Always WATCHING over me
A friendly face was there to reassure me I wasn’t alone.
Flicking on the radio, I smiled. ‘You got yourself a crying, talking, sleeping, walking, living doll…’ sang Cliff Richard. ‘Hello, Billy,’ I grinned to my empty kitchen. My older brother, Billy, had been the biggest Cliff fan.
I’d idolised Billy, a car bodywork spray painter. He was 6ft tall but a gentle giant, never said a cross word to anyone.
Sadly, he’d died when he was 48.
In the 35 years since, lots had changed – I was now a great grandma – but I knew Billy could see because every time I heard Cliff Richard on the radio, I’d find a white feather in the house or close to Billy’s grave.
In 2019, my great-granddaughter Connie, eight, was diagnosed with epilepsy. I often looked after her and her twin, Kia, while their mum, Leah, worked shifts at McDonald’s and I’d feel helpless when she had a seizure.
One afternoon, that September, I was so worried about her I broke down in tears, alone in my hallway.
‘Please, Billy, look out for Connie, help her get well,’ I begged.
But there was just silence.
A couple of days later, I was due to have some crumbling panels removed from my hallway. The builders ripped them out and replastered the hallway and staircase.
‘They did a great job, Mum,’ my son Stephen, 40, grinned, when he popped round a couple of days later.
As Stephen peered up the staircase, he gasped. ‘There’s a face in the plaster!’
It was a man with dark eyes and grey hair. But he wasn’t frightening. He was smiling.
‘That’s amazing,’ I grinned. ‘He looks so familiar too…’
We looked at each other. It couldn’t be, could it? Billy? I texted a photo to my eldest son, David, to see if he could spot the resemblance too.
‘It’s Uncle Billy, clear as day!’ David said. I dug out a photo of Billy taken shortly before he died. Holding it up to the plaster face was like looking at a mirror image of my big brother. Then it hit me, it was early September and Billy’s birthday was 2nd September. He would have been 81.
‘Well, you certainly found a unique way to say hello, Billy,’ I told the face in the wall.
Even one of Billy’s daughters, Donna, thought it was a dead ringer for her dad.
Had he appeared to comfort me when I was feeling worried about Connie?
After a few more days, Billy’s face gradually faded and disappeared.
Two years on, Connie, now 10, is doing much better. Yet I still look to the plaster wall sometimes, hoping my big brother is still there, somewhere.