Do You Believe?

I don’t typically write paranormal elements into my Intrigues. However, in my Jan. release, The Sheriff of Silverhill, I included a little paranormal action. The heroine is half Southern Ute, a Native American tribe in Colorado, and she has some special “powers.” These gifts brought nothing but trouble to the heroine’s mother, so the heroine doesn’t readily embrace them…until she has to so that she can rescue her daughter and catch a killer.

I don’t claim to have any special powers of clairvoyance, but I have had a few experiences that have led me to believe there’s more “out there” than meets the eye. When I was in my early twenties, I had left my proofreading job to take a job as a high school English teacher. It was the end of January and I was applying for my emergency teaching credential. The semester hadn’t started yet, and I was scheduled for my physical that day. Since the appointment was in the afternoon, I didn’t have anywhere to be prior to the appointment so I didn’t set my alarm clock. That morning I woke up with a start; it was like a shot to my heart. I went from sound asleep to sitting upright in my bed, wide awake. I glanced at my digital clock and it read “7:32” or something very precise like that. I tried to go back to sleep without much success.

I got up, showered, dressed, ate breakfast, and puttered around my apartment before my doctor’s appointment. The phone rang and I answered it. It was my brother with awful news. My father had passed away that morning from a massive heart attack. My parents lived about 400 miles away from me, so I went through the rest of the day in a haze and made arrangements to fly up north.

The next few months were very difficult for me. I was only 24 years old at the time, and my father had been just 65. Also, my mother had been an invalid with Parkinson’s Disease and it was a very stressful period in our lives, finding care for her and getting her settled. My oldest sister was the executor of my father’s will and she handled all of the business.

Several months after my father passed away, my sister sent me copies of his death certificate just in case I needed them for any legal matters. When I looked over my father’s death certificate, I nearly fell over when I read the time of death. His time of death was noted as “7:32,” the exact moment when I woke up with a start on the day he died and obviously the time he died.

I still feel to this day that my father was trying to communicate with me in some way at the time of his death. And he was successful.

How about you? Have you ever experienced any “paranormal activity?”

To celebrate the release of my Jan. Intrigue, The Sheriff of Silverhill, one poster today will receive an autographed copy of The Sheriff of Silverhill.