I'm not profound, or soulful and as mentioned before on this thread I am a very skeptical, non spiritual, non religious type person - a disciple of the James Randi school of thought.
Having said that, I have enjoyed reading this thread and have a lot of respect for everyone who has contributed and the experiences they have shared. I also have had one or two things happen in my life that I can't explain away quite so easily, including this.
My daughter was born in July .. my dad died in December, two days before Christmas. They never met as I lived several hundred miles away. I wasn't close to my father, my parents had divorced when I was fourteen and I was very much for and with my mother through it all. My dad was this remote figure - he was 13 years older than my mum and had two daughters by a previous marriage who were middle aged when we were children and I just never had that close daughter/father relationship with him. He was this grey haired, old fashioned, silent man, who went to work, came home, sat in the chair, read his books, went for walks. He wasn't unkind to us, but for me as a little girl growing up - he was just this old guy who lived in our house. After they got divorced my mother used to say - 'he wasn't a bad man, he was just the wrong man'. And I totally understood that. Although he was my dad, I just felt no kinship with him, if that makes any sense.
When I became an adult, when we did meet up it was always difficult, awkward and for me quite painful. I guess you could say I shut my dad out, and even when I visited my old home town, I'd always find a reason not to go and visit him. My younger sister had moved to America and although she never saw him physically she had a much closer relationship with him - even bought the flat he lived in so he didn't have to worry financially, and stayed in touch with him via letter, weekly phone calls etc. but I didn't. I always felt this underlying sadness about my relationship with my father, but I just didn't know what to do to put it right.
My son was 2, my daughter was a few months old .. and one night I got a call to say my father had died. It was two days before Christmas. I was absolutely distraught, I mean heartbroken, sobbing, a mess ... and my partner (who I'd been with for over a decade at that time) was rather cold and unfeeling. In all the time he'd known me, I'd never been close to my dad, so why in hell was I crying and moaning about it now - wasn't I being a bit hypocritical? (Needless to say, me and him didn't last long after that ... but that's a whole other story).
What he didn't understand was that I was crying for what me and my dad never had. It just absolutely broke my heart because there I was with my baby girl and my two year old boy .... and this lonely old man, my father was gone .. and there was never, ever going to be a chance to put things right, to have the relationship we should have had but never did.
On Christmas Day we'd invited friends for lunch and my mother and stepfather were coming and it was supposed to be a happy time, my baby girl's first Christmas, and although I wanted to call the whole thing off, I knew I couldn't. No-one understood why I was so upset, no-one, least of all my partner and even my mum .. and so I went through the motions of shopping, cooking etc, bur I tell you, I was a wreck inside. An absolute wreck. I never, ever would have thought it would hit me so hard.
At that time I was living in a small village in Wales ... Christmas morning came, opening presents, friends and grandparents there and me going through the motions with a smile on my face but feeling like my heart was going to snap in two. As lunch time approached I suggested they all go down to the village pub while I prepared the meal - I just wanted them out of the house, so I could try and pull myself together.
As soon as they'd gone I just burst into tears. I don't think I've ever cried so much in my entire life as I did that day.
We had this huge bay window at the front of the house with a seat that went all the way round it .... and I remember sitting there and just sobbing my heart out for my dad - for all the years we'd lost and the relationship we never had. This is December in North Wales - Snowdonia - mid-winter, freezing cold - there's no windows open, the heating in the house is going full blast. I'm sitting there in this bay window and I've got a wind chime hanging from the ceiling above my head .. and suddenly it starts chiming, clanking and clattering - going back and forth, back and forth ten to the dozen! I mean really going nuts like someone was blowing a wind machine directly at it.
There is no breeze in that room. None. There's no air currents, no open window, nothing. It's still and there's only me sitting there. No one has brushed against it with their shoulder - there is nothing to make that windchime start moving.
I looked around, tried to figure out how - but there was absolutely no scientific or logistical explanation as to how that thing suddenly started moving and clanging and clattering back and forth.
And like others have said - in that moment I just felt totally peaceful. I stopped crying, I stopped breaking my heart and just felt this sense of calm come over me.
If I wasn't such a skeptic ... I'd like to think that windchime clanking and swaying for no physical reason that I could see ... was my old dad telling me it's ok kid, don't beat yourself up, I'm ok .. and I love you.[/QUOTE]
