Talking to the Angels

Every time Jeanie put her infant daughter, Michaela, down on the changing table, she noticed that Michaela would be looking at something, and occasionally she felt that something passed through the flat they lived in. 'Whisked past,' she said, 'A light thing.'

Jeanie continues:

One day I put her down to change her and I saw her looking over my shoulder and nodding, and apparently understanding something. She was really young. It was like she was saying, 'Aha, mmm, OK' – like that. And then it was as if she said goodbye. Then she looked at me.

After that she didn't look over my shoulder again. She didn't look past me when I was changing her nappy; she didn't do any of that. I had this feeling that she'd said goodbye to the guides who had come with her and that she had received her last instructions.

Now I don't know why, but in my mind I thought of them as angels and Michaela was talking to them – and there were two. I couldn't prove it. That's just the feeling I had. It was like: There's something here, and she's talking to it.

When she was two, she was in bed and I think she was in trouble over something. I came out of her room, then a moment later I went back in and I saw her with that listening look again. It was as if she had finished listening to somebody who was talking. Then she turned round and looked at me and I said, 'Who were you talking to?' She said, 'Somebody.' Then I said, 'Were you talking to the angels?' and she said, 'Yes.'

The she turned back in the same direction and listened again and she gave a big sigh, and I distinctly picked up a sense that she felt it really was too hard. She didn't know that she should continue on, or whether it was worth going on. It was like she was finding this particular bit of life a little bit difficult. And the advice that she was getting was something like, she would have to make allowances because I was a mere human.

Then I asked her if she was sometimes needing support with bits of life, and she said yes. And I'd have to say that since then she's been a bit different, a bit more in the world, less trying to be good.

And conversations about angels seem to happen around Michaela.

The other thing is that, in conversations, Michaela is always present. My sense of some other children is that they are off in their own little world. If you ask them to do something, they may not hear you, or choose not to hear you, or don't participate in the conversation. Michaela is always there in the conversation if you are speaking with her. I find that quite super-normal. She is also incredibly cheerful. She will turn anything into a joke.