about a month after we moved back into our house I woke up in the middle of the

night          smelling smoke. I was still sleepy. And I saw Genell Rose floating above me, over my bed.

“You have to get out of here!”  she said, and I heard her very clearly.

“Is the house on fire?”  I asked. “I smell smoke.”​

“Yes!” she said.

“What about Mama and Daddy and Tim?”

​
“You have to go wake them up,” she told me.

“Nelly Belly... you go wake them up,”  I mumbled. I had completely forgotten that she had died.

“Sleepy head,”  Genell said firmly, “get up, get out of bed and go wake them up.”

Then I noticed that Genell was wearing her confirmation clothes, the same

clothes that she’d been buried in. I thought to myself, “Oh my God, she’s wearing

the same clothes we laid her out in.” 

 

Even then I didn’t realize that she was dead because I was looking right at her and

speaking with her...