grandmother. Additionally, I seemed to understand the concept of death, and that my grandmother was dead. Baffled himself by my apparent lack of outward signs of grief, he said it could stem from a profound spiritual or religious belief in the afterlife nurtured in me by those around me. My mother, an avowed atheist, pooh-poohed his theory and ended my sessions with him soon thereafter.

That was my first encounter "seeing dead people." However, I have had many more such experiences in my 49 subsequent years of life. I suppose the reason I do not find these apparitions frightening or distressing is because my first encounter was with a person that I loved so very, very much - my Nanny.

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