Doug Tales 61: Auras, Part One

Shortly after his ten-year-old daughter Denise came home from her coma-induced hospital stay in late 1999, Doug Mendenhall learned that she had acquired the ability to see auras around people. The first person whose aura she described was Doug’s, when he got mad (with a red aura color) trying to give Denise an insulin shot. Doug would refine and expand his understanding of the energy fields around people later, but his preliminary learning is described in My Peace I Give Unto You (2001) on pages 90-92.

“NO! You no get me!” Denise squealed and ran just past my reach.

Still with some frequency, Denise showed a little incoherence when she talked; she also had problems coming up with the correct word for the situation. The effects of the stroke continued to linger on.

“Denise, you get back here!” I gritted my teeth and grabbed her. “You need this shot and you’re getting it!”

“NO! You get it.” She squirmed just enough to prevent me from sticking her with the needle. She knew I wouldn’t stick her unless she held still because of the fear I had of what might happen. I hated giving her shots and not just because she usually made it a twenty-minute production. I hated causing her pain even if it was necessary.

I reached over to grab the syringe and she slipped out of my grasp and headed into the kitchen at a run.

“DENISE!” My frustration was about to boil over.

If she would just let Dianne give her the shot. But she wouldn’t, she would only allow me to give it. It always ended up being a long, drawn out production.

“GET BACK HERE, YOUNG LADY!”

I charged out of the bedroom into the kitchen and cornered her. “You will sit still, and you will get this shot!” I demanded between clenched teeth.

“Wow, now you’re really red!” She pointed above my head and started to laugh.

I figured that she had confused the words red and mad. “Huh, what are you talking about?” My frustration still fed my anger.

“You’re red now, you’re really mad.” She said it with such delight that it caught me off guard.

There was a tickle in the back of my memory. Something about auras, you know, the lights they say that extend out from each of us. I had seen a few people using special film or cameras or something like that to photograph them. I had always wanted to get mine photographed but never had the twenty-five dollars on me that they always seemed to charge.

“You can see . . . colors . . . around me?” Astonishment replaced my frustration and the anger melted.

Did I really understand what she said?

“You can really see colors around me?” I asked again. I was dumbfounded.

“Uh huh, now you’re not so red,” she replied, as if commenting about the weather.

She acted as if it was natural, so natural that it must be as obvious to me as it was to her.

“How long have you been able to see colors?” Frustration turned to fascination.

“Since I woke up.”

“Do you see colors around everybody?”

“Duh,” she stated as a matter of fact.

“Daddy, my shot.”

“Yeah, okay, let’s give it to you.”

My mind filled with questions. She quietly sat next to me while I gave her the shot.

“I’ll be in the bedroom.” I announced to no one in particular. Denise followed me down the hall.

“Daddy, where are you going?”

“My bedroom. I want to be alone. Why don’t you go watch television or something?” I waved her off.

I closed the bedroom door and sat on the bed. My daughter could see auras.