A lovely friend of ours, Diana, was half Greek. She was tall and slim, used to do a lot of modelling when she was younger, and lived with a guy called Jim in the Mill House at Barley, opposite the church. Lovely people. She was a very vivacious woman but sadly she got cancer. She was very into healing and all that, alternative methods and so on and we used to sit a Circle with her. Unfortunately, she died, which was very sad. She was only in her fifties.
At the time, I had a car that had never, ever let me down. Ever. She started on the button every time. On the morning of Diana’s funeral, as with everything we do, we were late. We had about five minutes to get to the funeral, but it wasn’t far. The car wouldn’t start. I tried turning the key again, the car still wouldn’t start. I tried and tried to get it to start and in the end I thought we were going to miss the funeral and it was a funeral I really didn’t want to miss. She had been a good friend.
Diana had a very wicked sense of humour and she would get you from time to time with a real humdinger. I got out of the car.
“Diana, if you’re fucking about, I’ve had enough of it! I’m going to your funeral, and if you make me late I’m going to be really annoyed!”
Got in the car…vrooooom!!! The car started straight away.
Finally, we got to the church. We sat through the ceremony, which was well attended, listened to the speeches from the relatives and there were lots of tears. It’s always worse when the person who died isn’t that old.
A day or two later, Magi and I went for a walk by the sea and we were standing there on Southend beach looking out to sea. It was a very nice day. There was a break in the clouds, which had previously been grey and overcast, and there was a lovely stream of light that came down across the water at us.
“Look at that, isn’t it lovely,” Magi said.
We both looked down at the patch of sea that the beam of sunlight was illuminating, and there was a perfect, single stemmed, red rose floating on the water, the sort you would give someone on Valentine’s day. A red rose that’s in the sea for more than a couple of minutes, getting hammered around by the freezing cold surf in the middle of November, is going to get wrecked, but the rose was in perfect condition.
“Look at that!” Magi exclaimed, pointing at the rose.
Whenever we’ve lost a friend before, Magi has always done something down by the sea, like throwing a stone over a cliff or whatever felt right at the time, as a farewell. When the rose turned up, we picked it out from the sea and just stared at it.
“What’s this all about?” I asked.
“It’s Diana, isn’t it?” Magi said.
“Of course!”
Magi felt that we had to put it back, so we closed our eyes and thought of Diana and then we hurled the rose out to sea again, as far as we could, whilst shouting her name into the wind. That was our personal goodbye and then we continued on our walk.
The next day, I went to see the Mark who I’d been to France with. We were sitting in his conservatory at the back of his house, and all of a sudden he said to me:
“I don’t like to say too much, but Diana’s standing right behind you.”
“Are you having a laugh?” I asked. My clairaudience much better than my clairvoyance. I can sense but my sight isn’t good. “Whereabouts is she?”
“She’s right there, looking at you! And… she’s looking a bit annoyed.”
“Oh dear,” I muttered. “What’s she annoyed about?” Mark knew nothing about the rose from the day before.
“She’s showing me a red rose,” he told me.
“Yeah?”
“And she’s telling me it was to give to Jim.”
“Oh no!” I said in disbelief. “Shit! I’m ever so sorry. I didn’t know it was for Jim! What’s she saying?”
“She’s gone,” Mark said. I decided I was going to have to go and see Jim and tell him all about the red rose.
“Jim,” I said when I arrived, “I hope you don’t mind me telling you this, and I don’t want to upset you, but I was over at Mark’s house and Diana turned up.” He looked at me for a second.
“Really?” Just as he said that, there was a bang! out in the kitchen where his son was standing. His son was the manager of the Cliff Pavilion at Southend. He was like his mother, tall, slim and good looking. His son came into the room holding a bulb that appeared to have completely exploded. The funny thing was, none of the lights had been on.
“You know that light that mum hated? The one above the cooker?”
“Yes?” said Jim, sounding a bit wary.
“Bloody thing’s just blow up! But it wasn’t even on!”
“Oh, it’s probably just worn out, or something,” Jim blustered. He hadn’t been into the same things as Diana, and hadn’t believed in any of it. Diana had refused to have anything other than the energy saving light bulbs in the house, but that particular light wasn’t because they hadn’t been able to get energy saving bulbs for it and that was why Diana had hated it. She was very into saving the planet. His son wandered off again, presumably to clear up, and I turned back to Jim.
“Jim, Diana turned up over at Marks,” I recapped.
“That’s funny, because the woman over the road, you know, the one in the wheelchair that was at the funeral?”
“Yeah, I know the one,” I said.
“She came over, knocked on the door in a panic, and she said Diana had turned up in her kitchen!”
“Really?”
“Yeah!”
“Is she psychic then?”
“No,” Jim said, “she just saw her standing there.”
“Well, what did Diana want?” I asked.
“Well, looks like she’s going around saying goodbye to people,” Jim suggested. I was getting the hump at that point because Diana hadn’t been to say goodbye to me!
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I said. “There was a rose floating in the sea and Magi threw it back into the sea to say goodbye to Diana. But then Diana turned up and, via Mark, told me that the rose was actually for you, so I’m awfully sorry, but the rose was there for us to give to you. We didn’t know, so it’s gone back into the sea. I hope you can forgive me, I can’t give you the rose now.”
“Ahh, that’s alright,” Jim said with a smile. “Diana would understand that.”
“Well, apparently she did have the hump about it.”
“She’ll be alright,” Jim laughed. “I’m sure she’ll get over it.”
About a week later, Diana stories began coming in from all over the place. She’d been visiting everybody, just the once. People had been over to see Jim with the same old ‘Jim, I don’t want to upset you, but…’ stories. These people weren’t psychic either, but they’d seen Diana. Diana always had said that when she died she would try to let everyone know she was okay. I was really getting the needle now because she hadn’t been to see me. But then, I thought, I don’t ‘see’ very well, so perhaps she has been to see me and I haven’t sensed her.
Jim took us out to a restaurant one evening. He was driving and I was sitting in the back of the car with Magi and Jim had brought one of his friends along so there were four of us in the car. This is where it all starts getting a bit weird. I know a lot of people will insist that dreams can be very vivid, but I don’t have dreams that I remember. It’s very rare for me to do that.
We drove home and I was sitting behind Jim and Diana was mentioned a bit – not a lot, because we didn’t want to dwell on the subject too much - and Magi got out of the car once Jim had pulled up, and as I got out, Diana was right there in front of me and she gave me a big kiss, right on the lips. I could feel it! But the weird thing is, I was sitting up in bed. I’d dreamt it. But I can’t remember the gap in between. It was such a weird scenario. I sat there and I could feel it. She made me jump, she frightened me.
“The cow,” I muttered. She would do that, just to get me. I sat bolt upright in bed and I could still hear her laughing. I turned, expecting to see Magi next to me, but she wasn’t there. I relaxed back into bed again to think about it.
Oh well, I thought, she said goodbye. I laid down and went back to sleep again.
evergreen
What a special story David... hugs
mark
david,that was a beautifull story ,one thing comes to mind,that she was a lucky lady to have known you and maggi,your love for people shines through.
Deb's
I enjoyed reading that.... What a wonderful lady Diana sounds....
Thank you for sharing that Mr Hobbs.
love & light,
Deb's. x
david hobbs
She was a lovely person, and as you have guessed every man who new her fell in love with her including me, and also respected her, to me that is the mark of a real woman, the respect.
She fulfilled her promise to return, and as much as much as I say in other posts that I have not had proof of survival I am telling porkys to stimulate conversation.
I have had proof on this occasion, and one or two others. Sorry for winding you up Deb's
But does it really matter. What will be will be.
evergreen
IT was a huge thing the red rose... that would a pretty big for me
Deb's
No apology needed here Mr Hobbs... It only matters if we let it matter, Que sera sera.
love & light,
david hobbs
We cannot lose really.
If there is an afterlife then what a result, and if there isn't then it really doesn't matter.
Deb's
So true Mr Hobbs.... either way, life is not to be wasted
