One More Time

Mel was one of the star baritones in the choir that church organist and choir director Kyzer led. Sadly, Mel passed away, and his rich voice would be missed by the entire congregation... or so Kyzer thought...

• Attendance [in the choir] was down because it was summertime, and as I played the organ for the first hymn, I heard a beautiful, rich baritone voice singing out above the others in the congregation. After the hymn was over, I turned to try and locate the owner of this lovely voice so I could enlist him in the choir, but saw no new faces. After the service, the pastor asked me if I had heard that super baritone. I replied that I had, but couldn't figure out who it might have been. At the same moment, we were struck by the obvious answer: "Mel!" The mystery voice did sound like Mel's, but amplified and made even more beautiful. I like to think he stopped by to sing one last service with us.

Mother's Comforting Spirit

Pamela S.'s mother died two days before her tenth birthday, and she often wondered how her life over the past 30 years would have been different if her mother had lived. Perhaps we aren't meant to know, but Pamela's mother did appear when Pamela needed her the most...

• When I was 36 years old and pregnant with my daughter, I suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. I was in a coma for three days, in intensive care for five days and spent a total of 15 days in the hospital. A blood vessel had burst in my brain and filled my brain with blood. I simply don't remember anything that happened after my husband left for work that morning. But I do remember lying in a hospital bed, and someone sitting on my left, stroking my hair. I turned my head to see who it was... it was my mother! She looked exactly the way I remembered her. She hadn't aged. I opened my mouth to talk to her, to ask her why she was there, but she put her finger on my lips to shush me. Then she smiled the sweetest smile and started to stroke my hair again. I turned my head away from her and fell asleep. When I woke up, she was gone. The only reason I can come up with is that I was pregnant with a girl, and my mom knew that I had already decided to give the baby my mother's name as her middle name.

Great-Grandmother's Spirit

Children seem to have a special affinity for experiencing these incredible events. Although this happened to Daniel S. when he was just three, he remembers it as if it happened yesterday...

• In 1978, my great-grandmother died of natural causes. After the funeral, which I don't remember, the family gathered at my great-grandfather's house, which I do remember. I remember my sister, who was five at the time, standing (or sitting) in the bedroom in which my great-grandmother used to sleep. She was crying. I was standing in the doorway of the bedroom and I saw my great-grandmother float down from the ceiling. She passed through her mattress, then stopped between the floor and the bottom of the bed. She wasn't on the floor, but a couple of inches above it, just floating in mid-air. She looked at my sister and said, "Don't worry, Amy. I'm with Jesus now." With that, she floated back up through the ceiling.

Saved by Grandmother's Spirit

In the most remarkable of these kinds of stories, the spirits of the dead return not just to relay a comforting message, but to physically save a life. Such stories have spawned the theory that our loved ones may become our guardian angels. You won't be able to convince Karen S. otherwise...

• I never knew my maternal grandmother. She died when my own mother was only nine years old. One night, I was walking home after meeting with friends. I stepped into the street, preparing to cross the street, when I felt a strong hand grip me by the shoulder. This hand not only pulled me back onto the sidewalk, but was strong enough to land me on my posterior on the sidewalk. When I glanced around me, I caught a glimpse of a light blue, sort of periwinkle-colored dress with tiny white flowers. Yet there was absolutely no one around me. At the exact same time, a car came whizzing around the corner at breakneck speed. If I had been standing where I was a moment earlier, I would certainly have been run over and either seriously injured or killed. I returned home, visibly shaken and disturbed. I told my mother what had happened. When I told her that I saw a periwinkle-colored dress with white flowers just after I was pulled out of harm's way, she blanched and became completely still. She told me that my grandmother had a dress exactly like the one I described, and that it was my mother's favorite dress. There was no earthly way I could have described this dress - my grandmother passed away 30 years before I was even born. To this day, I feel my grandmother's presence around me at times. I think she is looking out for me.