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.   

SOULMATES

Have you ever experienced a profound sense of recognition when your eyes met with those of someone you were seeing for the first time?

That is, you thought it was the first time until you realized that it couldn't be - because you already knew this person intimately. 

Then the realization grew ... and grew ... until you knew that the love between you had its source before this lifetime and that two souls were simply reuniting.

LOVE WITHOUT END

Love doesn't end with death. True love is never-ending. Our bodies are of this world and die, but our souls, holding the love that lives in us, are everlasting. How blessed we are, to love and be loved - and to reunite when the time is right! 

GRIEF - A STORMY SEA

Hard to believe, when we first 'lose' a loved one, that they are not lost and that at the right time we'll be reunited. But the grief we feel protects us in a sense, until we can remember without the gnawing pain and can begin to live again.

While living we can be comforted by the knowledge that death will reunite us and that meanwhile there's pleasure to be had - not just in new scenes and old memories but also in our certainty that love doesn't die. It exists for all time. 

WAS IT A DREAM?

 I had a similar experience to this, back when I was 25 soon after my beloved grandmother died.

I vividly remember her asking me reproachfully "Why didn't you recognise me when I came to you this afternoon, while your friend was talking to a clairvoyant?" 

As documented elsewhere on my Facebook page some time ago, I'd accompanied my friend Yvonne when she visited a clairvoyant to clarify some issues she had. After the visit, Yvonne said the visit had helped her but there was one thing that didn't make sense.

She had no recollection of a white-haired woman such as had been described to her - whereas I, listening in as invited, had related 100% to the description but felt it couldn't be meant for me.

It was that same night, as if in a dream, that my 'Nama' came to me with her reproach. She left me in no doubt about her visit - which has reassured me during all the years since.

Have you ever experienced anything like this? 

LOVE THAT TRANSCENDS DEATH

 These are just two of the Amazon reviews given to The Portrait. They might help you decide that this is your kind of story - or not, as the case may be! You can find other - much longer - reviews on Amazon's website.

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.

GONE BEYOND, BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN

The fact that most of us can't see our loved ones after they die gives rise to the belief that they have gone beyond reach. But this is an illusion brought on by the limits of our earthly vision.

Just imagine if our sight were unlimited! Then we'd have proof, instead of just promises that life doesn't end with death.

Do we really need proof, though, to know deep within our souls that death - far from being an end - is in a very real sense a new awakening?

As for the love we felt and still feel - that hasn't died. It lives on, preparing for the day we're reunited. 

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."

 

LOVE BEYOND DEATH

Love beyond death?  Yes, definitely!  Love cannot die, for we are so much more than the product of coupling between a man and a woman.  Our bodies result from that union, but our souls do not.  They are of divine origin – reaching us from our Source when we are born and returning there when we die.  Or so it seems to me (and countless others).

Once we have fulfilled our earthly purpose our physical remains enter our grave, while our spiritual essence is freed from the body that had restricted it. How thrilling that sense of freedom must be, especially if latterly our body was exhausted and maybe diseased!  Imagine no longer being weighed down by it and how we must rejoice in our weightlessness!

Imagine too the joy of discovering our immortality.  We’ve ‘died’, but are not dead.  Life continues, except on a different level, now that we’ve learned the lessons we were on earth to learn.

There will be new lessons (and new births), but not yet.  For now we can rest, remembering all that we’ve learned and holding fast to the love that we gave and earned.  We don’t forget our loved ones, any more than they forget us.  Love is eternal as well as being an integral part of our souls as we grow both in wisdom and in compassion on our path to perfection.  It grows with us and has infinite capacity.  And one of the wonders of so-called ‘death’ is that we can continue to watch over our loved ones while we wait for them eventually to join us in heaven.

Love beyond death?  You bet!