The Spirit of Felicia's Father-in-Law

Full transcript of the My True Ghost Stories episode “The Spirit of Felicia's Father-in-Law.” Listen to this episode.

Another message at a wake. But this time, it was done properly. Welcome to episode 71 of My True Ghost Stories. Today's episode is the third in a series about me delivering messages at wakes, and I am grateful to say that this is the last in this series about delivering a message to someone at a wake because I only did it three times. And I find it a little embarrassing in delivering these messages at wakes because it was not proper.

And so maybe I just wanted to get these stories out of the way, but I'm actually the more I think about it and the more I tell these stories about the three messages that I delivered at wakes. I'm thinking maybe it's actually not embarrassing. I'm thinking that maybe the three spirits that I helped by delivering a message to a family member at a wake, maybe there was a big divine plan that gave me these messages before I had started practicing discretion as to when and where I would deliver a message. Maybe the universe sent me these like hurry up and do it now before she figures out what's wrong and what's right. I don't know.

This is just a guess. And maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better for delivering all these messages only three, but anyway, here's the story of a message at a wake that wound up being done properly. So this happened very, very, very early in my development as a medium. In fact, I think it was sort of brand new. I had really just realized that these weird dreams I was having and these little messages I would get in my head were actually supernatural or paranormal.

At the time, I had three small children and I was a school yard mom and I was a playground mom. Meaning, I would stand around the perimeters of the school yard, chatting with other moms or I would stand around the perimeters of the playground, chatting with other moms, while our kids all played together in the middle. And mostly I would just keep counting my three kids, one, two, three, just to make sure that I hadn't lost any of them. So mostly I would be having a conversation with another mom. It was almost always another mom.

Occasionally, in those days, there were dads on the playground for the most part it was all moms. So I would just stand there talking to her and just counting, manually counting my three kids as they ran around. During this time, one of the moms I was chatting with was my friend. I'm going to call her Felicia and I really liked Felicia. We had a lot in common to begin with.

We had three kids literally all the same exact ages and they were all at the same school and they got along. Well, two of the three of them got along. The youngest ones didn't really have that much in common, but they would still sometimes make it work the two youngest ones. So our three children, me and Felicia's, our six kids combined were all at the same ages and grades and stages. And so Felicia and I had a lot to talk about.

So we would stand there counting our kids and chatting, chatting, chatting, chatting. And I really liked her and she was really fun and she was kind of, I'm going to call it old school like me. We were old school moms, not in a really drastic way, but we were more old school than maybe the rest of the moms in the neighborhood. So we had a lot in common and a lot to talk about. One of the things that Felicia and I would talk about a few years into our friendship was that her father-in-law was very ill.

And he, like the other people in my stories about wakes, had a prolonged illness and at first he was managing it very well and he was staying very active, but by the end he was really suffering. Now, I did not know him. I had seen him and possibly been introduced to him once, but I did not know him well, but I had seen him. And he was a very strong man and I used to see him like loading lumber onto the back of a pickup truck because he and his son were doing some handy work around the house and he was a really strong, vibrant man. And after a few years of this illness, I saw him again and he had lost a lot of weight and he did not look well and Felicia told me that he was really suffering.

And eventually Felicia shared with me that he was in hospice and that the end was near. I didn't know him, but I did know Felicia and so I did everything I could to comfort her. And here's what happened. It was after this time that Felicia's father-in-law had entered the hospice and I had not talked to her that much because she was very busy with this thing that was going on in her family with her father-in-law. And so I went to bed and I had a dream.

This was a different kind of dream, just a usual dream. This was a visitation dream. This was a dream where I just saw a scene and somebody entered the scene and communicated with me briefly and then the scene ended. And here is the dream that I had. I was looking down a long road and the road sort of widened and at the bottom of the road, there was a body of water, maybe a bay or a big lake and it was beautiful, like a vacation spot, blue, Caribbean, blue, water.

The road that led down to this was a cobblestone road and there was a lot of people walking around and it had the look of a whole bunch of tourists. There wasn't anybody really working, there was a lot of people walking slowly and enjoying themselves. So the dream began with me looking at this scene of the cobblestone road, of this beautiful sea at the edge of the road and I was standing at the top of the road. And as I looked into this scene from my left, entered Felicia's father-in-law and he looked strong and healthy. That's the way I had always seen him before he got sick and he was wearing a linen blazer.

It was sort of a peach-colored linen blazer and he had a button-down shirt on underneath the linen blazer and it was open, you know, down his chest in a real casual way. And he was holding a cocktail. And in this dream, he was standing at the top of this cobblestone road that led down to the water and he had this cocktail in his hand and he was wearing this linen outfit and he just raised the glass to me. And then he nodded and turned around and started to walk towards that water. And I woke up, I did not wake up in a startled way you wake up from a nightmare.

I woke up with a smile and I knew that Felicia's father had passed away and that he was in a beautiful place now. When I woke up in the morning, I knew I was going to have to call Felicia and I knew that her father-in-law had passed away. I knew from that dream I'd had and I had to sort of think about how I was going to talk to her knowing that when I called, she was going to be sad. So I eventually, you know, after some breakfast, I picked up the phone and I dialed her number and she picked up her end and she was crying. And I said, oh, so what's going on?

I didn't really know how. I can't act like I already knew so I just said, oh, what's wrong even though I knew. And she said, my husband's father passed away last night and I decided not to say, oh, I already knew that because that would be extremely insensitive and, you know, part of me was like, oh my God, I actually knew that. It's true, it's true. That dream was true.

But I didn't do any of that. I just said, oh, you know, of course, what you would say to somebody. I said, I'm so sorry. And I asked, you know, so what happened? And she told me about a peaceful passing in the night, surrounded by friends and family.

And I thought that's wonderful. And then she did not give me the information about the wake, but I was able to find out because it's very local and it's a small community. So I was able to find out when the wake was. So the wake was, you know, they usually a day later or two days later, I think one day later. And I walked up to the wake.

It's in the neighborhood. And I walked up there and I went in and I am so grateful to the powers that be that I did not know Felicia's mother-in-law. I did not know his wife because if I had being so new at all of this, even though I was discreet with Felicia on the phone, I was so honored to have been given this information by a dream that I really wanted to tell somebody. And if I'd known Felicia's mother-in-law, I might have gone up and said something. And thank goodness I did not know her at all.

I'd never even met her. So I was able to not do that. And instead, I found Felicia. So I found Felicia and I expressed my condolences. She was not near the casket.

She was in the back of the room talking to people. And I talked to her and I said, you know, I'm so sorry, I gave my condolences. And then I decided to tell her about the dream. It seemed right. And I told her about the dream she did not ask.

Why would she ask that? Oh, did you happen to have a dream about my father-in-law when he passed? No, she didn't ask that, but it seemed safe to tell her. And I went ahead and I did it. And I told her about the dream.

I said he was in this beautiful setting. It was a touristy area with a cobblestone road that widened and led to a gorgeous body of water. And he was wearing a linen jacket and a button-down shirt. And he had a cocktail in his hand and he looked strong and healthy like he used to look. And he raised his glass to me and then turned around and started walking in a leisurely way towards the water.

And she listened to this description of my dream in the thrall. And she said, oh, that sounds exactly like somewhere he would want to be. And I said, because I knew, because of the nature of that dream, I said that's where he is. He is in his version of heaven. And she said that is indeed it.

That is his version of heaven. And Felicia obviously believed. So I was overexcited and to this day grateful that I did not know Felicia's mother-in-law, still grateful. And he said, you know, so will you tell his wife for me? And Felicia said, well, I'll tell her if it ever seems like the right time or the right kind of thing.

That's not the kind of thing my mother-in-law believes in. So I don't know if I'm going to really be able to tell her. But if it ever seems like the right time, I will. And thank goodness I, Jennifer, was satisfied with that. The information had been given to someone in the family.

And then that person would do with that information what was proper. And I'm very grateful for that. I remain grateful for that. As the years went by, I asked Felicia like a bunch of times, so did you ever tell your mother-in-law about the dream I had? And she always said, no, no, it was never really the right time.

I don't know. That's not the kind of thing she believes in. So I said, I let it go. I finally let it go. Plus, I was starting to deliver other messages that were asked for.

And I wasn't so desperate to communicate this type of information as I had been when I delivered that message to Felicia at her father-in-law's wake. And I'm also satisfied because I know that I told her. And I'm sure she told her husband, her father-in-law's son. So he knows that his dad is in his version of heaven wearing a linen suit with a cocktail walking towards a beautiful body of water. Now, at the beginning of this episode, I said that this message was delivered properly.

And I don't know if that's true, but I do feel that in this case I hesitated. I waited till it seemed like the right time, and I did not tell the immediate family. I told an in-law, so it seems a little bit better than just blurting it out the way I did at the other two wake stories. That was many years ago. My kids were little.

They're all grown now. Felicia's kids were little, and they're all grown now. And that funeral home where this interaction took place is now a Dunkin' Donuts. And I can't even imagine how haunted that back room must be, but I'm not going to get a job at Dunkin' Donuts so I can find out about all the ghosts in the back room. But I am so happy that Felicia's father-in-law is not in that back room of a Dunkin' Donuts, but he is somewhere in a linen blazer, enjoying a cocktail, the sunshine, and a beautiful body of water.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of My True Ghost Stories. If you enjoy my storytelling style, you can subscribe to the Patreon, and the link to the Patreon is in the show notes. In my Patreon, I tell interesting stories of things that happen to me in New York City and beyond. And if you have enjoyed this episode of My True Ghost Stories, please take a second to review, subscribe, and share it with a friend to help the show grow. And that's all for today.

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