I Get a Nod From Grandpa

Full transcript of the My True Ghost Stories episode “I Get a Nod From Grandpa.” Listen to this episode.

A spiritual journey comes full circle, with an unexpected affirmation from the other side. Welcome to Episode 22 of My True Ghost Stories. My dad is a bit of a spiritual seeker like me. Throughout his life he's explored many different customs, rituals, some of which I have adopted. And at this point he has wound up primarily as a Christian.

At the time of this story, a few years ago, he had attended one church for a long time and had, after many years, decided to go to a different church with a different domination in his neighborhood. This new church was very welcoming to new members. They worked hard to greet them, give them opportunities to get involved, and generally make them feel part of this new community. And this church was in Manhattan, so there's a big turnover, and there's always new people joining the congregation. So on the day that my dad was officially joining this church, there is a semi-annual new member induction ceremony during a regular Sunday service, and the new members were encouraged to bring a guest to the service.

My dad invited me to be his guest, I was honored. About 12 other people were joining that day, and there was an informal welcome at a pre-church coffee hour for new members, their guests, elders, and the clergy. And we met in a downstairs meeting room of which there were many. It's amazing how much space there is in churches in New York City compared to the rest of the city. The group met in one of these downstairs rooms.

And to start things off, we stood in a circle and went around the circle introducing ourselves and saying a tiny bit about ourselves. Our name, why we are here, a little something about ourselves, like 20 seconds max. And when it got to us, me and my dad, my dad said that he was there to join the church and how long he had attended, because he had been attending for a little while. And then I got to talk, which I, of course, loved. I loved to talk in front of people, even if it's only for 20 seconds.

So I told them that I was here with my dad, this guy here, to support him, and that I personally had a very close relationship with the Archangel after which this church was named. Which I imagined everyone there would want to talk to me about that, like they would pause the introductions to ask me to elaborate on this special relationship with an Archangel. But instead, just polite smiles and nods, and they went on to the next person. So I thought, well, maybe the minister will want to talk to me about it after the service. The circle of introductions finished up and there was coffee and snacks, and this pre-church coffee hour did not last a whole hour.

While we were there, my dad and I talked to some people about different things, churchy things, cultural things, neighborhood things, and sadly nobody asked me for details about my Archangel relationship, which I was sure was going to happen at any minute. The clergy left the coffee hour first and headed upstairs. The service would begin soon, and the small gatherings slowly thinned out, and my dad and I eventually headed upstairs when it was almost time for the service to begin. We found a spot in a pew on the left side of the sanctuary, on our left, sort of in front of the pulpit. I sat right on the aisle.

I always need to be on the aisle. I am too restless to be confined to the center of a pew. And the service began. I was the usual, you know, sing, listen, stand up, sit down, sing again, listen again, stand up again. And it was during the second reading, and I don't remember what the reading was.

I wish I did. It was during the second reading that, as I was reading along while listening to the lector, I got this vibration in my chest that lets me know that a spirit is nearby trying to get my attention. Often I just tuned this out, but I felt that this one was when I had to pay attention to, to listen to. And I sensed, before even looking up, that the spirit was standing in the center aisle, a pew or two ahead of me. So I looked up from the reading and up the aisle to pews and there was the spirit of my grandfather.

My dad's dad. And he was wearing brown trousers and a khaki jacket and he was standing at an angle between me and the pulpit looking at the lector. And then he glanced over his shoulder at me and gave a little nod, like a nod of approval, real subtle, but definitely a nod of approval. And then he disappeared. I never really got to know this grandfather, my dad's dad.

He had passed away when I was five, but I did have one memory of him, a fond memory, of a moment during a trip with him and my mom, his daughter-in-law, to a botanical garden somewhere when I was around three. I remember playing a funny game with him where I would hide under the branches of this tree. My mom says it was a weeping katsura tree, a tree that grows in a dome shape. And the branches go all the way down to the ground, so it makes like a dome. Very fun for a three-year-old.

So I would hide near the trunk of the tree under the dome of the branches. And he, my grandfather, would lift them up and say, where's Jenny? I remember having so much fun with this game, and I remember that he was wearing brown trousers and a khaki jacket. I hear that was his typical outfit, and that's my only memory of him. And it is a good one.

My mother says that he was a wonderful father-in-law and a wonderful grandfather. So the grandpa that I saw in the Isle of the Church looked the same as the grandpa I remember in the botanical garden when I was three. But the message, the affirmative nod, was not for three-year-old me. I could tell it was not even for me. I was pretty sure it was for my dad.

I looked over at my father who was sitting next to me in the pew, and he was listening rapidly to the next reading, which had just started. And it did not seem like the right time to interrupt him with this. To give him a message from his long departed father, especially since it was just a nod and not even any words. I mean, what would I say? Your dad nodded.

What? Your dad nodded. And the whispering would bother everyone around us. So I decided to wait a minute. But the service kept going, of course.

It's not like it was going to somehow magically pause to allow me to give my dad a message from the other side. So I decided to wait until the service was over altogether. And midway through the service, right before the announcements, it came time for my dad to officially join this church. They asked that all new members come up to the front of the church, and I scooched over to let my dad get by me. And he walked up the center aisle with the rest of the new members, and they stood facing the altar, and the minister said a blessing over them.

It was beautiful. Not that formal, but I knew it meant a lot to my father, so I found it beautiful. After the blessing of the new members, my dad came back to the pew. I scooched over again to let him back into the pew, and it was then time for the offeratory hymn, which the choir, full of high-level New York City professional singers, was going to sing. And the hymn began as the ushers came up the aisle with the baskets, and we were sort of near the front of the church, so the baskets passed us quickly.

And what happened next was great for my dad, and not so much for me. My father, having just committed to this church, experienced this blessing from the minister, was listening to the glorious hymn sung by a concert-level choir, and he was looking up at the majestic stained glass windows full of pictures of the saints above the sanctuary. He felt, and this is in his words, I quote, that he was caught up in a whirlwind of spiritual energy, moving in a vortex, going upward toward the dome ceiling, that he was caught up in a spiritual ascension. End quote. Pretty cool.

And then he says he looked over at me during this, probably to see if I was experiencing anything similar, and I looked worried. So here's what was happening to me during that hymn. It must have been, I'm not sure, but it must have been that after I had that brief moment of communication with the spirit of my grandfather, that all of the ghosts, the trapped spirits in that church, and there were a lot, there always are. They realized that I could see them, that I could maybe help them. I'm not sure, but that seems to be what happened.

Because suddenly, for some reason at that time, during the offer-tory hymn, they all rushed to the side of my pew, and were all at the same time saying, can you help me? Can you help me? Excuse me, excuse me, I saw you interact with that man. Can you help me now? They were saying stuff like that.

So my dad says that when he looked over at me during his rapturous experience, that I had this pained expression on my face, and I was slightly hunched inward toward him, like someone who was trying to duck out of sight, and I was covering the side of my face that was closest to the aisle. There were three spirits right at the end of my pew, right next to me, desperately shouting, and there was a crowd of spirits behind them, like a little mob scene, and I could have made them go away, and this lasted for the rest of the service. When the service ended, we sang the closing hymn, the crowd of ghosts still shouting, and my whole body by this time was completely tensed up. Imagine trying to sing while there is a crowd of invisible people right next to you shouting and demanding that you pay attention to them. What's wrong, my dad asked when the service ended, commenting on my worried expression, and I couldn't at that moment tell him that his dad had appeared during the service nodded at me, and now all the ghosts in this church know that I can see them, and they're all standing right here yelling.

I couldn't say that. So I said instead, no, no, I'm fine, nothing's bothering me. And we walked around the church together a little and talked to some members of the congregation that my dad knew. We made small talk. They discussed some church business.

My dad was already pretty involved there. The lie tagged along got introduced and tried to ignore the crowd of ghosts that was now following me shouting. And they were all talking only about themselves, help me, help me, no help us, not that that would have made any difference to me. So I just had to get out of there. There were too many spirits for me to help, especially not on the fly, you know, without drawing attention to myself, and not before they closed this church up for the afternoon.

No, I had to get out of there. There was some sort of meeting my dad had to attend afterwards being already involved at this church, and he said the meeting would be sure and did I want to wait for him and I was like, no, I mean, no, thank you. I'm just going to head up to your apartment and wait for you there. There's a bagels and locks after church tradition in my family and I didn't want to be late for that. So he went off to his meeting and I walked the 10 blocks to his apartment and thank God the spirits did not follow me.

I knew they wouldn't. I knew that they were bound to that church building. I reached the apartment. I let myself in with my key and I won't get into how the bagels and locks were already there, but they were there along with other family members who had gone to different churches that morning. Dad got home from church about a half an hour after I did and he was so happy, so happy about joining that church today.

He was overwhelmed, grateful, giddy. I did not know what the nod from his dad, my grandfather meant, and I knew I had to tell him about it, but I decided that he was already overwhelmed, so I would tell him about it tomorrow. Timing is very important when delivering unexpected messages. So I called him the next afternoon. There was a little conversation.

You know, that was a beautiful service yesterday and he sounded less overwhelmed than he had the day before. So I decided, okay, now it's time. I said, Dad, I have to tell you something. My father knows about my relationship with spirits trapped and otherwise he seems to think it's cool and always believes me when I tell him about these weird things that happened to me. So I said, I have to tell you something.

At this service yesterday, your dad was there. Really? He sounded very pleased, maybe bordering on getting overwhelmed again. He asked for more details. So I described the interaction.

I told him, well, it was during the second reading and your father appeared in the aisle for a second. He was looking at the lector and then he looked over his shoulder at me and gave a nod, an affirmative nod and then he was gone. Oh, wow. My dad said, sounding overwhelmed again. Yeah, I said, you are already so emotional yesterday that I didn't want to tell you then.

And he responded, well, thank you for that. And then he continued, this nod makes total sense. And it did. As I said, I didn't ever get to know this grandfather. And for some reason, I hadn't heard that much about him besides stuff about his career as a journalist and things like that.

But during this conversation with my dad that day on the phone, I learned for the first time that my grandfather was a bit of a spiritual seeker, too, like my dad and like me. I learned that my grandfather had described himself as a backslid Methodist and had spent many Sundays checking out the churches in his Long Island neighborhood, the neighborhood where my dad grew up and my dad would join him. My dad told me that they went together to many different services in the town and did not find one that felt quite right. So they never found a spiritual home together back then. But I guess it was important to my grandfather that his son continued the search until he did find one.

He even made an appearance from the other side when it happened. So this nod, this message for his son made total sense. He was an approval of this find, this church that my dad had chosen. The search had finally been completed. The nod said, this'll do.

And my dad was happy. Happy that he had finally found for himself what he and his dad had been looking for. He was happy for his father's approval because obviously this was what his dad wanted for him. A spiritual home that truly fit. And as for that crowd of ghosts in the church, my dad is still a member there and I have decided after telling this story to you today that I am going to go back there and help as many of them as I can.

I know they're all still there or I know most of them are still there. So hopefully I can be of service. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to review it and share it with a friend to help this show grow. And that's all for today. Thank you for listening to today's episode.

And if you think your house is haunted, want energy cleared from your space or need a custom spiritual ritual, I'm here to help. Visit jpclearing.com or email me at jpclearing60 at gmail.com. Don't forget to join me here every Tuesday for a new episode. Until next time.