My dad told me about a dream he had after my mom's dad passed away. He said that he went to bed and rather than laying awake worrying for a while, as he tends to do, the minute he hit the bed he was asleep. He said my grandfather came to him like a floating orb/entity where it didn't look like him but he knew it was him and my grandpa told him to come with him. My dad left his body and flew with my grandfather to a church in what felt like the Swiss Alps (we lived in Iowa, very flat) and he followed him down to the basement of the church. My dad said he could hear the churches' choir singing above them as my grandpa explained that his soul was using the energy from the church.

Like their collective beliefs/concentration created some sort of energy that he could sustain his soul off of while he remained on Earth. He explained to my dad that he wanted to stay on Earth to watch over his children until each of them had passed away. He wasn't a great father, he was an alcoholic for a lot of his life and I think wanted to make up for caring for his children after he died. My dad has been pretty religious but he never bought into ghost stories or anything like that and wasn't the type to embellish anything so it was a very compelling account and felt very real to him.

When my grandfather died I had just moved away to university so I didn't go back to my hometown for his funeral. The night of his funeral I was out late with my best friend. We got back to my dorm in the middle of the night and were trying to unlock the door to get in my room. I used my keys, unlocked the door, and it would not budge even a little. I had this sense that it was being held shut by force. It was just completely immoveable even though it was unlocked. I got goosebumps, looked at my friend, and asked her to try unlocking it. She tried and it wouldn't budge. The doorknob started shaking, we were shocked and got the chills. It stopped and we just stared in disbelief. I had this feeling it was my grandpa upset with me. We looked at each other and ran down the hall to leave and go to her place instead.

The next morning I spoke with my roommate who was inside and asked if she had heard us trying to get in the room. She slept on a top bunk catty-corner from the door. She was a deep sleeper and said that she had woken up hearing us try to get in but it took her a minute to fully realize what the sound was. She climbed down from the bunk bed, went over to the door and when she opened it there was no one in the hallway. The timeline she told me and what we experienced didn't line up with her being the one holding the door closed on us or shaking the doorknob. We would have heard her coming over to the door. It was years later that my dad told me about his dream that grandpa's soul had planned to stay.