Exactly one week after the death of my twin sister, I was sitting on my back deck, overlooking a fog-shrouded lake, as misty as I was feeling.

Jean and I had spent six weeks together at my home this summer, listening to the waves and watching the birds attracted to my feeders, as pancreatic cancer and Stage 4 COPD slowly robbed her of her life.

Her favorite birds were cardinals, which were frequent visitors to my feeders, but didn’t travel as far north as her home in Bemidji, Minnesota. On the flip side, I always looked forward to hearing loons when I visited her, as we never got any at my location overlooking Wall Lake in South Dakota.

This Saturday morning, as I sat alone on the deck, I remembered our last day together, one week earlier. Before she became unresponsive, I asked her to tell Mom and Dad I love them, and, “If you can, send me a sign that you’re okay.”

Life

After Her Sister Passed, She Found Comfort in Signs from Heaven

 The day before I lost my sister, she had eerily told me she might die before her husband, who is suffering from dementia. She was a survivor of being burned over 70% of her body, a 10-year survivor of lung cancer, and six months earlier, she survived a heart attack with 97% blockage in her […]

I was half-expecting a cardinal to show up, remembering a comment Jean made about a saying: “When cardinals appear, an angel is near.” She kidded me, “I suppose when I’m gone, every time you see a cardinal, you’ll say, ‘There’s Jean!’”

But what I heard coming through the fog that morning was not a cardinal…it was the unmistakable wail of a loon!

I looked at my ­laptop: It was exactly 10:15, the time of her passing the week before.

In disbelief, I Googled “loon” and clicked on one of four sounds listed there, the wail. The computer-generated sound matched exactly what I’d heard, and in response, I heard the call of the loon one more time. The website I’d pulled up noted, “Loons use the mournful wail for long distance communication, primarily when they are calling a family member.”

That was the one and only time I heard a loon on Wall Lake, and I know it was more than a bird call—it was Jean’s guardian angel telling me she is doing just fine in her new heavenly home.

Angel expert Sunny Dawn Johnston says…

“This story truly captures the beauty of how our loved ones find unique ways to reassure us,” says Sunny Dawn Johnson, a global authority on the angelic realm, with a portfolio of 22 books, including popular titles such as Invoking the Archangels, The Love Never Ends, and 365 Days of Angel Prayers. “For Jane, the loon’s call—a sound tied to her deepest memories with her twin sister—was an undeniable message of love and connection. It’s a reminder that the bonds we share are eternal. Sometimes, it’s not just what we see but what we hear that brings peace to our heart. Signs like these, especially when tied to a loved one, remind us that they are always near, communicating in ways we might not expect, but help us deeply feel their love.”