Restless Spirits

I had a restless night of sleep last night. Nuria told me I was talking in my sleep, though she couldn't understand what I was saying. She said that I was not speaking English or Spanish, and that I was speaking in a voice not my own.

I've blogged about having restless sleep. I've thrashed about, kicked the wall or the radiator beside the bed, punched the headboard, rolled off the mattress onto the floor, etc. One time I knocked the lamp beside the bed halfway across the room. And so on.

But I'm usually alone when I do that kind of thing. I only know what happened from seeing the aftermath. Nothing so dramatic happened last night, but I have eyewitness testimony that something odd happened. Talking in tongues while using other voices? I'd call that odd.

I had a good friend named Ralph. Cancer killed him. But when he was alive, he sometimes talked in tongues. He wrote notes in his Bible—in ancient Greek. But Ralph had no training in the Greek language. Sometimes he would enter a trance-like state and he would dictate notes while his wife wrote down what he said. His wife's name was Nuria.

Ralph performed many mysterious deeds. Here are three things he did that seem extraordinary.

Nuria was at work when suddenly she began bleeding—she was having her period. But the flow of blood was very heavy and Nuria became concerned. So she left work and went to her gynecologist's office. But it was the lunch hour and the doctor wasn't in his office. Her apartment was only a few blocks away, so Nuria drove home.  Ralph was there. Nuria went to the bathroom to change her clothes and Ralph followed her. He put his right hand on her head, between her forehead and scalp, and touched her stomach with his left hand, and he began praying in a language that Nuria didn't know. The bleeding stopped instantly and Nuria never had that kind of bleeding again.

Another time, Nuria had a very bad headache that lasted for days. Exhausted from pain, she went to the ER and they gave her a CT scan. The CT was clear. Afterward, Ralph touched Nuria's forehead and the headache stopped. I asked Nuria why Ralph didn't cure her headache before she went to the ER, and Nuria said that Ralph didn't like to do these things unless there was no other choice.

Ralph said he could look inside a person and see their soul and he would know whether that person was good or evil. He often talked to spirits and sometimes the spirits would talk to Nuria through Ralph. When he began talking with spirits his nose would start running, like with clear water, and when he finished talking with them, he would black out because talking with spirits took all his energy.

In the Bible there are just a few names of angels, but Ralph gave Nuria the names of many angels. He told her that every angel in Heaven has a mission. Ralph said his true name was Rafael. He talked about fallen angels, and he told Nuria that he was a fallen angel himself.

Nuria has three daughters. One of her daughters is named Joanna. Joanna gave birth to a baby boy; Ralph predicted the date of his birth. A few years later, Joanna gave birth to a baby girl; Ralph predicted the date of her birth. Ralph predicted the sudden passing of Nuria's father; he died of a sudden heart attack while he was standing in church reading a Bible. Ralph knew it had happened from thousands of miles away and he told Nuria that she had to call her family right away.

When Ralph was dying, he asked Nuria what she would do after he was gone, but Nuria didn't have an answer. Ralph told her that he didn't want her to marry again, with one exception. He told her that it would make him happy if she were to marry me. Yes, me, your blogger.

I don't know why he chose me. But I've been interested in the Afterlife since I was six years old. I was about age 12 or 14 when I read The Search for Bridey Murphy, and I was a year or two older when I read the Mary Roff/Lurancy Vennum story. Beginning with Raymond Moody Jr's Life After Life, I have read many books about after-death experiences and reincarnation. But I never told Ralph about any of those matters.

Nuria wrote pages of notes from her sessions in which Ralph spoke as a spiritual medium. Listening to Nuria's stories, I know there is a book in all of Ralph's revelations. But I never saw that side of Ralph. Ralph never showed it to me. He was married to Nuria for a year before he allowed her to know about that side of himself.

I didn't know Nuria well while Ralph was alive. After Ralph passed, I got to know Nuria better by talking with her on Skype, which is how Ralph and I used to video chat.

Nuria visited me for the first time on November 24, 2020. One year later, Nuria is on her fourth visit with me, and we're trying to make her life here permanent. We've filled out the forms for U.S. Customs and Immigration. Now we're waiting.

I often think about the things Ralph told Nuria and the seemingly miraculous things he was able to do. A lot of people will say it's all coincidence and deception. Maybe, but if so, what did Ralph gain? He wanted it to remain private, and it has. I've just cracked the book open a little bit, just to give a glimpse of what might be.