Coping with Grief for the First Time After Losing a Loved One

How to Use Signs from Deceased Loved Ones to Deal with Death

I was around eight years old when I experienced the loss of my grandmother. She was like a mother to me. I was devasted. After the age of one, my mother and father separated. My mother took me to California to take care of me by herself. Being a single, twenty-year-old mother in the late 1970s was not easy. She was working three jobs to make ends meet, and it became too overwhelming for her. My dad was in the Navy stationed overseas, so my mom had to ask my grandparents to care for me.

I was taken back to Cleveland, Ohio at two years old. I was the first grandchild and was spoiled beyond belief by my family. It was a lot of work for my grandparents to care for a toddler. My father was trying to get discharged from the Navy, so he could raise me. My grandmother wrote many letters to my father’s commanding officers to ask for an honorable discharge. Finally, the honorable discharge went through, and he returned home.

My dad depended a lot on my grandparents to help watch me, while he worked. I loved my grandmother so much. She was the kindest, most loving soul. She poured love into me like no other. I have all the pictures to prove it. When I was around three years old, my father met my stepmom. That’s when life began to change. My stepmom felt she needed to separate my grandmother and me to create her own bond with me. So, we saw them less, which saddened my grandmother and me. I was told many years later that my grandmother would cry from missing me so much.

When I was in third grade, I was told my grandmother suffered from lung and breast cancer. Of course, I didn’t completely understand what was happening. I knew by watching my grandmother that she was sick. I will never forget when she was in hospice. They had a special bed set up for her in the back room of the house they lived in. Her physical presence in our lives was quickly coming to an end. I was standing by the bed with a glass of orange juice and a straw giving her sips. I remember feeling confused and scared, not really comprehending what was happening. All she would say to me was how much she loved me.

Soon after that, my grandmother passed on. All the family gathered at the house. I was out in the car with my cousin and sister, who were around four years old. I remember just crying so hard feeling completely crushed and too young to understand death. My dad’s cousin Linda brought a box of donuts out to the car for us kids. I was shoving chocolate donuts in my mouth while crying. That’s when my sugar addiction began. I related feeling better to eating sugar.

My Aunt Gayle was the one who helped me understand and see the signs that a spirit gives us after death. She told me my grandmother loved butterflies and that every time I see one it was my grandmother visiting me to tell me she loved me. At the moment, it helped me overcome the loss. But I didn’t understand the power of signs from spirits until I was much older.

About eight years ago, I was in the nosebleed stands of an Indians game in Cleveland. Most people hated the nosebleed because they are far away from the field. I saw it differently; I would look up and say I am closer to heaven. At the same moment, I said that I thought immediately of my grandmother and my memories with her. Then unexpectedly, a monarch butterfly came flying towards me and sat right next to me on the railing of the stands. I had tears in my eyes. That was my sign. How unusual for a butterfly to be in the nosebleed stands? That’s the universe and spirit.

She comes to me about every five years in a vivid dream. We talk and say how much we love each other. I always wake up a mess, crying all day. The last dream I had of her was in January 2020, right before COVID-19 hit. The dream was all my family together with her dressed in white on the beach. One of those picture-perfect scenes. My grandmother came to me and we said how much we missed and loved each other. Then she warned me to tell my aunt to stop smoking. That was unreal to me. When I woke up, I gave my aunt that message. I know and feel my grandmother with me all the time. I cherish the dreams I have when she comes back to me. Know and believe the spirit and energy of those we love are always with us.