DEPARTED LOVED ONES AND ANGELS USE ANIMALS TO SEND US SIGNS! (CARDINAL)

One of my favorite cardinal stories includes a 92-year-old hospice patient for whom I was a volunteer companion. She was confined to a wheelchair as a result of a stroke and suffered from Alzheimer’s. I visited her for about 8 months once a week in 2014. Weather permitting, I always wheeled her outside for some fresh air. One particular day shortly before she graduated from this Earth, she was uncharacteristically emotional and kept crying.  As I wheeled her outside the nursing home she apologized for crying. I squatted down next to her and told her that whatever she was feeling was okay and that God sometimes sent cardinals to people who were grieving or depressed as a sign so they’d know they weren’t alone. She seemed very surprised by this so I told her we were going to sit in the gazebo and I would tell her some stories about cardinal experiences I’d had during my life.  As I wheeled her toward the gazebo I could hear a cardinal chirping away in the distance. I asked her if she could hear the chirping and she did. We sat in the gazebo for about 30 min, the cardinal chirping the entire time, as I told her story after story about cardinal signs from the spirit realm. She was a little uncomfortable with one of the stories as she thought it was scary. I reassured her that these signs were sent from God, the Angels or loved ones who had known her during her life.  The chirping became louder, and I suggested we go find that little bird.  I pushed her wheelchair approximately 15 feet down the sidewalk beside a number of parked cars. I spotted the cardinal at the top of a 3-story pine tree across the parking lot just beside the nursing home.  I pointed toward the top of the tree and asked her if she could see the bird and she could not.  It was then I realized she didn’t have the range of motion in her neck to look up that high. I said to her, “I’m sure God will send it down so you can see him.” Before I even finished my sentence, the cardinal flew down from the tree, landed on the driver’s side mirror of a car that was parked directly in front of us, exactly at her eye level from her seated position in the wheelchair. She smiled and said, “I see him.”  He flew away!  I’m not sure how profound that experience was for her, but I like to believe it brought her comfort just as much as it did for me. I wheeled her back inside and told her I’d see her again the following week on her 93rd birthday and I’d bring her a cake and balloons to celebrate.  She was being silly and told me she would hide from me! I assured her I would find her! Typically, I visited her at 10am. However, the day of my visit, her birthday, I was running late as I had to drop something off to one of my girls at school. I had already purchased a chocolate opera cream cake, but I wanted to take balloons as well. I was running in the grocery to grab some balloons and got a message that she had taken a turn for the worse over the weekend.  The message was vague, so I decided to go ahead and purchase the balloons and head over to the nursing home.  It was about 11am when I arrived and as I walked toward her room carrying a birthday cake and balloons, a nurse stopped me and waved me away from her room. She had just 'graduated' about 10 minutes before I arrived. I shed a few tears but then I had to silently laugh. She had told me she was going to hide if I showed up to celebrate her birthday and I insisted I’d find her. She won!!!