NAN BABYSITS MY GIRL from Heaven
Nan loves to spoil my daughter – from Heaven...
It was the day after my 30th birthday party, so perhaps it wasn’t surprising I felt a bit worse for wear! But a few days later, when the nausea hadn’t passed, I did a pregnancy test: Positive.
I was gobsmacked. My husband Si and I had been trying for a baby for three years and had begun to think it wasn’t going to happen for us.
Now the positive test felt like a birthday gift from my lovely nan, Rose, who’d died six months earlier. After all, she’d been desperate for her first great-grandchild.
‘When are you two gonna have a babby?’ she’d asked us constantly, in her thick Black Country twang.
Nan had been my best friend as well as my nan. Growing up, my little sister Ella and I had spent most weekends at her and Granddad’s 1960s semi and we’d loved it there. Nan had spoilt us rotten with sweets and toys and the pantry was always full of treats.
I had so many happy memories of the house that when Nan and Granddad went into sheltered housing in 2004, both needing a bit of extra help, Si and I had bought the place from them. After all, it had already felt like home.
Sadly, Nan had passed in January 2009, but she’d been a proper old-fashioned matriarch, heading up the whole family, and we all missed her terribly.
Like how she’d made us laugh with her blunt opinions.
‘Ooh, get some better glasses!’ she’d winced one day when I’d turned up at hers in a new mustard-coloured pair.
And on my wedding day, when, to her horror, I’d worn Doc Martens boots...
‘I’m not happy but it’s your wedding,’ she’d sighed, purse-lipped!
Around the time I discovered I was pregnant, I was woken one night by something strange: Someone strummed one of my electric guitars, which was leant against the wall in a recess on the landing.
Si was working away at the time as a heating and ventilation contractor, so it took all my courage to go and check if anyone was there, but when I reached the landing all was silent. A little weirded out, I strummed the guitar myself, half expecting a response, but nothing happened. It took me ages to get back to sleep again.
When Molly Rose was born, in March 2010, I was sad that Nan wouldn’t get to meet her. She’d hated missing out on any family events.
‘I hope I’ll be getting an invite,’ she’d hinted whenever she heard that anything was being planned.
At least my granddad, Ivor, got to meet Molly and he doted on her from the start. He had dementia and didn’t always remember me or my mum, but his face always lit up when he saw Molly.
Then, when she was five months old we lost Granddad too. He’d always said when
Nan went he wouldn’t be long after and he was right.
It was a few months later, when we were all round Mum’s that Christmas, that she suddenly smelt smoke. We could all catch the scent too.
None of us smoked – but
Nan and Granddad both had. Was one of them back?
After that I started smelling smoke in my house too. Always fleeting, but strong and unmistakable, and always on the walk from the living room to the kitchen.
Then one day when Molly was two she toddled up to a photo of Nan and Granddad from my sister’s wedding. She’d never known my nan, never even seen her, but she pointed at the photo and excitedly said, ‘Nan! Nan!’ as if she knew exactly who it was in the picture.
I couldn’t explain it and it made me quite emotional.
Not long after, I was sitting downstairs with the baby monitor next to me on the arm of the sofa, when something made me look at the screen. I watched, amazed and a bit freaked out, as Molly sat up in her toddler bed and started chatting happily to someone or something I couldn’t see.
At first I thought maybe she was talking in her sleep, but the more I watched the more
Mum suddenly smelt smoke
I could see she was definitely awake. Her eyes were wide open and she was talking animatedly, as if chatting to a close friend.
It was mostly toddler babble – what we called her ‘hurdy gurdy’ language, but then she clearly said: ‘OK then, bye!’ and lay back down.
As Molly settled back down to sleep, a bright white light followed her and settled next to her head on the pillow. I watched, transfixed, my skin prickling with excitement.
Afterwards I hurried upstairs to check on her and she was already snoring!
I was in no doubt at all that this was my nan, Rose, taking care of Molly and helping her settle to sleep.
Not long after, Mum babysat and swore she saw a shadow go past the monitor too.
Then I was in bed one night when I woke up really needing a wee. I could feel our Staffie, Pringle, lying on my feet so I tried to wriggle her off. Only when I tried to dislodge her I heard a very human voice say: ‘Oi!’
I sat bolt upright and looked. It wasn’t Pringle at the end of the bed. It was Nan!
She looked completely solid, as real as you or I, only how she’d looked before she got unwell towards the end of her life.
I wasn’t scared, just amazed as I gazed at her.
‘Oh Lucy, she’s wonderful. If I was here, I’d spoil her rotten,’ Nan said.
I knew, of course, she was talking about Molly and I was now certain Nan had been spending time with her great-granddaughter.
‘I know, Nan,’ I said as she beamed at me.
By now I was really desperate to go to the loo and in danger of having an accident, so I asked Nan if she could hold on until I came back.
She didn’t answer, but I really had to go.
When I got back to bed, she was gone. I felt a bit sad, and hoped she’d understood my leaving her, but I slept like a baby that night, happy in the knowledge my grandparents will always love us and are never far away.
A couple of years ago, me and Ella decided to go to a psychic night at our local pub. In a group reading, we were singled out. It started with a lady doing our cards. Each one she picked out had a rose on it – like Nan’s name.
Then, later that same night, another psychic said: ‘A lady’s come through. She’s telling me that even though it didn’t look or seem like it, she loved every moment.’
Ella and I burst into tears – we knew exactly what the message meant.
Just before she died Nan had gone to Ella’s wedding. By then Nan had been wheelchair bound and in the full swing of dementia. Even though she’d been at the wedding, it had felt like she hadn’t really been there.
After being so sad at the way she had deteriorated, we were so happy to hear she’d still enjoyed the wedding.
Next the psychic turned to me.
‘She approves of your new specs,’ she went on.
I really chuckled at that. At last I’d managed to choose a pair of glasses Nan liked.
Molly Rose is now 11 and knows all about her lovely nan and how she helped look after her, from Heaven. We’ll always miss Nan, but she’s shown us that love goes on and on.
A bright white light settled next to her