© Copyright 6-08-2007 By Dana Shino, The Purple Phoenix, LLC www.thepurplephoenix.com This is the second half of the story from “Rebuilding an Authentic Spiritual Swing.” I was halfway to the funeral home for my Grandfather Judy’s funeral in northern Indiana on Sunday morning when Robert text messaged me. My cell phone screen read, “I dreamed about your grandfather last night.” Robert is a close friend from Colorado who is also psychically gifted. So, when he mentions things from his dreams, I pay close attention. But I was feeling nervously punchy that morning as I drove an illogical route along highway 13 to North Manchester, Indiana (highway 31, the logical route, didn’t feel right to me). So, I text messaged Robert with, “Was he wearing bikini underwear?” I carried a large mind ‘load’ that morning I was unsuccessfully pacifying. It was difficult for me to focus on grandfather’s death and the business of the funeral since Grandfather Judy felt more alive to me than ever. That morning, his energy had shifted into a beautiful, powerful, large, bright, light filled, multi-dimensional star. How could I be sad? I was happy for him and smiling. Yet, my natural emotional response felt inappropriate in light of the traditional funeral at hand. I was also nervous about remaining calm and collected in the face of family members whom I shared disparities with. I worried about the ‘memories’ I was expected to parlay during the funeral service along with my cousins, the other grandchildren. I was anxious about meeting extended family (and community) members, some of whom I hadn’t seen in over fourteen years. The rural areas of northern Indiana are still relatively small, tight knit, conservative and strongly religiously faithful communities. I did not feel it was an easy place for a liberal, open thinking, southwestern psychic to find herself. The dichotomies felt deeply and obviously uncomfortable to me. Yet, I was doing my best to let Indiana’s rural green countryside and Deva Premal’s chanting from “Dakshina” to sooth me into convinced peacefulness. It wasn’t working very well. Not to be deterred from my flippant response, Robert text messaged me back with, “No (he wasn’t wearing bikini underwear), but insisted I tell you he does not want a funeral. He wants a party. Did he like to dance?” I remembered Grandfather Newby loved dancing, but I’d never heard my Grandfather Judy like it as well. I replied to Robert saying so. At which point, Robert insisted on the dancing with a text of, “Did he dance?” Finally, I pulled off the road and called Robert. He was laughing when he answered the phone and this is essentially what he said, “Grandfather Judy was insistent that he did not want a funeral, he wanted a party. And at the party he wanted to dance. And at the dance he would only dance with one woman.” And I knew the one woman was my Grandmother Judy. They’d been married sixty four years. So, I thanked Robert, said I would see what I could do for grandfather, and hung up. I hadn’t counted on this element of surprise. I hadn’t been open to receiving any messages from grandfather simply because I didn’t want to inadvertently fictionalize anything. I didn’t trust myself especially in light of the circumstances and stress I felt. I was just happy to know how wonderful grandfather felt in his brightly shining multi-dimensional star. Evidently, grandfather had more avenues to communicate with me than I had counted on. Grandfather’s ‘party’ added another interesting element to the day: I fully knew the funeral had been planned and paid for years in advance. I knew my family was not very open to my psychic gift, let alone hearing any messages. I knew the community was more tuned towards traditional structural ideas about death, earning your way to heaven, and the feared hell rather than to alternative post life (energetic) ideas. Yet, I thought, “Okay, grandfather, for you, I’ll give it a go.” I turned off Deva Premal’s soothing voice and switched over the John Mellencamp’s “American Fool.” I cranked the stereo, turned onto highway 13 and howled down the road, singing along with “Jack and Diane.” Amidst the text messaging, phone calling, worrying, music playing and scenery rolling by, a teensy weensy subtly occurred. Somewhere between northern Indianapolis and Wabash, Indiana, all (and I mean ALL) of the lights went out on my rental car’s dashboard. I flicked switches, looked at the dashboard a number of ways, but all the digital LED’s were kaput. I was too concerned about other things to pay much notice – but it did register. Stepping into the funeral home that day in North Manchester, Indiana was a lot like stepping into a moving picture of much of my past. There was a surreal quality of feeling time from two distant points reaching and kissing one another as though a day hadn’t passed. The familiar faces of distant family and surrounding community, adjusted by the watershed of years, profoundly moved me. I wondered ‘is this madness?’ as I hugged family members whom I was at odds with (and they with me) as though nothing was wrong, yet feeling everything otherwise. Like everyone else, I made nice and put on my game face for the sake of the peace of the event. I felt as though once again I became ghost like and unacceptable amidst present company. What I had promised myself would not happen I felt helplessly ticking along like clock work. But grandfather seemed to know something I did not. Earlier in the day, when I first arrived at the funeral home, I pulled my father aside and showed him the text messages from Robert. To me, it was the best proof of a legitimate message from the other side: a text message in black and white spelling out a message from a dream. Dad read it, confirmed grandfather loved dancing in his younger years, laughed nervously and told me it was nice. I knew nothing would change and my heart sank for grandfather. I felt there was more to do for him, I just didn’t know how or what. The wave of people carried the day and the best I could do was hold the thought of grandfather’s ‘party’ amidst them silently. I felt so pregnant in my silence with what I knew and could see, as I benignly told people I was an author (which is not a lie, but carries an omission). Then two quirky things occurred. As I visited with a distant cousin and his wife, Alicia and I, in our animation, managed to simultaneously hit the light levers. Somehow, we completely dropped the house lights, dimming the room to darkness and suspendin most of the conversation. Without thinking, I immediately turned to push the levers back up and the lights back on, but instead, began playing with them... up and down, up and down, light and dark and light and dark. It was fun! It felt good! Until I heard my mother yell, “DANA” from across the room, in her ‘you’re in trouble voice,’ which made me want to do it even more. Not much later, realizing I felt like I was standing inside a set of clanging cymbols, (too much stimulation jamming my circuits by standing in the middle of the funeral crowd), I took a break and went outside. It was a relief to feel the old familiar feeling of a softly green spring Indiana Sunday afternoon, softening the sharpest edges and quietly forgiving everything in its musky humidity. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was somehow standing in the middle of a home I knew quite well. I sat alone on the steps until the gentleman from the funeral home who was directing traffic in the parking lot approached me. He knew the car I was driving and told me that a bit previous, the car’s lights had gone nuts. The headlights and rear lights had blinked off and on. The turn signals had signaled. He said, “It happened for just a little while and then stopped.” I thought, “How odd.” When I returned to the funeral gathering, it was time for the service. I took a place in the second row and when I sat down, my stomach rose up into my heart. I still had not decided what I would say during the service. I thought of a few memories, but they didn’t seem like enough. I thought about the message Robert had given me, but that seemed like too much. As I listened to music and Opal, the minister, speak, I became more and more nervous. Then, the ‘lights’ slowly rose to my conscious surface: dash board lights, funeral home lights, dancing car lights (and even that day and a day later my eighteen month old twin nephews constantly pointing at lights). The lights slowly rose through my nerves and I knew grandfather was talking to me through his bright star of a light. I knew what I had to do. It was not easy. It wasn’t much fun in the moment. But I sensed if I held my silence, I would regret it for many years. In those brief moments, I stepped out of my ghost and stood before the people at the funeral gathering as my full self and told several stories. I told the gathering I had an old story to tell and a new story to tell. To honor the traditional format, I told this old memory. When I was little and our family visited Indiana from Colorado, grandmother used to send me to grandfather to ask him what he wanted for dinner. “Frog legs!” he’d say. “Tell her I want frog legs for dinner.” “Ew,” I would think and run back to tell grandmother. She would tell me, “Well, you go back and tell him we don’t have frog legs.” Back and forth and back and forth I would run until I tired of the game. To honor grandfather and my voice, I took a deep breath in front of the gathering and said, “To tell you the new story, you need to know a little about me.” If there ever is a crowd to come out of the psychic closet in front of, try your own family in a northern Indiana funeral gathering. Jaws dropped, heads perked up as I blazed forward announcing I was a professional psychic. I told them about all the lights and how I felt grandfather was speaking to me. Then, I told them about Robert’s message: “Grandfather doesn’t want a funeral, he wants a party. And at the party he wants to dance.” Then I turned to my grandmother, and with tears welling in my eyes and my voice quavering with emotion, I said, “And grandmother, there is only one woman he will dance with and that is you.” Somehow, I inadvertently managed to be an elephant in a pink tutu after all. That evening as I drove south along highway 13 into a rainstorm, the dashboard lights blinked back on. I also spotted through raindrops and windshield wipers an elephant painted on the side of a red brick wall of a restaurant in Wabash. When I celebrated grandfather at a DQ (ice cream was his absolute favorite), he left me with a song playing through my head. I later located it as U2’s “Mysterious Ways.”  Your contributions help support The Purple Phoenix Press.
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