A Side-effect Of Grief? Options

[KeriTiasMom]

Disclaimer: If you do not believe in the afterlife/paranormal phenomenon/other unexplained things like these, perhaps you wouldn't want to read this...(or you might think what I'm saying is crazy). If you do believe, or are otherwise open-minded, however, please continue...

Some ppl think that if a person experiences a great tragedy and/or experiences a lot of grief, he/she will be more receptive to paranormal phenomenon or more sensitive to some things that are typically outside of the realm of human understanding (psychic phenomenon, seeing ghosts..that sort of thing). Do you agree?
I experienced a great tragedy when I was a child and I feel like it made me a lot more sensitive to any sort of spiritual phenomenon that might be going on around me (such as noticing the presences of ghosts in some of the houses I've lived in). I was always a bit intuitive by nature and had experienced some premonitions in my dreams (I mentioned this in a previous post) before I had really experienced the death of a loved one but after my first real loss I seemed to become more sensitive.

Losing my dog Tia was probably the 2nd really meaningful loss of a loved one in my lifetime and I feel like I have become bombarded by some of these unexplained
phenomenon since then (either that or I'm losing my mind...which I guess is always a possibility too ). A couple of days before Tia's death I was in my office at work and a big gust of wind swirled some leaves around in front of the window and threw something against the glass. When I stood up to look outside to see what hit the window I saw a cricket wriggling on its back on the ground. It looked like it was suffering and I had the urge to run outside and put it out of its misery..but then I had this heart-wrenching feeling, this fleeting thought...what if the cricket, whose life I was considering ending, was desperately clinging to life...what if, if it could have spoken to me, it would have said "please, don't kill me. though I am suffering I want to hold on to this last moment that I have on earth..don't take that away from me." Yes, it was quite a melodramatic thing to think about an injured cricket but it struck me that way. Then Tia died a few days later (she died in her sleep the night before we were supposed to go to the vet, that next morning, and make the decision to put her to sleep). I immediately thought of that cricket. If Tia hadnt taken the decision out of my hands, what would I have done?

These last few weeks (almost 2 months after Tia's death) I have dreamt of Tia nearly every night. Perhaps this is wishful thinking but I really feel as if she is coming to me in my dreams to be with me in whatever way she can. I feel like she still wants to be by my side but this is in the only medium through which she can reach me. Is that weird? To dream of a loved one so frequently is not typical for me...I usually dream of strangers, to tell the truth (that sounds strange too but I really do...I often dream of ppl I've never met).
The last couple of weeks I've had a few startling, perhaps paranormal, experiences. Last week I went into my closet to retrieve a jacket and once I stepped all the way inside I heard a voice very clearly say "Keri, Keri...are you there?" almost as one would respond on the phone to a dropped call. I was so startled I nearly jumped out of my skin and ran out into my room. I was the only person awake in my house and the tv wasn't on (nor was the phone off the hook). Later, that weekend, I was in the movie theater watching a scary movie (lol....how's that for atmosphere) when I heard the same voice near my ear saying "Keri, Keri...it's me." Now this one I tried to write off as my ears mangling some sounds I heard in the theater but still...after the other voice with a similar msg...I was pretty scared. I had a weird thought...what if it was Tia trying to tell me she was there..but she had a human voice...how could that happen? Perhaps it was another deceased family member...I joked with my mom that it was my deceased grandmother (on my father's side) and the end of the sentence, the part I was missing/couldn't hear, was "Keri, Keri...are you here?.... can you PLEASE take this bratty dog back? She's driving me crazy." hahaha

Last night I walked past the dining room (which has a big picture window with a rounded arched window over the top that doesn't have blinds or a curtain over it) on my way to the kitchen for a late-night snack. As I always do, I glanced upwards at the uncovered arched window to get a glimpse of the night sky. In this split second that I glanced upwards as I walked through the room I saw a brilliant large white orb shoot across the sky. Don't get me wrong...I don't think it was a UFO. I believe it was a really large shooting star. But the fact that it happened to fly across the sky at the moment I looked up...it startled me quite badly. It had the feeling of a premonition to it although I couldn't say what the premonition was. All I know is that I had a cold chill run all the way from the top of my head down my back after I saw it.

So what do you think? does loss make a person more receptive to these sorts of things? I know there's already been a thread about signs from departed pets but I'm wondering if you think losing your pet has made you more open to unexplained phenomenon....And for those who have received signs from their pets...are these the first experiences of this kind that you've had? If so, perhaps this would indeed indicate that the traumatic loss of that pet made you more open to the spirit world. Ah, but this all sounds so New Age-y.. Trust me, I'm not really a New Age type of person ...just curious about the world around me (as it is indeed more than what science explains it to be).

[Simba's Daddy]

I lost my mother when I was 9 years old. It was sudden, one night we were watching TV and the next morning she was dying, to a 9 year old that is pretty tragic. The day after her funeral I woke up early to see someone in a white dress walking out of the room I was sleeping in. No one else in the house was up at the time, especially in a white dress. Nobody even owned one. My mother was buried in a white dress. Every once in a while she still comes to me in my dreams.

I also hear what sounds like someone talking to me. But it's never when I am awake but when I am at the half awake and half asleep mode and my mind is very clear. This has been going on for years and I never thought much of it besides just being my imagination. Then I saw the move "The Sixth Sense" and the boy told Bruce Willis to talk to his wife while she was asleep.

A few weeks ago I saw a shooting star just as I looked out of the window. What I thought was odd about it is that it was an overcast night and it was actually shooting under the clouds. I never seen that in my life. Pretty amazing how it happened just as I looked out of the window in that very spot. The next night I seen what looked like a cloud formation of Simba. I have a thread about it.