I would like to tell you a story about my granny. I might have told it before, so forgive me if I have, but so much about her defined what I have become. My first experience of "questioning" life came about at her death when I was about 12 years old. According to the strict interpretation of Christianity she would not be going to heaven as she was a Seventh Day Adventist. But you would be hard pressed to find a sweeter, more pious and humble person ever. I simply thought - my church, you are full of shit.

However, I have never stopped believing in something and I know there is a higher power(?); forces of good and evil(?). And my granny has also reinforced that belief.

When I was pregnant with my 3rd child I was visited by my granny, not as a person, but as an encompassing glowing light, which surrounded me with so much love it is indescribable, but also a warning...be strong. During that same pregnancy I also had the experience of an enormous white owl sitting on a window ledge opposite my bed and staring at me, which I found extremely threatening.

Straight after the premature birth of my son, I had a medical complication and hu ng in the balance of life and death for a few days. (A really weird place to be.) I thought afterwards my granny could be referring to that. But the years after were awful, with so much family and financial stress. I thought she meant that.

About 3 years ago I had the most awful experience ever, and then I knew what she meant. I consider myself and family pretty normal, we most certainly don't dabble wth the paranormal at all. My daughter began to become progressively sicker, to the extent she couldn't get out of bed. There was no physical cause for her ailment.

A few months before the situation got really scary I had made the first real friend of my adult life, apart from my husband. We were still in the beginning stages of friendship and she told me my daughter's best friend (a boy) was possessed.

This is a really long story about Satanism and evil and suffering which I wont go into now. But I knew then what my granny meant, and the protective light she shone over my family.

Maybe a year or so ago, I dreamt of her again. In life she had suffered a long time from Parkinson's Disease, and my grandfather was also rather overbearing and strong-willed, so I remember her as quiet and retiring. In the dream she appeared to me as strong, and tall and in a business power suit! I immediately understood the message, her spirit is powerful, and that's who I and my family have in our corner.

Through all the jokes and atrocious puns I sense that thread of suffering. I just want to let you know I really believe those you loved are in your corner still. And you will be with them again.