Do Dead People Watch You Shower? (7 page)

We can pray
for them. They hear our prayers, and so does God, of course. It is so helpful for them to hear our positive thoughts and prayers for healing. We can say, “Please God, protect and keep them safe and let them find peace in their soul.”

We see all
our loved ones and even will recognize others who we didn’t even know here on this side, who have been with us before and who were helping us during our lives from the Other Side. These
are
our guardian angels.

Once we heal our lives, we’re ready to start work again. Whereas before we
had
guardian angels, when we cross over we
become
guardian angels. We are given jobs—maybe we are sent to give guidance; we guide souls on this side to make good choices. Some of us, when we are there and understand all the ripple effect of things we’ve done, we have a hard time forgiving our behavior here. So some over there have the job of helping other souls over there, helping them to heal.

These are really
false distinctions. A soul is a spirit, is an angel, is a guardian. They are all just different terms for the same thing. Even if an angel (or soul or spirit) isn’t, right at that moment, pulling us out of the path of an oncoming car, it’s still a guardian, still looking out for us.

Spirit guides have
lived numerous lives on this side of the veil. Most will still be reincarnating again, although there are those who have evolved past the process of reincarnating—to put it the best way I can, they’ve gotten off what the Hindus refer to as the wheel of life. But for the most part,
teacher
and
spirit guide
are interchangeable terms.

Yes, I do
believe there are. Certainly everyone has heard of Lucifer. He was one of God’s servants, I would say a Master spirit. I’m certain there are others too. There’re plenty of horrible things that happen here. It seems like it would be an awful lot of work for one dark soul to accomplish. Even in my own life I’ve seen a number of individuals in whom I could sense evil at a gut level. I can’t imagine it was the same soul, over and over, showing up in different bodies in the same lifetime. I don’t think that’s how it works.

I will never
completely understand this piece of the puzzle. I think it’ll be one of my first questions when I get over there, because they sure cause a lot of hurt over here. Maybe it’s like the Garden of Eden—God just wanted to throw in some bad apples and say, “Okay, now what are you going to do with
that
?” I can only assume that facing evil challenges us to be our better selves, to not give in to it, to learn, to grow. When I get over there, God’s gonna have some splainin’ to do!

Oh, I hear
stories all the time about someone who came close to dying or being badly hurt who experienced what some might call “divine intervention.” This is really our guardian angels, spirits from the Other Side who are looking out for us. One case that comes to mind is a young girl, Linda, who came to me and immediately her mother came through and had a lot to communicate, just a ton of stuff, and she said, “Mention the necklaces and say ‘all my love.’” (This is something they very commonly ask me to say, “All my love.” Usually they are showing me something of theirs that the person has that acts as a symbolic connection between the person who is still living and the person who has crossed.) So I tell Linda, “Your mother tells me to mention the necklaces and tell you ‘all my love.’ Do you have some necklaces of hers?” And Linda just collapses. She literally needed a wet washcloth to get herself revived and together. Then she tells me: When her mother died, she didn’t have a lot of nice jewelry or anything—just costume jewelry and cheap, fun stuff. Linda wanted something to remember her mom, so she took three strings of beads—cheap, Mardi Gras–type necklaces. She wrapped them around and around the rearview mirror of her car, looping them many times so they wouldn’t dangle down. One day, she’s driving, and all of a sudden there’s a truck headed right for her—there was nowhere for her to go, no way to get out of its way—it’s going to be a head-on collision. She knows she’s probably going to die, but as the truck bears down on her she just screams, “Mom!”

The next thing she knows, she’s still alive. Her hand is in her lap and her fingers are wrapped around the three necklaces—which are all stretched out perfectly straight, lying across her lap!

Many times in my lifetime, the dead got me out of something. But with my own mortality, I know there may come a day when the spirits who are helping me might not be able to protect me. I know they will do the best they can, as far as they are allowed to intervene, but this is the place where we are in charge. We have to look out for ourselves and not totally rely on our deceased loved ones to always have our backs. We all just need to live each day fully and with joy and appreciation and hope for the best.

One thing is
that they give us counsel. Our conscience, for example, is made up of our own intelligence and our guardian angels. You’ve seen the cartoon of a good angel on one shoulder and a bad angel on the other. Where do you think the inspiration for that cartoon came from? Whoever was the first to draw that must have known—that’s the way it literally is. When you think you are making a decision all on your own, you’re really getting input from the souls of your loved ones who are looking out for you. Also, I do believe we are constantly being challenged by “negative energy.” Like when there is a crying child and it just goes on and on and won’t stop crying. The good angel says, “You’re the adult, this is a child.” It argues for you to understand your place, that you have the perspective of an older person and won’t blame a child for crying. But the bad angel may say, “Smack it!” A lot of people will split the difference. They know they shouldn’t hit the child, but they’ll say something like, “If you don’t stop crying I’ll give you something to cry about.” The negative energy is having an effect, but the inspiration and guidance of the good angel still keep them from giving in to it.

But there’s really no limit to what our angels can help us with when we really need help. They won’t just take care of our lives for us—we do have to make an effort, use our free will, make our own mistakes, learn our own lessons. But if you really really need a train to come, or a taxi on a dark night in lousy weather, or even a parking place, they can help out with that.

I get so much help from all those guys over there. One time I was going to this woman’s house to do a group show, a “house party,” and I was a little lost and felt anxious because I hate to be late. I saw a man in a uniform pointing and somehow knew he was directing me. When I got to the house I said, “I’m sorry I’m a little late. I was confused, but then I saw this man pointing me to the right place.” I described the man and where he was standing. One of the guests—a woman—said, “Oh my goodness! That was my husband!” She told me her husband had been known affectionately as “the mayor of the street.” He’d always tell people what to do with their garbage, when to cut their lawns. It happened that we were having our get-together on the day before the fifth anniversary of his death. The woman told me that he had always stood where I had seen him. His best friend lived there. He’s crossed over, but he’s still helping out in the neighborhood.

Another time I had an important business meeting and I asked Them to come to help me with an important conversation I was going to have. I said, “Please make me look good and be a star!” They said, “Sure, if you can get your big head through the door, we’ll help.”

If you ask
them to, they will help you. Otherwise, I think they like watching us go crazy, turning the house upside down when we misplace something. My husband, John, lost his keys once and he looked everywhere for them. John, being John, did not ask for help. After a month, he said to me again, “I can’t find those keys anywhere.” So I asked his father (who is deceased), “Leo, where are John’s keys?” Here I should mention that we live in the middle of the woods on a very large property, and it was the dead of winter when my husband (finally, sort of) asked for help. By this time there was a layer of dead leaves and a fresh coat of snow over everything. Leo directed me to an exact spot on our property and told me to bend down and clear away the snow and the leaves, and there they were. As God is my witness, I did exactly that. I didn’t have to try here and there; I didn’t have to brush away a big area. I bent down one time, in one place, and the keys were right there. I called John at work to tell him that, with his father’s help, I’d found his keys. I said, “Now do you believe me? Are you impressed?” And he responded in true John fashion, “Yes, I’m impressed. But I’ll be even more impressed when you go out there with my father and ask him to show you where the million dollars is buried.”

Sure they do!
And Grandma certainly does know…. They see us in the bathroom and they see us in the bedroom! But who cares? They’re dead! Who’re they gonna tell?

Don’t freak out. The thing you need to remember is that they are not in the flesh—they
remember
the flesh, but it’s not of any concern to them anymore. They’re not judging. It’s not like they’re going, “Whoa! Has she got a big butt!” or “If I were him, I’da shaved that!” or “
Holy Moly!
Did ya ever see such a big…?” Well, you get the point. The dead are not Peeping Toms—they don’t get any special thrill out of watching, it’s not entertainment to them—that’s thinking in
human
terms. They just look at it like human nature, like we might see two animals going at it and just look at it as animal nature. We might smile, or even laugh. But it’s not judgment. We don’t expect a couple of dogs or squirrels to be embarrassed that we see them doing what they’re doing. Yes, the dead certainly do see us in the shower or making love, but it’s just like we might witness an ordinary act of human kindness. We don’t judge it. We just smile and think, How beautiful. They are just happy that you are experiencing love or maybe just one-night-stand pleasure. They are happy for you. The dead are not nearly as stuffy about sex as some of us here can be—not even our dead
Sicilian
fathers!

And before you even ask the question—yes, they also see all our secret, sneaky behavior. They see us raiding the refrigerator and scarfing down the ice cream and the leftover lasagna when we’re supposed to be on diets; they see us picking our noses when we can’t find a Kleenex. Again, in their eyes, it’s just ordinary human behavior. No judgment. They also see us in the operating room and in the classroom and at our holiday tables. They enjoy with us all the events we celebrate in our lives and they also walk us through our sorrows and heartaches.

I hate to
break it to you, but, no. Even if you said, “Don’t look,” that wouldn’t stop them. What about God? You never think about God looking, right? It’s the same thing. Does God ever stop looking? No. When your grandparents are over there, they are one with God. You can’t just turn that off or hide from it.

Boy, you’ve got
a one-track mind!

No! They are energy forms so they don’t have the same needs and desires of the flesh. They don’t make love, they don’t eat anything, and no, they don’t go to the bathroom. They’re in spirit form, not flesh. I know, you’re probably thinking, “No food? No sex? I’m not going!”