Sometimes spirits will send us signs that they think we will recognize as such, but instead we perceive them as something completely different — a coincidence, a logical part of our everyday life, or even an annoyance. This is why it is so important for us to always keep our minds open to everything around us. What may appear to be nothing noteworthy could be life changing if we view it in a different light.
Take the story of Mary, who lives in Nevada and enjoys immersing herself in nature. The scenery, the fresh-air smell, the wildlife — it all brings her a sense of love and peace. She even built a greenhouse in her backyard. Many of the hours in her day are filled taking care of the various flowers and plants she has nurtured over the years.
Mary’s mother lived in nearby California, and Mary often traveled there, where they gardened together, until her mother’s death in 2006.
“She was a highly creative woman,” Mary said. “She would get very upset with herself if she couldn’t figure out how to do everything on her own, whether it was developing an underground watering system on timers for her many plants, or hand-making our dad’s silk suits and all our clothes when we were kids. She was a very determined person, with a wonderful sense of humor and a happy and boisterous laugh.”
About five years after her mom died, Mary’s sister in California had scheduled a phone reading with me. Up to that point, I had no idea who Mary was. Her sister was the first in the family to have a reading.
Each day, starting about two weeks prior to her sister’s reading, Mary would get a visitor in the greenhouse. An unwelcome one, of sorts.
“I would open the doors each morning and leave them open, and what appeared to be the same hummingbird would fly in day after day and hover around some purple lanterns I had hanging,” Mary said. “The bird did the same thing every time. It would fly around the lanterns, then rest on a beam and chirp at me as it bobbed up and down and flapped its wings. I would try to shoo it out, but it wouldn’t go. It was like it was laughing at me.”
The fact that this bird had the same routine every single day, including refusing to fly away when Mary tried to make it leave, could have come across as a sign to her if she had considered that possibility. But she simply saw it as a wild bird with not a lot of smarts.
When Mary’s sister had her reading with me, her mother was coming through very clearly. “She’s showing me a hummingbird,” I said.
“A hummingbird?” Mary’s sister had no idea what I was talking about. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d even seen a hummingbird.
“Do you have a sister? She’s telling me you need to call your sister,” I said. “I am also sensing a booming laugh from her.” These impressions were very random, which is how messages are often presented to me.
A hummingbird, followed by an order to call her sister, followed by a booming laugh? Mary’s sister was confused. She knew, of course, about her mother’s laugh, but what did a hummingbird and her sister have to do with it?
Of course, none of it made sense to me, either. As the messenger, I rely on those I’m reading for to piece together what the spirits are transmitting to me. On the surface, I could understand why she was confused, but I always trust what the spirits are telling me. I knew there was some logic to this. It was going to be up to Mary’s sister to figure that out over time.
“I would just call your sister,” I said. “Your mom seems insistent that you do that.”
So, after the reading, she made the call. “Mary, I had my reading with the medium Bill and Mom came through, but some of it didn’t make any sense to me,” she confessed. “He said Mom was showing him a hummingbird, and she was laughing.”
Mary screamed. She actually screamed.
Once she calmed down, she told her sister the story of the hummingbird, and as they talked they even recalled that their mom’s favorite color was purple, which would explain why the bird was so infatuated with the lanterns.
“It was unbelievable,” Mary said. And you can imagine how happy she was when the bird returned to the greenhouse the day after the reading.
“I called my sister and told her it was back,” Mary explained. “We laughed and cried together.”
The hummingbird was no longer just a hummingbird. Mary’s eyes had been opened to an entirely new world.
“I talked to it, and it became very comfortable with me,” she said. “It let me get very close to it, to the point that it almost hopped into my hand.
“I didn’t understand at first why Mom would have sent a hummingbird — they had no direct significance in either of our lives when she was alive. But I guess since we did do a lot of gardening together, and since hummingbirds and flowers go hand in hand, she thought that would be a good way to get my attention and let me know she was with me.”
One thing to note about how signs like this work is that the hummingbird was not actually Mary’s mother. It was a sign sent by her mother. She chose what she thought would be the best method to reach her daughter, to let her know that she was watching over her. Since she knew her daughter was always in the greenhouse, the hummingbird probably seemed like a logical choice.