DEPARTED LOVED ONES AND ANGELS USE ANIMALS AS SIGNS! (CARDINAL)

Yet another cardinal story began when I was assigned a new hospice patient. It was late November 2016 and I arrived at the home of the woman who was being cared for in her daughter and son-in-law’s home. I had taken some time off as a hospice volunteer after my father ‘graduated from this Earth’ and wasn’t sure if I was ready to volunteer again. As I pulled up to the home, I said a silent prayer that I would receive a sign to validate if I was ready to commit to this patient or whether I should take some additional personal time to grieve my own loss. I walked in the door, and I kid you not when I say every inch of the walls and floor space was decorated for Christmas. Ironically, the tree was set up but appeared to be empty from my viewpoint, awaiting only the decorations.  I settled into a chair across from the sweet lady and we began chatting. After about 20min, she asked me to go to the kitchen and bring her the diabetes testing kit so she could test her blood sugar.  As I walked back into the living room, now viewing the Christmas tree from another angle, I noticed there were actually 2 ornaments hanging on the tree. One was a picture of her grandchildren, and the other was a bright red cardinal.  I knew in that moment I was ready to be her volunteer until she ‘graduated’!  I shared with her many cardinal stories from that day forward. I later discovered that she shared the cardinal stories with her daughter.  Not long after she ‘graduated’, I received a thank-you card from her daughter thanking me for sharing the stories. She said she had been having a particularly difficult day as it was her mother’s birthday, and she went onto the deck to breathe some fresh air. As she was sitting there, a cardinal flew onto the deck railing and sat just a few feet in front of her looking directly into her eyes. She quietly acknowledged the sign from her mother and the cardinal flew away.