When We Meet Again and Again

When We Meet Again and Again

#2… This is my second article on life, death, grief, and signs in a series whose quantity of writings is not quite clear at the moment.  I use the numbering sequence so I may keep track of the progression on the items I wish to share on these topics.

I am not a religious man:  I do not subscribe to any one form of “getting there” to the great beyond.  And, I do not exclude a one of the many ways of getting there.  I believe as I do because of my search for real possibilities and the true journeys shared with me. 

I have come to believe that to move forward with grief, to deal with the clutches of the loss of a loved one, we have to rely on a faith of the next realm.  If we believe “this is it… this is all there is… of this life on Earth,” then our living soul will perish.  And after what I have been told and what I have experienced, there is not one reason why any of us should be without verified faith and the confidence it provides.

I don’t believe that one should just “have faith.”  Who can just believe and not have a viable premise for that belief?  I envy those devout, knowing, confident believers of the religious arenas.  I wish and have prayed to be like you.  My wishes and prayers have gone unanswered (although I do have one incredible dilemma I will share with you in another entry about my archaeological sign and message):  I cannot just have faith.  I am an archaeologist at the core of my soul… and I need proof.  When challenged about my inability to just accept a religious path, I have found very few people ready to leave this world today… wanting to die… today.  Most of us have plans for tomorrow.  Some of us have been bold enough to plan for years ahead…. We are crazy humans!       

The rules of Catholicism and experiencing the horrific struggle of a grandmother with throat cancer in the 60s drove me to question the integrity of God and the ways in which “man” delivered the instructions.  If I were a god, I would not allow harm to come to my subjects and I would not seek daily glorification from my subjects… that was just not godlike to me even as a child of eight years of age.  If I were a god and ruled to the contrary, I should be considered a dictator.  (Even writing such a passage makes me feel as if I should be stricken dead at this moment, but due to what I have come to believe, I am confident God understands and not only accepts my position but participates in my growth as one of His/Her loved souls… just as I continue to love my daughters and participate in their growth regardless of their differences of opinion with mine.)

So, I struck out to find the answers so needed by this amateur archaeologist… anticipating to be stricken down because of my arrogance and departure from the flock.  But please understand, as I assured Him/Her, I did not doubt their existence; I doubted that my flock of humankind had The Word and dosage correct.

My wife’s mother, Jacquelyn Rose Miller-Singer, and her smart daughter… my wife, Susan, introduced me to a possibility that appeared to provide an inside view of God’s world that was not influenced by the rewritten version of “men.”  Jackie told us of her near death experience; Susan shared recorded tales of NDEs that she had read.  Our neighbor, Juanita Perry, told me of her NDE.  Those tales contained worlds and happenings as I would expect from my god!  They were of worlds and happenings as I would want to give “my people,” if I were a god.  I was hooked; I am a believer of The Word brought back by those who have experienced NDEs.

In my next message… #3, I will share the more common NDE experience levels in case some of you have not heard of or read about the soulful phases of NDEs.  But at the moment, I cannot help but hear and want to address the disclaimers from the medical field that NDEs are caused by increased oxygen levels to the brain as a survival mode of our bodies as we detect that we are dying.  If my following logic does not soften such a sterile perspective, then let me just say that if our son, Patrick, has as his last moment of “cognition” that of the oxygen flooding to the brain so that he could better welcome his new state of death, then I applaud this god who came up with such a plan, even if it appears to have no purpose but a biological one to our professionals.

Jackie, Juanita, and countless other NDE survivors reported being in the presence of deceased friends, relatives, and advanced souls.  Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that if I realized I was dying, I would be thinking about and having visions of the living, not the dead.  I wouldn’t want to leave my wife, my daughters… my grandkids!  This living human (although maybe dying in this situation) would be grappling with not leaving the living… or so I would think.  So, while I may have the deceased (Patrick, my grandparents, Susan’s parents… my favorite pets) mixed in within my dying visions, why wouldn’t the living be present in that vision too?  I have never had anyone report anything but the deceased in their NDE journeys.  That really seems odd to me…  just the deceased in those oxygen rich visions of the last moments?  I have my doubts with the scientific explanation.  To be restricted to being in the presence of just deceased souls tells this “give-me-the-facts” archaeologist that my soul has entered another realm where the living do not exist.  If they were there, no one has seen them yet in their NDEs.  Interesting….

Again, even if the scientists are correct… thank you, God, for fooling us into making it appear that our deaths are in the presence of those we loved and having them greet us...

… because, God, within the NDE sequence, our survivors report feeling extreme warmth and love… so much warmth and love that they do not want to leave the presence of their deceased loved ones to return to their cold, pain-riddled bodies left among the living…  They all tell us this!  Juanita went “on and on” with me about how she did not want to leave the world she was in when she died on the operating table.  It was a place she looked forward to returning to… and dreaded leaving!  But, she was told by the procession that met her that she had to return… that she had more to do back there, back here.  So, being the awesome soul she was, she returned for that unknown assignment.  Susan and I believe it was to see her son, Greg, through to his last day as the cancer took him.  She died within months of his passing… and she was ready.  She knew where she was headed… and she had no hesitation about returning.  She looked forward to returning and being with Greg and those who had greeted her the first time.

Patrick, I know… I KNOW where you are is the most incredible of places, that your passing has you with Juanita, Joe, Greg, Ben and Jackie Singer… Maggie, because Jackie and Juanita personally told me all about it.  I know they are there with you, as they met you that cold night along I-70 to welcome you into their care.

Until it is my time, Son, keep sending me those signs…  I need them.  And for the rest of you, I’ll return next week with an exploration of the NDE sequence… and maybe a few signs..

Gratefully,

 Jamie