We arrived at our house in Vermont around seven one dark night in 2013, my wife Nancy and I,… …and as we relaxed over dinner I started telling her about…
We arrived at our house in Vermont around seven one dark night in 2013, my wife Nancy and I,…
…and as we relaxed over dinner I started telling her about an interview I’d heard on NPR with a poet and performer named Rives. He’d posed a fascinating question: Why is it that the hour of 4am is so commonly associated with dramatic or strange occurrences?
Literature is apparently rife with references to 4am—from Wuthering Heights, to Close Encounters, to the works of Shakespeare. Over time, an hour usually marked by slumber has become known as ‘the witching hour,’ where strange doings seem to arrive with unusual punctuality. We shook our heads at the notion, saying, “Who knows?” We were alone in the house at the time, a beautiful mid-century modern structure where my parents had lived in their retirement years. My mom died in 2007, my dad in 2011.
The next morning, we were woken by the ring of the old telephone on the antique desk my father had used, which shared a corner of our bedroom. I thought, “What the hell?” and looked at the clock. It was 4am. Not 3:55, not 4:05. Precisely 4am.
I threw the covers back and approached the phone, one of those heavy black phones from the 1940s. I answered, “Hello?” There was no response, only a silent void. Not even the hush of breathing. I asked again, “Hello? Who’s calling?” Total silence. I felt a chill. The hairs across the back of my neck rose; I know this sounds like a cliché, but there’s no other way I can put it. The moment was genuinely freaky because that phone literally never rings, and we had just had a conversation about the 4am phenomenon. What was going on here?
It was another “who knows?” moment, but it stayed with me, and I have to admit that in the back of my mind I wondered if some part of my parents stayed in the house after they died.
My parents loved that house so much. Their personalities and quirks are everywhere, from the masks they collected from cultures around the world, to the Polaroid photos of our family growing up in the 60s and 70s. My parents wanted to live there forever. Only mortality put an end to their stay.
Or did it? Was the 4am phone call to us a message that they’d heard our conversation and they wanted us to know they were still there? The idea was as preposterous as it was intriguing. I could not let it go. I wanted to explore, so I did.
This is what brought me to Molly Powers, a yoga instructor, psychic medium and Reiki master who has a practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called Powers of Healing. Molly had discovered psychic readings by chance through her yoga. “During classes, often when I touched someone’s arm I heard the voices of people trying to talk with me, sending messages,” Molly told me. Over the years, she came to believe these were people who had passed on who wanted to connect with the living.
I went into my session with Molly with a healthy degree of skepticism, but with an open mind. I told her nothing about my family. Molly closed her eyes and listened. I kept quiet, waiting. It didn’t take long. Within seconds Molly started a kind of live-stream conversation, saying a man was there. He had a favorite place where he’d sit by the water and look at the mountains. There were picnic tables.
My dad did in fact have a favorite spot on the shores of Lake Willoughby. He loved nature and wanted to be there whenever he could, often just looking out at the water and the mountains. So, I could check that box; nothing conclusive but definitely tantalizing.
Molly spoke of other things that also were not conclusive, moving quickly from one thing to the next. The man was eager to talk, wanting to share. “There was an award you gave him,” Molly said. I told her I didn’t know about an award; it didn’t ring a bell at all. Then her words came faster, “He’s getting agitated, excited, he says ‘no, no, there was an award. You had it framed.’ He says he loves it!”
In truth I was disappointed at this point in the session. I really wanted to believe my dad was right there with me in the room, but the whole thing with the award was an indication that he probably was not.
It wasn’t until I was in the car on my way home that I suddenly remembered, with a start, that there was in fact an award—it was so long ago that I’d forgotten.
The backstory is that my dad had given Nancy and me medals after our wedding, a recognition of our each finding the perfect spouse.
Me dancing with Nancy at our wedding, wearing the medal awarded to me by dad. 1985.
My parents, Janet & Bill Page, at our wedding.
Years later, when my dad was a grandpa, I’d given him an award for “Achievement in Fatherhood.” I’d written up some of the wonderful things he’d done as a father—like running down a mountain in a storm with me on his back—had it framed, and given it to him in a ceremonial way. He’d laughed joyously and kept the award on the wall near his desk.
The same desk where the phone had rung at 4am. When I remembered this, I almost had to pull off the road. I thought, ‘Oh my God.’
The fact that there had been an award, and it took a voice heard through a psychic to remind me of this, lent tremendous credence to Molly’s abilities. There was absolutely no way she could have known about the award. And my father insisting that Molly tell me about it? That rang true. I could feel his personality shining through, passing a barrier from what was possibly another reality, one that could not be proved or disproved by today’s science.
When I’ve written about grandfatherhood—most recently with my Good Grandpa book—I explored the concept of legacy. The way we live, the honor and love and wisdom we bring to our actions, sets an example for the next generation that transcends mere words or lectures. Some things stand the test of time simply because they’ve earned endurance. Maybe it’s possible—just maybe—that the soul/consciousness/spirit can also earn endurance, manifested in my case with a call at 4am. And an unforgettable award that will be on the wall from now until the stars go out.
And Dad, if there is any part of you still lingering here, there’s been something I’ve wanted to tell you again, something I wished I’d said more often when your heart was beating: I love you.
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