Trying To Communicate?

I've had a few strange things happen without explanation, and I think it might be spirits trying to communicate with me. The first was when I was about 11 years old.

It was a few days after Christmas, and since there was no school I often stayed up late watching TV in the living room. This specific night, I was playing a game on the computer. I got up to get a drink from the kitchen, which wasn't too far because my family lived in an apartment at the time. When I was walking to the desk I heard movement, next thing I knew a toy car that my brother had got for Christmas drove in a circle around me and through my legs. It was a battery operated remote control race car. However, there were no batteries in it, because my parents had purchased the wrong kind. I ran to my room, terrified. The next morning I told my parents what happened, they agreed it was very strange, but didn't say much after that. The next day my Dad learned that his cousin had passed away after a long battle with cancer the previous night.

Another time was a few years later, we had moved into a house. It was a weekend night and I was up, again on the computer, and my mom was about to head upstairs. Suddenly there was a knock at the front door. Three clear knocks. My mother and I exchanged looks, we both heard the knocking. My mom went to the front door and I followed behind her. There's a long window beside the door, so we looked out and didn't see anyone. My mom opened the door and looked outside, but couldn't see anyone around. It was winter, and the front steps were covered in snow, I noticed something. "There are no footprints," I told my mom. A few days later another relative died.

Now, there have been many times when people died without warning, but those times it did were very coincidental. Is this spirits way of saying goodbye?