Signs and Messages from the Afterlife
This is a topic that evokes so many different emotions. Most of us, at one point or another in our lives, will suffer the loss of someone we love. Believing in an afterlife, which many people do, makes physical death a little easier to bear. However, nothing can dull the raw, gut wrenching anguish we feel when we come to the inevitable realization that we will never see our loved ones again, at least not as they appeared here on earth, during this lifetime. We will never be able to hug them or feel their warm arms around us. The sound of their voice, the way they walked, their laughter and their smile will be lost to us forever, except of course, in our memories.
Mercifully, we understand that death is part of life and most of us find a way to discover a new normal. The grief we felt initially may soften as we eventually find that our memory of him or her brings more smiles than tears. Yet the grief is always with us and we all wish we could see them or talk to them one last time. Especially when we feel there were things left unsaid between us, or that feelings were not shared that we wish were. In both cases we feel the absence of closure and of the possibility of peace.
As I have mentioned before the veil between the physical and spirit worlds has thinned. Human collective consciousness has evolved, raising our vibration and frequency higher, thus making it easier to connect to the other side. Meditation has become a daily practice for many more people in all walks of life. From all I have experienced and seen, meditation is essential if we want to directly contact the spirit world. To reach our loved ones in heaven we need to raise our vibration even more and spirits must lower theirs so that we can both breach the veil and establish a new kind of relationship. Instead of a physical, physical one it becomes a physical, spiritual one.
So why do we often fail at making connections with the spirit world even though we desperately want and need them. One of the answers is grief and all the emotions associated with it such as sadness, sorrow, regret, and anger, to name a few. A grief-filled, emotionally charged energy system is normally unable to raise its vibration to the level necessary to succeed. Does that mean one should not grieve? Of course not. Grieving is healthy, necessary, and productive so we can heal and carry on with our lives. Yet, if we do not find a way to settle our emotions and come back to a peaceful, stable center, the gap between us and those we are grieving is a bridge too far. Meditation is the medicine that can help us, not only regain some peace and composure, but it can help us bridge the gap so that we can hear and sometimes feel the presence, support, and love from the other side.
Sometimes we try on our own with no success and decide we need help. The tragedy of our loss is just too much. So, we may seek out the help of a gifted psychic medium. There are quite a few talented and compassionate men and women who can accurately bring through the messages from the other side. However, there are many more who are not legitimate and prey on the vulnerable who are desperate for any little bit of hope that our deceased loved ones are still around and want to know if they are safe and happy. So, if you choose to seek out a medium, be careful. It is best to go to someone who is a referral from a person you trust. A good medium will want to know as little as possible about you so as not to contaminate the reading. So, give only your name. I have read many books by exceptionally gifted mediums like, John Edward, James Van Prague, Laura Lynn Jackson, and Bill Phillips to name a few. We need to do our homework and it would be a good idea to ask our spiritual guidance team to help us find the right person who can assist us.
Even if we have seen a good medium and have been successful in contacting those we lost, we still long for signs and messages on a regular basis to let us know our husband, wife, brother, sister, daughter, son, Mom, Dad, or friend is still close by and a part of our lives. Spirits want nothing more than to let us to know that they are not far away in some distant place but right here, just in a different realm. They are in a spiritual realm and we are in a physical one. They hear us when we talk to them and when we ask them for a sign that they are with us, they can’t wait to respond. The best way to know whether the sign you received is truly from them is to ask for something specific. Here’s a couple of signs I received in a few different ways.
Right after my dad passed away in 2003, I was in bed asleep with my husband when I felt someone poke me. I woke suddenly and looked at my husband. He was fast asleep.
So, in my mind I said, “Ok whose here and what do you want?”
With that I clearly heard the voice of my dad. He said, “It’s Dad. Mom has been crying all day. You need to tell her I am still here. She has also been having anxiety. Just let her know I am with her helping her get through it and will not leave her side until she feels better.”
I know that crying a lot is normal for most people who just lost a spouse, yet for Mom, it was highly unusual. She almost always held it together.
“Ok Dad,” I said. “But can you do me a favor? The next time you would like to chat can you gently nudge me? The poking was a bit much.”
With that he was gone. The next day I called Mom and told her Dad had visited me. I told her what he said. I asked her why she was crying and asked her if she was having anxiety. She told me that, for some reason, she was crying because she was upset about the tools in the garage, and she wanted my brothers, Mark, and Chris, to take the tools out of the garage. She was not sure why they were upsetting her. We talked about it, and together, we figured it out. For Mom, the tools represented a time when Dad was not sick and would do all the yard work and the building of stuff and fixing things while Mom took care of the house. Everything was normal then. Now everything was as far from normal as it could get. Somehow understanding her tears helped Mom feel calmer. She also said it was true that she was feeling anxious and was comforted in knowing Dad was still around her hugging her with his energy.
Here is a little background information for the following section. Years before Mom passed, she wrote her memoir at 80 years old. The title was rather unusual. When Mom and Dad got married in 1950, hyphenating a woman’s maiden name and married name was becoming popular. Mom’s name was Joan Young and Dad’s was James Burrough. When Mom told Dad, she wanted to change her name to Joan Young Burrough, Dad responded quite sharply, “You can’t do that! It sounds like an “Immature jackass!”
So, Mom never did use both names when she married Dad. However, she found a way to do so in the title of her memoir, Tales from an Immature Jackass. Some people find the title a bit shocking, but her children and grandchildren think it is simply perfect.
After Mom passed in September 2019, I was seriously grieving for months. I felt her close but never got any substantial signs from her except a few amazing dream visitations. With the turn of a new year, they started. In late January, my 5 sisters, 2 sisters-in-law, and I went to Charleston, South Carolina to celebrate Mom’s life. One drizzly day we decided to tour a plantation. While there, we visited the gift shop. Inside, hanging on a small ornament holder, were exactly 8 peacock ornaments, just enough for each of us. Mom was obsessed with peacocks. They were everywhere on her porch. So, of course, we each bought one. Then, when we walked out of the shop, standing off to the side of us, about 10 feet away, was a magnificent live peacock with its majestic, colorful feathers spread out wide. We all turned to look at it and as we did, it turned and looked directly at us. We were all agape and whispered softly, “Mom’s here.”
After that, I started hearing her voice and started getting small signs like feathers, peacocks, and believe it or not, immature Jackasses, better known as young donkeys. One day I was driving to work and was listening to an audio book called Signs, by Laura Lynn Jackson which was all about getting signs from heaven. I started thinking about Mom and asked her to give me a sign right then. I thought it would be hard for her to do it that quickly, but I was putting her to the test. Of course, I wanted either a peacock or a donkey. I pulled into the turning lane to make a left. There was a small SUV right in from of me. I looked at the back of the car and gasped.
“Oh my God,” I shrieked. Am I reading that right?”
We sat at the red light for what seemed like an endless moment frozen in time. Yes! I was reading it right! On the back of the car were two bumper stickers that read, “I Love my immature donkey.”
I wanted to jump out of the car and knock on the window and find out why? What did it mean? Why was that on their car, of all things. Unfortunately, the light changed and we both turned. The minivan went straight, and I turned into the parking lot at work. I immediately sent a group text to my siblings. I was absolutely sure it was Mom answering my request for a sign. It was such an exciting moment for all of us. Of course, my siblings wanted to know if I took a picture of it, which never crossed my mind. Now I sure wish I did! Sceptics may say it was just a coincidence. I do not believe there are any coincidences. Everything has meaning and purpose. Every experience we have and each person who crosses our path does so for a reason.
As I was finishing this blog, my husband and I were on our way to Vermont to visit Steve’s son (my step son) Troy, his wife, and our grandchildren. I was thinking about Mom and asked her to give me a sign I could use in the blog. I told her I knew it was a tall order since we were on a busy New York highway, but I knew if anyone could materialize a donkey or a peacock, she could. After just a short while, I saw a colorful van a little ahead of us, in the lane to the right. I asked Steve to get closer to make sure what I saw on the back of it was real.
“Steve, look at that van!!” I said excitedly.
He laughed in amazement. The entire back of the van was completely covered with a huge blue and green peacock. I mean literally every inch. Mom always did things in a big way. So, I was not surprised that she came through in such a life-sized fashion.
A few days later I was at work and my second patient, Janet came in and said she had something for me. She said a woman at work came up to her and told her that she had a homemade mask and thought Janet might like it. My patient looked at it and immediately thought of me and wanted me to have it. Yup! It was a mask with a beautiful peacock covering the entire mask. Mom was on a roll.
In closing, I would like to say that our loved ones always want to let us know that they are still with us. Spirits find it frustrating when they send the same sign multiple times trying to let us know they are here, but our wandering minds remain stuck in the past or the future and we miss the signs all around us in the present moment. The bottom line is, after we ask for a sign, then stay conscious and aware of what is happening around us, so we don’t miss it. Be specific in what we want and make the sign something that would be undeniable. For example, instead of asking for a rose ask for a white rose. I think it works best to make the sign you want precise, for example, something that they may have liked when they were here with us like … donkeys or peacocks.
So, all together, let us give a shout out to the spirit world letting our loved ones know we are ready to receive their signs from heaven. Assure them, as they assure us, that we will never stop talking to them and connecting with them until the time comes when we will be together again in spirit.
Those of you who have some personal experiences to share, I would love to hear about them. I think hearing other people’s stories of spirit connections gives us confidence that we can and will make them as well.