CCAirwaves
Welcome to CCAirwaves! CCAirwaves is the official podcast of the Catholic Cemeteries Association. Our hosts, Paige Muttillo and Joel Hansel, will provide informational and inspirational segments that will help you work through your grief in a healthy way, learn more about our Catholic faith, and much more. CCAirwaves is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, and other streaming platforms. If you have a topic you'd like us to discuss, please email us at podcast@clecem.org. We look forward to forging relationships with our Catholic community!
CCAirwaves
Messages from Heaven- Cardinals (Part 2)
After numerous requests for more stories of cardinals as messengers from Heaven, we're excited to bring you Part 2 of "Messages from Heaven—Cardinals." Dive into these heartfelt stories where these vivid red messengers brought hope and comfort to those mourning their loved ones.
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Podcast: "CCAirwaves" on your favorite streaming platform!
Thank you so much for joining us. Hello and welcome back to CC Airwaves. My name is Paige Matillo and I'm here with my co-host, joel Hansel.
Speaker 2:How you doing Paige.
Speaker 1:I'm doing good. How are you, joel?
Speaker 2:I am absolutely loving the October weather we've been having.
Speaker 1:I know it's been really nice out and the leaves are changing.
Speaker 2:Very mild, not a lot of rain. It's been pretty nice, not gonna lie, not too shabby.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to November. Hopefully the weather stays nice.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm looking forward to November because I have a few weeks off coming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll be missing Joel for a few weeks, but that's all right, you guys will still have me. So today we'll be doing a part two to our Messages from Heaven Cardinal episode that we posted last year. People really like the episode because obviously cardinals are known as messengers from heaven and we do have more stories that involve those. But before we dive into that, today I was going to share with Joel a message from heaven that I recently received. So none of you know this, but Joel gave me a camera so I could go around and take pictures at the cemeteries while I was driving around and as I was doing that, I remembered when I was younger I really liked photography. I had my own camera and I was thinking, oh, maybe I'll get back into that and, you know, find my old camera. So I go home that day I try to find my old camera. I find it it's broken, so unfortunate. And I'm thinking, oh, I have to go buy a new camera.
Speaker 1:The next day my dad is cleaning out this I want to say this cabinet that we have, because we are cleaning out the office that we have in my house and he finds a camera, and it's a camera that none of us had seen before. So I'm looking through it and I turn it on. It still works. It was my grandma's camera who passed away last year, and we must have taken it after she passed away from her house, and it still worked. It had all sorts of pictures on it dating back at least 10 years, so I thought that was a nice little message from heaven that I received from her. It was something that she used to keep her memories, and now it's something I can use to keep my memories. So isn't that sweet.
Speaker 2:That's a fantastic discovery, though.
Speaker 1:I know it was a great discovery. I'm surprised it turned on.
Speaker 2:You want to know what would have been even more like whoa was if there was a picture of a cardinal taken by her.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, See, it would have been full circle.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, that story did not involve cardinals, but all of the other ones do, but I had to share it with Joel because it was just so amazing. Now let's dive into these stories. Our first one was submitted by Eve D. My grandma called me out of the blue one day and asked if I would take her to the cemetery to visit her mom's grave. She rarely ever called to ask me for favors, so I jumped in the car and went to pick her up. We got to the cemetery and it was huge. Since she hadn't visited in over 20 years, she couldn't recall where her mom was buried. We were totally lost.
Speaker 1:Just when I was starting to feel frustrated, something cool happened. A cardinal appeared, hopping from one headstone to another. My grandma stopped and smiled watching it. I love cardinals, she said, taking my hand and following the bird. It seemed almost like it was waiting for us to catch up. Each time it jumped to another headstone. Eventually it stopped and perched on one that looked older.
Speaker 1:As we got closer, my grandma gasped it was her mom's grave, my great grandma's, it's like. She wanted us to find her. She said the Cardinal flew off into the trees and we spent some time at the grave her. She said the cardinal flew off into the trees and we spent some time at the grave. Grandma told me stories about her mom that I'd never heard before, making me feel like I truly knew my great grandma. When we finally headed back to the car, the cemetery didn't feel so overwhelming anymore. It felt more like a place where everything had a purpose, even getting lost. As we walked, grandma squeezed my hand and smiled. She's still looking after me, isn't she? She said, and honestly I couldn't agree more. I like that story. You know, you're lost in a cemetery, you're looking for kind of a beacon of hope or somewhere to try and find this headstone, and you get a little messenger from heaven leading the way, taking you to where you need to go.
Speaker 2:Well, it beats having an app.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say that if this was at one of our cemeteries, we do have an app that does have GPS navigation to the grave site. So I mean, if you are planning on visiting one of our cemeteries, feel free to download that and it will help you out. But I mean we should and it'll help you out, but I mean we should start having cardinals do it. I think that's a little bit cooler.
Speaker 2:That's very cool, it really is.
Speaker 1:We'll look into that.
Speaker 2:Story number two was submitted by Giovanna T. Ever since my dad passed away last year, I started noticing a cardinal visiting the bird feeder in our backyard. Away last year, I started noticing a cardinal visiting the bird feeder in our backyard. My dad loved birds and he always said cardinals were good luck. Seeing that bright red bird felt like a little nod from him, a sign that he was still around. In some way the bird became a regular visitor, always showing up when I missed my dad the most it was comforting like having a piece of him still with me, still looking out for our family. Then just last week we had to say goodbye to my mom. It was tough losing her so soon after my dad and the house felt so empty without them.
Speaker 2:The morning after my mom's funeral I was making coffee looking out the kitchen window at the bird feeder, like I did most mornings. That's when I saw it. It wasn't just one cardinal at the feeder that day, but two. Another had joined this one, a vivid shade of red, just like the first, but with a slightly lighter feather. The pair of them pecked at the seeds, occasionally pausing to sit side by side on the edge of the feeder, seeing them together, so peaceful and at home, brought tears to my eyes but also a strange sense of relief. It was as if both my mom and dad were letting me know they were together now and they were okay, that they both would keep watching over me just from a little further away Now. Every time I see those cardinals, I can't help but think they're my parents' way of visiting. I don't know if I ever really believed in signs like this before, but now.
Speaker 2:I find a lot of comfort in it. It's like having a visual reminder that love doesn't end with death. It just changes form, showing up in moments and ways you least expect, like a pair of cardinals at your bird feeder just when you needed them most.
Speaker 1:That story brings tears to my eyes for real. I just can't handle that one because it's so sweet. I mean the other, cardinal joining after the mom's death. I mean I really do think it was a sign that they're together and that everything's going to be okay and that you know they are watching over her.
Speaker 2:I think it's a cute story and seeing the two cardinals together at the theater, you can kind of almost picture Mom and dad maybe sitting on the couch next to each other watching TV, eating snickerdoodles.
Speaker 1:Snickerdoodles are good. Moving on to our next story, this story was submitted by Bobby S. Moving to a different state had been tough, but losing my best friend shortly after was devastating. The grief was suffocating and returning home after his funeral felt like walking through a fog the morning of his 30ating. And returning home after his funeral felt like walking through a fog. The morning of his 30th birthday, I felt worse than usual. This was a milestone we had always joked about, but he would now never make it to.
Speaker 1:As I shuffled to the kitchen to make coffee, I noticed something unusual through the sliding glass door. Lots of people making coffee when they see these cardinals. A cardinal, bright, red and vivid, against the dull colors of my backyard. I've been living here for six years and had never seen a cardinal around. Intrigued and a bit lost in my thoughts, I sat down next to the glass door. The cardinal seemed to notice me, but instead of flying away, it walked right up to the glass and just stared at me. Its small eyes seemed to peer into mine and there was a calmness to it that felt almost intentional. We sat there together, the cardinal and I, separated only by the thin barrier of glass.
Speaker 1:I was so engulfed in my grief that I barely moved, just watching this little bird looking back at me. After about ten minutes, curiosity got the better of me and I gently tapped on the glass, half expecting it to fly off. But it didn't. It just stayed there watching me. Fifteen minutes passed like this until finally I stood up. It was only then that the cardinal flapped its wings and flew away. The encounter left me stunned, my heart a little lighter. It was as if, for those brief moments, my grief had been acknowledged by the universe, or maybe by my friend reaching out to comfort me. After that day, I would occasionally see the cardinal, especially on rough days when the weight of loss bore down on me the hardest. Each sighting felt like a gentle nudge, a reminder that I wasn't alone, as I felt. But maybe, just maybe, there was something out there, a connection that death could sever.
Speaker 2:You ever just sit with a cup of coffee looking out the window.
Speaker 1:I don't drink coffee, but I sit with a nice glass of water and I'll look out the window. I live kind of in the woods so I mean, especially at this time of year it's very nice because all the tree colors are changing. It's very, very peaceful.
Speaker 2:You ever get wrapped up just watching whatever's in your backyard, whether maybe there's some deer feeding or squirrels.
Speaker 1:Yeah, squirrels birds, definitely the deer. My dad feeds some every morning, so they hang around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's something quite calming just about sitting, taking a few minutes of quiet and looking out the window and just kind of getting lost in the nature.
Speaker 1:And maybe that's exactly what Bobby needed, was he needed a moment to sit and reflect and be with nature, and that's what the cardinal provided him in that moment, especially, you know, on the hardest days, which are anniversaries, birthdays and anything that pertains to the loss of a loved one.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Well, those are all the stories that we have for you today. Thank you so much for listening and, once again, if you have received a message from heaven and would like to share it, email us at podcast at CLECEMorg, or send us a message on our social media, at CCR waves. I hope that you all have a great day and we will talk to you soon.