An Unexpected Visitor

A father is neither an anchor to hold us back nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way.

~Author Unknown

When I was six weeks from having my third son, back in 1977, my husband Dan finished his job in Utah and wanted to return to Mexico so our baby would be born at home on the farm. I had a very uneasy feeling about going back to Mexico. But he was adamant about going, and after traveling day and night, we arrived home after a couple of days on the road. The old house seemed damp and cold, but I got busy and fixed it up as best I could. I couldn’t shake the heavy feeling that something was going to happen.

Four days before Jared was due to be born, I had a remarkable dream.

I dreamt I was in labor with him, and I was having such a hard time that my spirit left my body. I was traveling at top speed toward a light down a long, round tunnel. I was soon within the light and saw family members, some familiar and some not, standing and waving at me. To my surprise, I saw my father standing next to an older man dressed in white.

I was shocked to see my dad because I knew I was in the spirit world, and I thought he was in Wales with my mum. We seemed to be able to read each other’s minds, and he knew what I was thinking. We didn’t need words. I took note of what he was wearing, even down to his Welsh Guards tie pin.

The man standing beside Dad told me he had left Earth a few days before. He mentioned that my brother David had sent me a telegram, though I hadn’t received it. The man asked if I wanted to return to Earth or stay with my father. I thought about my two little boys, Adam and Steven, growing up without a mama, and I knew I had to return.

In a split second, we were hovering over La Mora, the small American community in Mexico where I was living. I was looking through the roof of the old house. I could see Dan kneeling by my bed, crying and telling my sister-in-law Diane that I had died. Still dreaming, suddenly I was back in my body. I asked Dan to say hello to my father, who was standing at the end of my bed, but Dan couldn’t see him. Then my father waved goodbye, disappearing through the wall.

When I woke, I sat up quickly in bed and woke up my husband, too. I told him about the disturbing dream I had just had. I knew my father had died, and I couldn’t help but think that maybe I was going to die, too. When I fell back to sleep I had the same dream again.

In the morning, I told my sisters-in-law about it. Throughout the day, I couldn’t get the dream or my father out of my mind. That night, at 11:30, I heard a knock on my bedroom door. I knew before I opened it that there was a telegram for me. Dan’s brother had just returned home from a trip to Douglas, Arizona, and his wife brought me my mail, knowing a telegram was important news.

I opened it and read: “Dad passed away. Call home.”

I wanted to call home to England and talk to my mother, but the nearest phone was hours away as there was no electricity in our valley at the time. The next day, Dan drove me over the muddy mountain roads to his cousin’s home in Casas Grandes. It was bitter cold, and we got stuck many times, doubling the normal travel time. We got stuck in a deep mud hole, and as we sat there, unable to get out of our predicament, a very old bus drove up. Six men got out and waded through the mud in their nice clothes to push us out. By the time they got us unstuck, their clothes were completely covered with mud, but they were all laughing as they climbed back onto the bus. I had fallen in love with the Mexican people who were always so kind and helpful, and I was grateful in this moment that these men were there to rescue us from a desperate situation.

We arrived in Casas Grandes that evening, and I tried calling my mother several times, to no avail. I said a silent prayer and dialed her number again. I was surprised to hear a familiar voice on the line. It was my brother’s friend! I had dialed my mother’s number, and some glitch in the telephone system connected me to him instead. He told me that my mother had gone to Germany with my brother, who was stationed there in the Army. I wouldn’t have known where she was or any details of my father’s heart attack and funeral had it not been for that connection.

The following day, I went into labor. We went to a hospital instead of having me deliver at home on the farm as originally planned. I delivered my son after a very hard and long labor and I hemorrhaged badly. I knew that my dream had been a warning. If I had tried to have the baby at home I probably wouldn’t be here to tell this story.

Two years later, I went to Wales to visit my family and learned that my father had been buried in the exact same clothes that he wore in my dream, down to the Welsh Guards tie pin.

— Jenny Langford —