Participants also cited paranormal occurrences of their siblings interacting with them and affirming their ongoing presence through signs, consultations with mediums or traditional spiritual healers, and through auditory and sensory experiences. Four sisters, independently of each other, described smelling their sibling in similar ways as expressed in this interview excerpt:
Tarryn: I could smell Mike and the teachers wouldn’t understand. They started saying that smelling my brother was all in my head like I was imagining it but I wasn’t! I knew it was him...
Lesley (researcher): Can you describe the smell?
Tarryn: Mike used a specific deodorant it was one of those Axe ones and in one specific class it was like the strongest but it followed me from class to class …always around me and then I felt like an idiot and I
even started sniffing the other boys to see if it was their deodorant but it wasn’t … that smell of them was nothing like the smell of my brother
Lesley (researcher): That must have been kind of strange for you in the beginning?
Tarryn: Ja and because people thought I was imagining it I stopped sharing the experiences. I almost shut myself off from even believing
Lesley (researcher): Did that help?
Tarryn: No, because then it was almost like I started like losing the connection and I really wanted it.
The participants shared experiences where objects like feathers and numbers associated with their sibling appeared in unusual places. They described dragonflies, ladybirds, butterflies and birds that they associated with their sibling behaving in unusual ways. A sister recounted how her home was filled with praying mantis on the weekend of the first anniversary of her brother’s death. In four different discussions they talked about associating eagles with their siblings and how eagles would appear in unusual ways at significant times. This excerpt from a focus group discussion echoes what other siblings shared.
Hendri: It helps to find a place where I can be quiet … actually to think about him, not how he was lying there lifeless but how he was (smiles) he was so energetic, he was ten times what I was really and you know we used to practice together, oh and his name means eagle you know and so I was out in the field hoping for a sign or just something you know, and it’s so weird because suddenly there was an eagle. Liezel: You’re kidding!
Amy: It’s also a sign for us!
Hendri: And it swooped around me and just chilled there with me for a long time . Liezel: The same thing happens to us even in the middle of the city.
Jenna: Really!
Liezel: Eagles featured a lot in my brother’s life. He made a little bag and he sewed his buckle eagle onto the bag.
Amy: And that afternoon when it happened, my dad and I were still just sitting there, I mean in the middle of the city and there was this eagle – huge! Like circling our garden and we just watched like wow! and then it flew off into the sun And it was like it waited because me and my dad we had to deal with that together you know with finding him and cutting him down and then it was like it waited and I just sat down and I was like ‘oh my word!’ (Others nod, smile)
Lesley (researcher): And you Jenna? Jenna: Like signs and stuff?
Lesley (researcher): Ja, well you lit up at the eagle.
Jenna: Oh well we have this thing with feathers (speaks very animatedly) like every two weeks there would be a feather, on the kitchen table next week there’s another feather where one wouldn’t normally
be and my mom and I just think it’s like a sign, there’s no explanation for it being there (Others murmur agreement) Ja and I just see it as a sign like ‘everything’s alright, I’m watching over you’, like, so it makes me happy.
Hendri: Like when my father and I were just riding out on our own and it was like emotional healing because there are no fish eagles near where we live, really just ordinary eagles but then my dad and I were out there and we heard a clear, clear loud fish eagle (whistles the sound of a fish eagle) calling, calling, calling.
Jenna: Wow! (others smile)
Hendri: And my mother is like very against tattoos and I don’t know how to break it to her but I want to get an eagle right on my shoulder there. Just a small eagle with black outlines and then on the left wing his birthday and then like the date he passed away. It’s just something I want to carry with me, u nder my shirt, I don’t want other people seeing…it’s something for me it’s not for them that I must explain the tattoo.
Jenna: My brother and my mom got one. Liezel: I want to get one for my brother.
Hendri: Also, our res caps have an eagle on them so every day I see them on the caps.
Liezel: What happened with us on the day my brother died we suddenly noticed lots of praying mantises, praying mantis? I don’t know what the plural is (Everyone laughs) and I found out that the praying mantis is a bushman god, so a spiritual thing and then on the day of the 1 year (anniversary) my house again was full of them. And they’re the only animal that if they’re teased enough, they pull their own heads off so its suicide.
Jenna: Hectic!
Hendri: Ja, it’s funny how in nature you get the bigger picture of everything. (Others murmur agreement) All these things you only realise the significance of afterwards, how it comes together. Like something mysterious, bigger you know. (Focus Group 1)
The participants described the juxtaposition of events and symbols or objects that seem more than co- incidental and which they took as signs from their sibling. They also spoke about the paranormal transference of an article from one place to another. How the object gets to them is inexplicable but it has specific meaning for the people who receive it and they have no doubt that is linked to the person they love, now in spirit form.
My mom and I still get dragon flies in the strangest places where you wouldn’t expect it like in the pub where Jeff used to play pool, there was a dragonfly hovering over the pool table and it was nine o’clock at night! There are always dragonflies around us and apparently it’s symbolic of metamorphosis and we like that. Also since my brother died I’ve had a connection with eagles. Often when we’re traveling there’ll be an eagle flying in the direction we’re going. So when I got there to have the tattoo done it was going to be either a feather or an eagle and when I walked in a certain song of my brother’s was playing so that’s how
I knew to do the angel wings. For me they symbolise a leap of faith, you know, moving forward in my life, flying. (Louise, aged 20)