A calming voice

she picked up the prints and saw her mother’s image in the photos.

While everyone else in the family photos appeared normally, her mother appeared as a photographic negative. It was as if the photos foreshadowed her mother’s impending death.

Mary said she had great difficulty coming to terms with her mother’s death and the loss of the closeness they had shared. She was often tearful. Her children began to ask whether she would be happy again.

She became withdrawn and rarely left home, as there seemed to be so many reminders of her mother wherever she went. This continued for about 18 months. Mary was almost certainly clinically depressed.

One day, about 18 months after her mother’s death, she was outside in the garden with her infant daughter. Her daughter was a finicky eater and Mary often resorted to feeding her outside in the garden, distracting her while she fed her by getting her to watch the birds flying overhead.

This particular evening when they were outside in the garden Mary was taken aback when she heard a voice calling her name. She looked around but there was no one there.

When she heard her name called again she was in no doubt it was her mother’s voice.

She said this moment was a turning point in her life. She then deeply felt that the connection with her mother was still there.

She felt that her mother was not gone; she was still there for her but in a different form.

From that day on Mary started