A heart of GOLD
Nan was determined to make up for the fact she’d not been able to save my cousin. By Dawn Jakes, 46
‘Pleeeeease can I go out to play?’ I asked my nan for the umpteenth time. I was nine years old and normally when Nan came to look after me I was allowed to ‘play out’ all day, as long as I was home by the time the streetlamps came on. Today, though, Nan was adamant I couldn’t leave the house.
I was still sulking when my granddad arrived with terrible news: My cousin had died suddenly, aged 13.
Nan went ashen. ‘I was at the wrong house...’ she stammered.
Turned out a few nights earlier Nan had dreamed she’d heard a voice say: ‘Nan, help me, I’m going to die.’ That was why she’d been afraid to let me out. Only, now it seemed the dream hadn’t been about me.
Although there likely wasn’t anything she could have done to save my cousin, I know Nan regretted not being there until the day she passed when I was 15.
We’d been really close and years after I lost her I’d often catch a whiff of her
Lily of the Valley perfume in the kitchen or sense someone behind me when I was washing up and reckoned it was her. Then, one day in August 2018, I was in my bedroom when
I saw a translucent golden figure in the hall.
The figure, which had no feet, came out of my 18-yearold son Bradley’s bedroom, travelled halfway across the landing, then turned back, pausing for a moment outside my room. I hurried into Bradley’s room to check on him, but he was sound asleep.
I struggled to sleep afterwards, which meant I was still half-awake three hours later, when I heard banging on the wall between my bedroom and Bradley’s.
This time when I went to check on him, Bradley’s arms were rigid and his eyes were rolled back in his head. He was clearly having some kind of seizure.
I called an ambulance and, after a trip to Bedford Hospital, Bradley was fine. I was so grateful the golden figure had meant I was on the alert that night.
A few weeks later Bradley, who has autism, asked an odd question: ‘Should I still be alive?’
It turned out on the night of the seizure, when I’d seen the golden figure, Bradley had dreamed he was going to die and a woman, who he reckoned looked like me, had watched over him until he’d woken to find the paramedics there.
I gasped. I was the spit of Nan in her younger days. She had to be the woman Bradley was talking about.
She’d always regretted not being there for my cousin. Now she’d made sure to be there for her great-grandson.
Bradley, now 21, has since been diagnosed with epilepsy, which he controls with medication. But it’s thanks to Nan he’s here at all.