• G.C. writes: “My father was in the palliative unit, dying. The room was lit by the light on the wall, over the head of his bed, shining toward the ceiling. I was standing close to his head when there appeared a spiral of ‘smoke’ from his head. I looked to the others in the room for confirmation that this was happening, but no one else was registering the surprise and excitement that I was feeling. The ribbon of ‘smoke’ was pure white and dense and absolutely exquisite. It was 1.5 to 2 inches wide, and moved slowly in a spiral, disappearing about 15 inches from where it began. After about half a minute it wasn’t there anymore. Dad died about 45 minutes later. My niece and I are both trained in Radiance Technique, a therapy similar to Reike, which helps people reveal and neutralize difficult energy life patterns. As a point of interest, about a half hour before the smoke occurred, we were gently touching Dad’s abdomen while doing Radiance.”
• H.B. describes a “vision” she had the night after her mother died: “My mother stood before me, smiling, and told me not to grieve for her, that we would eventually be together again. Even before I woke from it, I was surprised that I had had no difficulty recognizing her. She appeared to be about seventeen or eighteen. She was wearing a long garment of a beautiful mulberry shade, and she had a radiance as if, as I thought later, she had seen God. My mother was forty-one when I was born so I never knew her except as a middle-aged and then elderly woman. Her favourite colour was a shade of mulberry, but I had never seen her wear it. Then, as now, it is a most difficult dye to achieve. I told my husband about the experience and, while he was very kind and sympathetic, he thought I had become unstrung by grief and was raving. Until now, I have never told anyone else about it but remain convinced that it was what it seemed to be: a genuine message from my mother who had gone on to a higher life. The memory has not faded but remains as vivid as when I experienced it some thirty years ago.”
• D.W. lived in Owen Sound, Ontario, and his mother was quite ill in hospital in London, over 150 kilometres away. He was driving down to visit her and stopped overnight at his aunt’s home in Goderich. In the middle of the night he was awakened to see his mother as a younger woman standing at the foot of the bed. She told him she had come to say good-bye. In the morning, when he got up, his aunt informed him that his mother had died during the night. He knew that “it hadn’t been a dream; it had really been her.”
• R.M. writes: “My son passed away in August of 2001. In November of that year my husband and I many times both heard the phone ring once and then stop. When we would answer there was no one there. My husband heard the door-bell ring several times and again there was no one there. He even walked all around the outside of the house to make sure it wasn’t just neighbour children playing a prank. Then around 3 A.M. one morning I again heard the phone ring and then stop. I lay pondering the realization that perhaps it really wasn’t the phone when I clearly heard my son’s voice say “Hi!” We heard this ring many times after and it was reassuring to know that he could be with us wherever we went. One morning I was awakened by the ring and as my bed faces out into the hallway I was surprised and intrigued to see what I can describe best as a small ‘dance of fire’ taking place in front of the door to my son’s bedroom. This only lasted about one minute and then disappeared. The surest and most amazing sign of his presence happened last summer on the anniversary of his death. I went to his room and talked to him for a short time and then was looking in his closet for some photographs which I had stored there. I couldn’t see well and was just thinking to myself I should turn the light on, when suddenly the light on his desk turned on. It was amazing how that changed my mood from feeling very sad to feeling much better. I had to run downstairs to find my husband and tell him. We have also had some strange coincidences happen—one being that his budgie bird died last year on his birthday.”
• A baptist minister, T.B., was away at college in Evanston, Illinois, when he got word that his father had died. He came back to Canada for the funeral feeling very badly that he had been away and had not seen his father in over a year. “We had always been close in a quiet, empathetic way.” Life went on, and that summer he and his wife were vacationing at a small lake in Wisconsin. T.B. got up at six o’clock one morning and wandered down to the deserted shore. “As I stood gazing across the water, I suddenly became aware of my father’s presence. I simply cannot describe the sensation. There was nothing visual or auditory—just a ‘spirit’ awareness that he was there. I never moved a muscle. It lasted for maybe five minutes and left as quickly as it came. I believe God allowed Dad’s spirit to return to communicate with me since I had been away at the time of his death . . . I have never had a similar experience nor sought one. Whatever the explanation, I know beyond all doubt that my father was there with me.”
• J.W. writes: “I live in an apartment on a very busy and noisy street, but I always slept soundly through the noise. Recently, I was awakened by an unusual swishing sound. For a while I lay listening, trying to identify it and it seemed to me that it was in my bedroom. Just as I realized this, the sound stopped and I felt a nudge and a warm, solid body slid in behind me. I felt the weight of his arm over my shoulder. I knew of a certainty it was my first husband who had died thirty-one years ago! For a moment he put his cheek against mine (and I felt the after-shave stubble) then he rested his head beside mine. I cannot describe the happiness I felt for around twelve to fifteen seconds before I felt his arm grow lighter as did his body and I was alone. I looked at the clock, it was 11:50 P.M., and I went back to sleep. In the morning I asked myself many questions: How is it that I was so accepting and without fear or surprise? It never happened again.”
• W.K. had what could be described as an “auditory” experience some three and a half years after the death of her mother. She describes herself as having been “fairly neutral” on the subject of life after death prior to this. The death of her mother came after she had been living with W.K. for four years, and the two were very close. At the time of the event, W.K. had been having a series of medical tests and had an appointment to go into hospital for more. Her mother was the furthest thing from her thoughts as she wrestled with her growing reluctance to go to the hospital. “Much to my surprise, since I wasn’t even thinking of her, my mother’s voice came into my head and all she said was: ‘Go on, you can do it!’ It was definitely her voice and not a thought—she had an English accent which I could never imitate. I want to stress I know the difference between a voice and a thought! At the same time it wasn’t coming in my ear but inside my head.” She concludes her letter, “I am not a religious person and would love to hear an explanation as I’m sure nobody believes me.”
• B.R. writes: “My wife’s father suffered from cancer and died at our home several years ago. That evening, a light bulb in the kitchen, which had been changed recently, started to mysteriously ‘blink.’ My wife is convinced that this was her father’s way of communicating to us that all was well. It continued for some time. Another incident happened a few years ago when my mother passed away in her 97th year. We were living in Muskoka at the time, and had visited my mother in Toronto the day before she died. After the telephone call from her retirement residence, we were discussing funeral plans when all of a sudden a heavy fridge magnet detached itself and flew across the room. For years she was always critical of my enjoyment of beer, so my wife and I were especially amused, thinking it was more than significant that the hurling fridge magnet was a beer stein!”
• F.N. writes: “We lived in Kent, not far from London, during World War II. Many enemy bombers flew over Kent on their way to London, and indeed Kent was hit very hard. My sister was a nurse in St. Mary’s in Paddington, London. There was a bombing at the hospital and my sister received serious injuries while trying to help move patients to a safer wing. She was very ill and in a great deal of pain for several months, eventually going into a coma and dying just before Christmas in 1943. During the war it was common to put a blanket over the windows at night to ensure that no light could be seen on the outside, to ensure safety from