BORN IN 1940 - Written with Assistance from Beyond?

Back in November, 2024, a friend with whom I'd just shared some extraordinary family anecdotes said to me: "You really should write these down so that they are recorded for posterity!"

Her words set me thinking and her advice suddenly seemed to suggest that immediate action was needed. So that same afternoon I went to my computer and these words came straight through  me: 'I was born in October, 1940, just as a bomb dropped yards from the maternity ward of Farnborough Hospital. That's Farnborough, Kent, not Hampshire and thankfully the bomb failed to detonate. So I lived to tell my story, such as it is.'

Well, from then on there was no stopping the flow of words. Not just words, but memories long forgotten that returned so vividly it was as if I were re-living the years from birth to the age of twenty-one.

Names and faces from the past filled my days and many of my nights. I couldn't have escaped their impact even had I wanted to do that. I had an absolute certainty that relatives and friends, long dead, had assembled to assist me in my quest.

Perhaps the oddest thing is that I couldn't do it again. Once the last full stop had been put in its place those who had peopled my pages withdrew, leaving me with a manuscript that would bear my name but which I couldn't honestly claim to have written.

That I'd been the scribe rather than the source was, and still is, a very comforting thought. I know now, more even than I knew it before, that death doesn't separate our loved ones from us. They are not lost. Far from it. The love we once shared, we still share and will for eternity. It's our earth-bound sight that limits our vision along with our blinkered perception of 'heaven'. 

We simply aren't meant to know all there is to know until we're equipped to understand things currently beyond our understanding.   

SOMEWHERE A NEW MORNING DAWNS

 

Yesterday I came across these wonderful words from Patience Strong:

'Light is fading, darkness falls, but somewhere it is dawn. Here it is the eventide, but somewhere it is morn ... As upon the world's red rim the sun sinks out of sight - in some far and distant land, it rises, warm and bright.

When the touch of death has stopped the heart and closed the eyes - our loved ones seem to fall asleep, but somewhere they arise ... We who watch stand in the darkness, blind with grief and pain - But somewhere it is morning and they wake to life again.'

I hope that if you have 'lost' a loved one you can find some comfort in Patience's words, realizing that 'lost' is the wrong term. Far from being lost, they've simply gone - temporarily - beyond our limited sight.

DEATH IS JUST A DOOR

 It isn't far from life to Paradise - it's truly no distance at all!

On passing through the forever door, there's a sense of oneness like never before; there's wonder, too, at the simplicity of it all.

If this is death, then let's celebrate and tell of the release felt when the soul soars from a body, now obsolete.

WITH DEATH BEGINS LIFE

 It's exciting, isn't it, to think that with death life begins again - except in a different dimension? Our human minds are not meant to fully comprehend this concept. With limited vision here on earth, we must simply trust that our sight expands once we enter heaven.

Imagine, then, how free we'll feel after discarding our body and stepping over the threshold of eternity! There we're reunited with loved ones who preceded us and we're wrapped in the embrace of eternal love.

END OF THE WORLD?

 Our perception of things is interesting, isn't it? These wise words from Richard Bach caused me to pause and think. Maybe they'll do the same for you.

The caterpillar has to experience a kind of death before experiencing a new life as a butterfly. Can you relate to that in respect of dying and finding a new kind of life on the 'other side'?

DEATH IS NOT THE END

 You've gone beyond my sight but, oh, the memories you've left behind!

We always said death wouldn't be the end - and it isn't!

I know that now because last night you stood at my bedside and said: "Nothing has changed, my love, but for the veil now between us. That's all it is and it's intangible. So simply think it gone and you'll see that I am here - just as I ever was."

 

BEYOND DEATH

I've always loved the poems of Ella Wheeler Wilcox that I first learned at my grandmother's knee - long before I questioned what lay beyond death.  Grandma was an actress who could invariably be relied upon to dramatize life as well as theatrical lines and poetry.  Listening to her used to enthrall me.

Here's a poem entitled BEYOND:

'It seemeth such a little way to me
Across to that strange country - the Beyond;
And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be 
The home of those of whom I am so fond.
They make it seem familiar and most dear,
As journeying friends bring distant regions near.

So close it lies, that when my sight is clear
I think I almost see the gleaming strand.
I know I feel those who have gone from here
Come near enough sometimes, to touch my hand.
I often think, but for our veiled eyes,
We should find heaven right round about us lies.

I cannot make it seem a day to dread,
When from this dear earth I shall journey out
To that still dearer country of the dead,
And join the lost ones, so long dreamed about.
I love this world, yet shall I love to go
And meet the friends who wait for me, I know.

I never stand above a bier and see
The seal of death set on some well-loved face
But that I think, "One more to welcome me,
When I shall cross the intervening space 
Between this land and that one 'over there';
One more to make the strange Beyond seem fair."'

I hope that Ella, now long dead herself, is happy for me to quote her here.  I believe she is.  Why wouldn't she be, to see her words living on from beyond death?  As for Grandma - I'll soon be sharing some stories about her, not least one about a visit she paid me unexpectedly years after she died!