The Mysterious Caller

by Linda Eckels
I want to share my faith-filled experiences with others. I have many stories where God has spoken to me and shown me things in my life to prepare me for things to come and things to avoid. I want to tell you about my encounter with a Guardian Angel before I’m too old and may forget it. Many people I have told my story to over the years say they all feel it also needs to be shared.
It was around September 27, 1978, three days after our 12th wedding anniversary. I was home with our two children, and my husband Ken was at work. The phone rang sometime around 4:30 in the afternoon. These were the days when we only had one phone in the house and no answering machine or speakerphones. When I answered the phone, the voice said it was my husband Ken with the usual “Hi, Babe” greeting.
The voice said he was running late coming home because he was at a friend’s house and had just taken three Contacts (a sinus cold medicine) and was just waiting till he felt better before driving home.

Something different

Something in the voice seemed different. Ken was a very smart and careful person who would not have taken three Contact pills at one time. I mentioned that to the voice on the phone, and as we kept talking about different things, I sensed there was something different in the voice. I told the voice that I did not believe I was really talking to my husband. The voice kept saying he was my husband. I replied, “Prove it by telling me what we did three days ago.” The voice told me it was our anniversary, and we did this and that. Well, what he said was just what we did, so I believe it had to be my husband since only he would have known those things.
When my husband did get home, I asked him why he would take three sinus cold medicine pills at once. He said he did not do that. I figured the medicine made him forget, so while the medicine wore off, I did not pursue the nice phone conversation we had earlier.
The very next week on the same day and at the same time, the phone rang again with the usual “Hi, Babe” greeting telling me it was my husband again, and he was running late but would be home in half an hour. He then said,” When I get home, I want you to do this and that to me just for fun.” Half an hour later in comes my husband and I start doing the fun things to him he had said on the phone. With a genuine surprise look on his face, he asked me, “What are you doing?”
Of course, I said, “What you told me to do on the phone half an hour ago.”
To my surprise, he said, “I did not call you a half-hour ago.”
I asked about the week before and the call I got then. Again, he said, “I did not call you then either.”
I was stunned and said, “Don’t do that to me…play games like that.”
He put his arms around me, sat me down on the couch, and said, “Look into my eyes. Have I ever lied to you before? I did not make those calls. He then said, “Please do not talk to this guy anymore if he calls, hang up.

The journal

When I felt stress over something in those days, I kept a journal. So I got out my journal and wrote down what happened. The following week, on the same day at the same time, the phone rang again with the usual “Hi, Babe” greeting, telling me it was my husband again. This time I told the caller I had spoken to my husband in person about these calls, and he denies making them. Therefore, I did not want any more calls and hung up the phone. I made sure to make an entry into my journal.
The week after that, on the same day and at the same time, the phone rang again with the usual “Hi, Babe” greeting, telling me it was my husband again. This time I went off on the voice, threatening to call the police if this harassment did not stop, and then I hung up the phone. It was so uncanny though how much this voice sounded like my husband and the things he talked about were things only my husband knew.
These calls continued week after week on the same day and at the same time, always the usual “Hi, Babe,” telling me it was my husband. The only thing that did change was what the voice started talking about. The voice kept saying, “Linda, please don’t hang up; I have something very important to tell you, you must listen.”
My husband Ken was a gentle, quiet, soft-spoken, kind person and if he said he was not calling and not for me to listen or talk to this male voice on the phone pretending to be him, I was going to listen to my husband. In those days, I was an old-fashion wife who depended and leaned on her husband to make most of the decisions and income in the family. I had not learned yet to be self-sufficient. We married right from living with our parents.
These calls continued the same day, same time, again with the usual “Hi, Babe” greeting, telling me it was my husband right up until the week before Christmas Eve. The voice kept saying, “Linda, please don’t hang up. I have something very important to tell you; you must listen.” This time I asked, “Why is it you never call when my husband is home? My husband would like to talk to you himself. The voice said, “I do plan on calling Christmas Eve at midnight, and I will prove I am your husband.

The Christmas call

Christmas Eve, there we were in front of the fireplace Ken assembling toys and me putting our children’s presents under the tree. At midnight the phone rang. I ran to the phone and picked it up, and sure enough, with the usual “Hi, Babe” greeting, the voice was telling me it was my husband. This time though, there was heavenly serene, peaceful, beautiful music playing in the background — music I had never heard on earth. My response this time was, “Oh really, well, there is someone here who wants to talk to you!”
Ken rushed to the phone, took the receiver and started scolding the voice on the phone for calling his wife claiming to be him and that this guy was never to call his home again and bother his little family. Just after saying all that to the voice on the phone, I saw my husband Ken’s face go white, and he became very quiet, still listening to the voice on the phone.
I tried to listen, standing as close as I could to the receiver, but I could not hear what the voice was saying.
Then Ken hung up the phone and did not say a word to me, even though I was begging to know what the guy had to say for himself. Ken went back in front of the fireplace, laid face down on the rug in front of it, and fell fast asleep. I tried and tried to wake him up, but he just was out cold. I went to bed and left him to sleep there all night. On Christmas morning, I woke up to find my husband making breakfast for the kids and me with his usual happy, positive attitude. He always was a wonderful roommate. He never minded doing household chores and loved spending time with our children and me. After breakfast, we opened our presents, and once the kids were occupied playing with their new toys, I asked Ken about the phone call conversation. He looked at me and said, “What call?”
I said,” The one at midnight with the guy calling since September, pretending to be you.”
He said, “I don’t remember that, let’s just enjoy Christmas and go on with our day visiting our families”. Before we left the house, I wrote the last entry in my journal and filed it away up in the closet. The entire thing did fade away from my memory, and the calls did stop.

The accident

Three years later, on April 4, 1981, my husband Ken got a call at 10:15 pm to help a friend who worked at a garage. His motorcycle would not start, so he needed a ride home. My husband went out to do a good deed.
During the time he was driving to help his friend, his car was struck by a teenage drunk driver, and Ken was killed instantly. Ken was 32 years old. The head-on collision took place in front of a phone booth. It was around
10:45 pm,
At that time, I had the strangest feeling come over me that something was wrong when my phone rang. There was no sound on the other end, but I started praying. Within the next half hour, I received a call from Ken’s brother telling me what happened. The police wanted me to identify his body. I could not take control of anything. My wonderful father-in-law, who had lost his oldest son just 3 1/2 months before to a heart attack, took control of all arrangements. The hardest thing I ever had to do was tell my children their father was dead.
I really liked Ken’s oldest brother. He was a hockey coach and a gentle, kind person who didn’t smoke or drink but died at 40 years old 12/8/1980. When Ken lost his oldest brother, it brought us even closer together. In those three years, many unexplained things happened. I went back to college and did learn how to be self-sufficient. I remember our last kiss shortly before the night Ken died; we had a wonderful day and were sitting on the couch when we felt like kissing each other. Just as our lips touched, I experienced a choking coughing spell, which prevented us from kissing. It was so intense that I had a sore throat for the rest of the night. I always saw Ken as a very mysteriously intelligent person. He was thoughtful of others, and he gave me confidence in living life with faith and kept God in our lives.
After, the night Ken was killed his best friend Tracey, who also was our children’s godfather, told me Ken had come to see him just a week before and had told him that he knew he was going to die soon and asked if Tracey could watch over and take care of his little family. Tracey told him he must be drunk to say something like that and go sleep it off in the other room. That is when Ken told him that he was not drunk, but around three years ago his Guardian Angel called on the phone and told him he was going to die, and he would forget about it until the time was near so he could get his things in order. Tracey said he just laughed it off, thinking Ken was hallucinating.
Of course, hearing this from Tracey, the memory of the mysterious caller came back to my mind too. Immediately, I went to the back of the closet and pulled out the journal I had saved all these years, but I really had forgotten all about the experience. When I showed Tracey the pages in the journal where I had dates, times and verbatim conversations, his mouth dropped and he was speechless. We were sitting by the fire, and after giving it some thought that I had crossed a spiritual threshold, the feeling of taboo came over me. Without any more thinking about it, I tossed the journal into the fireplace and let it burn up. I was in a state of shock and didn’t understand how God had prepared me for this tragic loss.
I am witness to God’s many blessings and goodness in the plans he has for us, even if it does take a while for it to be understood by us. Knowing that this experience was indeed really true, and with all the other signs and answers God has given me, it led me to become a Eucharistic Minister, love and be loved to marry again.

Linda Eckels lives in Naples, Florida. “This is a photo of me at the age my first husband Ken was killed as he was on his way to do a good deed helping a friend by giving him a ride home from gas station his brother owned,” she said.” The Chief of Police, Fire Chief and Board of Night Clubs President witnessed the head-on collision caused by a 17-year-old male driver trying to escape from a night club raid on April 4, 1981. I had to remain strong and control my emotions for my two young children. Many family members and friends helped us through our loss. While I was working in a bank in 1985, I met my second husband. We dated and married in 1988, and we are still married. God has always prepared and guided me through things that happened in my life.”