(Above) Joni with Nanny in her bedroom many years ago

An excerpt from Signs of Spirits by Joni Mayhan

When I was six years-old, my life was perfect. I lived with my family in a small rustic cabin that was nestled beside a picturesque pond.

Behind the cabin was a hundred acres of untouched woodlands, filled to the brim with singing birds and wild rabbits that often nibbled the clover at the edge of our yard. I had a swing set in the backyard, where I learned to mimic the Bobwhite Quail, and a big collie dog named Sam who followed me everywhere I went. Best of all though, I had easy access to my adoring grandparents.

Nanny and Poppy lived in a house across the pond from us, separated by a long narrow dam that served as a gateway to all that was good and safe in the world. Crossing the dam was like moving into another world, one where I was the princess of the castle.

Nanny would drop everything to sit on the floor and play with me, while Poppy often took me for long walks through the woods, sharing his love of nature.

There were a myriad of paths in the woods behind our house. I can remember tipping my head up to look at the sunshine that parted through the high branches of the trees as the blue jays scolded us for disturbing their sanctuary.

As we walked, Poppy told me stories about Big Lake, which was hidden in the center of the woods and how people would flock to the lake to swim during the humid Indiana summers. He showed me a massive old oak tree that was carved with faded initials of people who probably weren’t even still alive. When I asked him to carve my initials into the tree, he refused.

“You don’t want to be one of the crowd. Let’s start your own tree,” he told me and carved my initials on another tree.

When I was with them, I felt cherished and safe. The feeling was warm and intoxicating, something I’ve never felt since.  I never dreamed that it would all go away so quickly.

Even as a small child, I knew that Nanny had a bad heart. She had scarlet fever when she was younger, something that damaged her heart beyond repair. One night, she went to bed and simply never woke up again. Nanny died at the age of 53, just one year older than I am right now.

While her death wasn’t unexpected, it still left a gaping hole in all our lives. It probably hit me the hardest. No longer could I race across the dam to spend the day playing with her. Walking into her house felt empty and sad.

Several nights after her death, I had a dream that I will never forget. In the dream, my mother and I went to her house to clean out her closet. My mother wanted to donate her clothing to a charity and sort through her belongings to collect a few remembrances.

The details in my dream were so crisp, it was difficult to comprehend that it wasn’t actually happening. As we came through the door, I could feel the warmth of the heat on my face and could smell the familiar scent of her house. Nanny’s small dog Skipper greeted us with sniffs and tail wagging, smelling vaguely of flea powder as her nails clicked on the tile floor. I looked up at my mother beside me. She was distracted and short tempered. Her dark hair was held back beneath an old yellow handkerchief that was tied at the nape of her neck and her face was puffy and red from crying.  

As we came through the doorway, I was astounded to find Nanny sitting on the couch. My mother walked right past her and headed to her bedroom, something I found incomprehensible.

Was it possible that my mother couldn’t see Nanny?

I raced to the couch and wrapped my arms around my grandmother’s neck.

“Nanny! Nanny! I thought you were dead!” I cried, tears rushing down my cheeks.

She pulled me away and looked lovingly into my eyes and said something that will remain with me for the rest of my life.

“I did die, Joni,” she said. “But I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to you.” She told me she loved me and then I woke up from the dream, my pillow wet with tears.

I’ve come to understand that loved ones often remain with us throughout our lives, offering comfort and reassurance when we need it the most, but I wouldn’t understand this until I was much older.

The next time I felt Nanny was when I was eighteen years-old.

I was a rebellious teenager, so it came as no surprise to anyone that I decided to buck the system and take a year off of school after graduating from high school. Many of my friends were going away to college, but I was restless to get my life started. I was bored with school and wanted a break before diving into college.

I moved out of my parent’s home the day after I graduated from high school and was eager to get going on my future. I had my eye on an apartment across town and needed a job to pay the bills.

The first interview on my list went well. It wasn’t a job I saw myself doing for the rest of my life, but it would bring in enough money to give me the freedom I so desperately yearned for.

As I was racing home, I pushed past the speed limit, loving the way the wind poured through the windows. My beloved car was a machine made for speed. When I stepped on the accelerator, it responded like a race horse released from the chute. Without warning, Nanny’s face appeared in my mind and screamed, “Slow down!” in my mind.

The encounter was so startling, I found myself responding to her words. I slammed my foot on the brake and brought my speed down. As soon as I reached the lower speed, my front tire blew out.

I coasted to the side of the road, my mind numb.

I might have only been eighteen years-old, but I knew enough about cars to know how powerful that moment was. If my tire had blown out while I was driving 70 miles per hour, I probably would have flipped the car and might not have survived the accident.

“Thank you, Nanny,” I whispered, feeling my heart pound heavily in my chest.

Since that time, I’ve felt Nanny with me more frequently. Sometimes I hear her voice, mixed in with my own internal dialogue.

If I’m sitting in front of my computer when I should be getting ready to leave for class, her voice is the one that prompts me to get in the shower. If I’m driving too fast, she tells me to slow down.

It took me years to understand that what I was hearing wasn’t my own chatter. Nanny has been with me in more ways than one.

Just days ago, I found myself in a panic as I drove with an empty gas tank, looking for a gas station.

“You will make it. It’s going to be okay.” I heard the voice in my head as clearly as though it were whispered in my ear. Moments later, I coasted into the gas station, mere miles away from running out of gas.

Most people base their expectations by what they see on television and in the movies. In those heightened examples, the loved one appears fully formed and stands in front of the grieving relative to pass along a message or offer comfort. Real life is seldom so clear.

A sign could be as subtle as a certain song coming on the radio when you’re thinking about that person. It could be a bright red cardinal landing on a tree branch outside your window. It could even be an unexpected phone call from a friend, asking you to join her for coffee. Sometimes the signs are even more elusive.

I believe that Nanny jumped in my mind to warn me about my impending tire blow-out in a way that would capture my full attention, but she’s given me other signs that are much harder to attribute to her.

There was a time when I was dating and was torn between two men. As I drove to work one day thinking about it, I heard a voice in my head that said, “Neither one of those men will be in your life.”

It startled me on two accounts. Firstly, I’m a hopeless romantic who can’t get out of her own way. It would never occur to me that I wouldn’t end up with one of those men. Secondly, was the word usage. Neither one of those men will be in YOUR life.  Surely, if the thought was coming from my own internal dialogue I would have thought MY instead of YOUR, right?

Nanny has come to me other times as well, offering comforting words and nudging me when I needed to be nudged. I didn’t realize it was her voice because I was only six years old when she died. I didn’t know her well enough to recognize her personality.

Once I suspected it was Nanny, I asked my mother about my grandmother. “Was Nanny the kind of person who would lovingly nag you to do something you were supposed to do?” I asked her. In many ways, I probably didn’t need to even ask. My mother, who was Nanny’s daughter, often said the same things to me when I was younger.

“Joni! You need to leave or you’re going to be late for school!” was something I heard hundreds, if not thousands of times. She probably learned that behavior from her own mother.

My mother was quick to confirm it. Yes. Nanny was motherly and was an adept parent. It probably drove her crazy that I was sitting at my computer, mindlessly scrolling through Facebook when there were dirty dishes in the sink, an unmade bed and fifteen minutes left before I needed to leave the house. In her day, life was different. There weren’t as many mindless distractions, and people tended to be more diligent about their responsibilities. Watching me goof off probably didn’t sit well with her.

While I was close with Poppy too, I don’t feel him near me as often. I can only recall one instance where I feel he was with me and it’s something I’ve often reduced down to circumstance.

I was seventeen years old and was driving home from my boyfriend’s house. Several of his friends knew of a road that was thought to be haunted, so we checked it out. While we were there, we saw a strange mist appear at the end of the road, something that freaked us out more than a little. My boyfriend and I couldn’t get in our cars fast enough. My car was parked at his parent’s house, so I left soon after we got there. With the thought of ghosts in my mind, I drove home, still feeling the chill from our experience.

The drive from his house to mine took me down a long dark highway. As I drove, I kept looking towards the side of the road for the same sort of mist I saw on the haunted road.  Several times, I even thought I saw something in my backseat. I turned the dome light on and whipped around in my seat, nearly sending myself sailing off the road. After the third time of this, I saw a pair of headlights in my rear view mirror.

I narrowed my eyes at them, not remembering seeing a car behind me before that. I’d been on the highway for nearly fifteen minutes without seeing another car. Instead of feeling anxious, worried that someone was following me, I felt a sense of comfort instead. It almost felt as though someone was escorting me home.

As I drove, I played around with my speed to see if the person was really following me or not. I would speed up and the car behind me would speed up. When I slowed down, so did the car. After a while, I just finally settled in for the drive. As soon as I reached the town limits and the bright lights greeted me, the car turned down a side street. I nearly gasped as I watched it in my rear view mirror. It was a caramel colored El Camino, the same exact car Poppy used to drive.

I’ll never know for sure if it was Poppy or not, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the fact that it made me feel safe and removed a lot of the anxiety I was feeling. If it wasn’t a phantom car, maybe Poppy had encouraged the person driving the El Camino to follow behind me. It’s hard to say. Either way, I’d like to remember it as a sign of his love for me.

A lot of what I experienced in these instances is what led me to begin studying the paranormal. I knew there was more to death than a funeral and some wonderful memories. Proof came to me more times than I could discount.

Sometimes, you have to throw skepticism out the window and listen to your heart instead.

This was an excerpt from Joni’s book, Signs of Spirits. To read more, click HERE