PROOF OF LIFE AFTER DEATH

Have I given you any proof of life after death yet? Over the years I’ve certainly proved it for myself (or had it proved for me, to put it more accurately!) but whether I’ve even come close to proving it for you is altogether another matter.

Let’s look together at some wise words from Bishop Brent, who – answering the question ‘What is Dying?’ says:

“A ship sails and I stand watching till she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says ‘she is gone’.  Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all; she is just as large as when I saw her.  The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says ‘she is gone’, there are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout, ‘There she comes!’  And that is dying.”

Aren’t his words beautiful in their simplicity?  They are for me – and maybe for you, too.  If you read the story a few days ago of my mother and the rubber plant, you might agree that she had only gone from my sight – not from my side.

Should you be teetering on the edge of agreeing, perhaps my next story will help.

While alive (and still in her body) Mother, when visiting us, would always go upstairs to kiss our two young daughters ‘goodnight’ around 8 pm – soon after they had gone up to bed.

Well, at 8.10 pm on the night after she died I thought I saw someone pass the glass-paned door of the room in which my husband and I were sitting.  This was odd as we were alone in the house with our children, who never normally came downstairs again after they’d been tucked into bed.

Thinking I must have imagined the ‘shadow’ outside the door, I nevertheless went to investigate in case one of the girls – perhaps feeling distressed over her grandma’s death – was indeed up and about.

But no, all was quiet and there was no sign of a child moving around.

The next night, at precisely the same time, the same thing happened – and now I was sure I’d seen someone pass by.  My husband glanced up and asked:  “What was that?”

“What was what?” I responded, not wanting to voice my growing suspicion just yet – probably from fear of ridicule, Jack being an agnostic and often scornful of my ‘tin-pot theories’.

On the third night, without discussion, we were both watching the door from eight onwards.  Sure enough, there was a passer-by, right on time!

More or less simultaneously we leaped to our feet and went to check the hallway, kitchen and dining room.  Finding no body there, Jack looked hard at me and asked: “It couldn’t have been … her … could it?”

“If by ‘her’ you mean Mother,” I answered, “I wouldn’t be too sure it couldn’t.  Unless you can think of a better explanation for what we both saw?”

He couldn’t and nor could I – and the ‘visits’ continued at the same time nightly until my mother’s funeral.  After that, they ceased – but I’d seen enough to know that she was watching over me and my family.

Whether my husband saw it (and the saga of the rubber plant leaves) as proof of life after death he never told me!