WHO WAS A.J.B?

I was stopped in my tracks during a walk near South Brent, Devon, the other day by the sight of this little cross and the poignant words nearby. Who was 'A.J.B - Royal Navy' and how was he 'taken by this tree' in 1990?

Did the tree fall and kill him, or did he die naturally at that spot? Whoever he was, someone still marks with fresh flowers the place where he died, keeping his memory alive.

ETERNITY

When I recently took this picture of St Michael's Mount from Marazion I felt a curious sense of eternity - almost as if I were standing outside time, in the place where there is no death, just life eternal!

Have you ever experienced a similar feeling?

IN A CHURCHYARD

Whenever I see snowdrops growing in a churchyard I think of my great-grandmother. I never knew her, but I know that she lived (and died) in a castle in Czechoslovakia. I also know that every year, at the first hint of spring, she went barefoot into a special part of her garden and gently lifted the snowy coverlet from the earliest snowdrops.

She went barefooted because that's simply what she did. How do I know all this? I learned it from my mother who, year after year, sent pressed snowdrops to her brother George for his February birthday. He lived in Nassau in the Bahamas by then and she sent them from her home in Kent as a poignant reminder of their shared childhood in Czechoslovakia - and of their grandmother.

Do you find, as I do, that when we keep memories alive it is almost as if the one we're thinking of has not died? I certainly found that when, inspired by my grandmother, I wrote The Foreigner!

SOOTHING SEA!

Do you find it as soothing as I do to gaze out to sea and imagine just how fathomless it is?

There's a whole universe concealed within its depths. I have a sense of awe when I try to consider the size of that universe. But it's too vast for my limited vision - just as the sky is too vast when I raise my eyes to the stars.

While surrounded by so much that's awesome in our lives, it isn't such a big jump, is it, to feel secure in the knowledge - or at least to believe - that there's further cause for awe awaiting us after we die?

YOUR THOUGHTS ON WHAT IS AFTER DEATH

Do you love these words from Fiddler On The Roof as much as I do?

‘Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, swiftly fly the years; one season following another, laden with happiness and tears … ‘

It’s so true, isn’t it, that time flies swiftly by? Maybe you find, like I do, that the years seem to fly by faster and faster as we age. I remember my parents saying, when I was a teenager, that they still felt exactly the same on the inside as they did in their teens. I confess to not quite believing them!

But I certainly believe them now that I am somewhat older than they were then. I now know that I’m ageless within. It’s solely on the outside that we show the passing of the years.

So, our bodies age while our souls retain their original state …

It surely follows, then, that upon death our soul simply discards the body that is no longer wanted or needed and returns whence it came.

Do you agree – or do you have other views that you’d like to share either here or via Face Book? I’d love to hear your thoughts on what is after death! 

P.S. I'm excited to tell you that THE FOREIGNER (a novel I truly believe my charismatic grandmother helped me write after she died) has just become available here.

NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

In a recent DAILY MAIL I was intrigued to read about Amanda Cable’s near-death experience when her heart stopped during surgery some years ago. It was also interesting to know that scientists have now come up with this theory to explain the phenomenon:

They tell us that these experiences happen when the quantum substances forming the soul ‘leave’ the nervous system and enter the universe. According to the feature ‘Dr Stuart Hameroff, of the University of Arizona, claims the essence of our souls are contained in microtubules within brain cells. These somehow dissipate into the universe if the heart stops – and return if the patient is resuscitated.’

Apparently over 660 readers of the Mail Online commented on Dr Hameroff’s research. Amanda says that as the pragmatic daughter of a surgeon she is not religious and had never believed in an afterlife – always before following her father’s belief that life ends with death. So she never imagined anything as extraordinary or inexplicable as a near-death experience happening to her. 

In agonising pain one day, she was rushed to hospital and found to be suffering an ectopic pregnancy. At the time her daughter, Ruby, and twin sons were enjoying the last day of their summer holiday at a play-camp. 

During a terrible night on morphine for the pain and haemorrhaging internally, Amanda was acutely conscious of tomorrow being Ruby’s first day at her new school. So, sick though she was, she sent her husband home begging him to be there for Ruby.

She next remembers a doctor slapping her face hard and saying “Wake up, stay with me!”  Then another doctor felt the pulse in her neck and said: “She’s tachycardic.” Shortly afterwards, her pulse stopped. 

Amanda thought of her three children, back home asleep, unaware that their Mummy was dying. She describes feeling her entire body being sucked up into a white light above and remembers a wonderful sense of calm, along with a tranquil and warm acceptance of death.

But someone was standing a few feet from her. Expecting to see her grandmother, who had died a few years earlier, she instead saw Ruby – wearing her new school uniform and with her hair tied neatly in bunches.

Amanda had never seen Ruby in her uniform, nor with her hair in bunches. “Come with me, Mummy,” implored the little girl, taking Amanda’s hand and leading her back down the white tunnel. “Hurry!”

There was a gate at the end of the tunnel. Ruby insisted: “Mummy, step through the gate NOW!” As Amanda stepped through, Ruby slammed it shut behind her.

Amanda says that the shock jolted her body – and that she’s sure it was at this moment that the defibrillator pads being used by the medics shocked her heart back into a rhythm.

Waking up in intensive care, she saw a masked doctor leaning over her saying: “You’ve been very sick and are not out of the woods yet. We need your next of kin at your bedside.”

Thinking of little Ruby and her first day at school, Amanda waved him away knowing she’d be OK. Hours later, Ray arrived and brought with him a photo of Ruby he had taken outside the school gates.

Smiling, with her new uniform and shiny shoes on, she had allowed her father to put her hair in bunches for the very first time. Ruby looked exactly as Amanda had seen her in the white tunnel!

Have you ever had a near-death experience? Do share it, if you have!

HEAVEN IS REAL

A few posts ago I wrote about Harvard neurosurgeon Eben Alexander's brilliant book PROOF OF HEAVEN detailing his experience during a seven-day coma. Now, under the heading HEAVEN IS REAL I've read this interesting (and ultimately amusing!) feature by the Daily Mail's Peter McKay:

'Top-selling non-fiction title in the U.S. is PROOF OF HEAVEN: A Doctor's Experience With The Afterlife. Dr Alexander nearly died during a seven-day coma and says it gave him a scientific reason to believe in the continuity of consciousness after death.

Dr Alexander also experienced the love of a God 'who cares for us even more deeply and fiercely than any parent ever loved their child.' I read somewhere that we typically think about our death 40 times a day, including what might happen afterwards. There have been many books on the subject, usually by religious types, but none previously - so far as I am aware - from a neurosurgeon.

Shortly after I came to Fleet Street many moons ago, I remember a London Evening Standard series - commissioned, I think, by its pious, fearful-about-the-hereafter then owner, Lord Beaverbrook - on the question of whether there was life after death.

I can't remember the answer. Just the question, splashed on huge posters attached to the paper's delivery vans: IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEATH? READ MONDAY'S EVENING STANDARD.'

P.S. If you'd like to read it, PROOF OF HEAVEN is available in My Spiritual Store - by clicking the live link!