Those of you that have been reading my articles for the past few years, probably will remember that I am a widow. My husband of 46 years died September 21, 2009, from lung cancer. Yes, he was a smoker, or was for 30 years of his life. He gave it up for 34 years but it was still the cause of death. Whether it was caused by his smoking or living in Los Angeles for the first 39 years of his life, or working in a school where he helped install the asbestos in the ceiling so it could open on time we will never know. And the reasons for his death are not germane to this article.
If you have been reading my articles in the past year, you are aware that I have joined several (5) on-line dating sites and even though my “dates” have been less than satisfactory, it is giving me fodder for the articles I write for the OBRag and SDFP. (After the reporting of this article, I might have to be careful whom I date and where!)
I’m not looking for a replacement for Bob; rather I am looking to open another compartment next to my heart for another love. I must reiterate that I miss my husband Bob intensely. I have gone with members of my support groups to mediums, mystics, fortune tellers, guru’s, etc. to try and make some “contact” with Bob without any success. Other members of my group have had great success in talking to their loved ones, but not me. As a true cynic, it has been very difficult to accept the reaction I see happening to my friend’s ,and yet I cannot deny it because I am there and see and hear the results myself.
Today when I received a phone call from my friend “Jaimie” – the former colleague of mine that gave me a bidet for Christmas – my reaction was anything but serene. This is an account of our conversation.
Jaimie called me this afternoon. She is the former teacher of mine that drove our Golden Retriever “Pal” to Maine because she didn’t want him to have to fly in the hold of an airplane during the hot September month. Three thousand miles she drove, stopping at places like Niagara Falls, Boston, etc.
She called to tell me she had a dream – not a “Martin Luther King” dream, but a dream that had as much meaning to her – and subsequently to me – as MLK’s dream.
She had a dream about Bob last night. My Bob.
They were in his office and he was making music boxes out of conch shells. She said, “I knew that you made music boxes out of manzanita and driftwood. Did you make them out of shells too?”
That was the main focus of our business – O’Curry’s Musical Seashells. We made music boxes out of 18 different kinds of shells. The Manzanita and driftwood music boxes were only secondary to the original seashell. Blew us both away because there she was, with Bob and Pal, making seashells in Bob’s office. She didn’t even know that we made our living from the shells for over 10 years.
She said, in her dream, he told her to call me right then and there – 2:00am – and tell me he is always with me. When Buddy and I go for a walk, he and Pal are right by my side. When Buddy wants to turn into an alley it is because that is where the two of them turned in and Bob is there calling his name. She asked Bob if she could wait for a decent hour to call and he said it was ok but not to forget. He told her that not a moment goes by when he is not at my side! He said we are of one “heart” and always together.
I think I cried for half an hour after we hung up.
The interesting thing about this “conversation” is that he has visited another one of my best friends – Mona – but has never “visited” me. Jaimie asked him why that was and he said, “because I am always with her.” And one more commonality – Mona, Jaimie and I all worked together at the San Diego Job Corps and when we moved to Maine so I could be the “Deputy Director of Penobscot Job Corps”, Mona was a 100 miles away at the Grafton Job Corps just inside of Boston.
There is not a day that goes by that I do not enter Bob’s office. It is the only way to get to the garage and my car. And there is not a day that goes by that I do not tell him where I am going, with whom, and how long I will be, just as I did every day he was alive. And I also tell him how much I love him and miss him.
I think it is all well and good that he visits my female friends. (I wonder if he has ever visited any of his male friends?) And with the reading that I have done on the “reaching across the worlds” I have trouble refuting these occurrences – I want to so badly – because so many people give credence to these happenings.
I don’t think I am losing my mind – after all, the conversations aren’t with me but with my friends. I just wish there were an explanation I could accept without all the questioning that follows it. Questions like Jaimie watching Bob make a music box out of a seashell, for example, when she had no idea how he even did it in the first place is mind boggling. Particularly when she could explain just the way he did it. I sure wish Bob would send me some answers. If he does, I will share them. (He’ll probably send the answers to my female friends, and, hopefully, they will relay them on to me. That Irishman is still playing games!)
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
I have visits from the Otherside too. They come in dreams. My Mom has visited once and my Dad, several times. I intuitively think that my Mom thinks I’m doing okay and she doesn’t need to help me out. My Dad does helpful things, perhaps trying to be a better person in death, than he was in life. He seems to go to my sister when she is the most needy.
You’ve always been a strong woman. Maybe Bob stays in the background to allow you to fly with your own wings, and to rub your shoulders should you fall.
Thanks, Sandi. It is interesting to note that you, too, were part of the SDJC staff! So…if Bob comes to you, tell him I need to have him come visit me too!
I’ll tell him right now, as he’s with you and probably reading over your shoulder. Bob, visit Judi in a dream. She wants the connection and is strong enough to handle it. The tears were relief that you are okay on the Otherside.
Judi, when you go to sleep, open your mind to the experience. There is nothing to doubt anymore – not after the seashell music box dream.
Dreams are a curious thing, there is much about them we don’t and may never know. They should not be mistaken for the ability of the dead to contact the living, a paranormal claim which always seems to crumble in the face of scientific scrutiny. When it involves the innocent desires of the living to ascertain whether their passed away loved ones really are in a happy place, it’s certainly harmless enough to adopt this as a belief system.
However too often it becomes a minefield of charlatans and swindlers using old parlor tricks to separate people from their cash and possessions when they are at their most vulnerable time of their lives. People like John Edwards make a fortune telling people what they want to hear.
There is a rational, more worldly explanation for all of these things, easy to accept unless it’s not what one wants to hear.
Sweet Dreams!
John, I’m compelled to submit to you that the reason these claims “crumble in the face of scientific scrutiny” may simply be because of the way science is conducted. If there are other realms and paranormal realities, they’re likely not testable by our scientific methods. After all, these methods deal with the physical world. Please allow that science isn’t the “end all,” as it’s limited to our conscious minds and physical environment. There may well be other planes that science can’t see.
As for the charlatans, everyone is advised to watched their wallets and purses. However, these quacks aren’t any argument against the supernatural, only arguments against human decency.
Finally, there IS voluminous strong evidence, such as pertaining to near-death experiences and prayer in healing. But to quote from a wise fellow, such things might be “easy to accept unless it’s not what one wants to hear.”
You’re preaching to the choir as I am a believer in telepathy, graduated the Silva Mind Control course as a teenager in the 70’s, and had the courage to speak my beliefs in the JREF forums recently. (The James Randi Educational Foundation, if you know about this stuff you are familiar) The gauntlet I faced was brutal but quite educational- of course if you want to test your beliefs you jump into the fire of skeptics.
Beliefs are one thing but when there is a clear scientific explanation for a believed phenomenon you go with that first. In Judi’s case and that of her friend that is surely the mind’s ability to wander into dreams and release our emotions and anxieties, leaving us refreshed to start each day anew. They both share a bond of missing her husband, and think of him often, of course he is alive in her dreams and consciousness- but that’s because he is still alive, within them. As long as Judi lives, so does a part of Bob.
It can be said our spirits when we leave this earth dwell in the hearts of those we touched when we lived. The more good we did for more people, the more powerful our spirit is and the longer it lives.
I’m surprised you mention “near death” experiences, as they are the most easily explained of all- of course the chemicals released by the body as we near passing cause the mind to go on an intense trip, with a lifetime’s worth of thoughts and memories flooding before us.
Funny enough:
” the reason these claims “crumble in the face of scientific scrutiny” may simply be because of the way science is conducted. If there are other realms and paranormal realities, they’re likely not testable by our scientific methods.”
That’s word for word, is almost exactly what I was arguing in the JREF forums. However I find telepathy between two organic living beings a far more grounded belief than communications between the dead and living. Telepathy to me seems no more fantastic than homing pigeons or salmon spawning, maybe because I’ve experienced it directly in a way that even the skeptics at JREF could not successfully refute. However the woman I connected with and called out to at the time, was quite alive.
Living beings are a complex thing, the word synergistic seems appropriate- when alive we are more than the sum of all our parts, mere organs. Yet remove the function of just one vital organ, maybe two, and we cease to be a thinking, feeling being.
I can’t help but think of roadkill when the subject of reincarnation, spirits, eternal life arises. Ashes to ashes, Mr. Squirrel. That’s all you were, and all we are.
And I’d be thrilled to someday find I was wrong about it.
John, thank you for a well explained answer. It is certainly food for thought and answers some questions I have. Judi
OK, so you’ve established that you’re looking at the question with a fair and open mind. There’s much that you seem to exclude from inquiry though. Here’s a good situation I’d like to hear you refute: In hundreds if not thousands of cases, it’s reported that after surgery the patient claims to have watched the operation from a location out-of-body, hovering above the scene. What makes the claims hard to dismiss is that the patients report specifics of conversations and activities occurring in the room when completely anesthetized.
Why would I try to refute this, Zach? I had an “out of body” experience myself. I can’t explain what happened, but I can attest to having it. I have not had communication from Bob myself, and until I do, I can not accept that he is “just around the corner.”
OK, fair enough. But a fully open mind (and heart) says, “I don’t believe” rather than “I cannot accept.” I hope he visits me!
I hope so too, Z. As far as I know, he is only visiting the ladies! But he has never been to China, so maybe….
Well there’s nothing to refute really but I’ll offer the glaringly obvious explanation.
You seem to be claiming (or repeating claims) that they died and their spirit was levitating outside the body, assumed to be en route to places elsewhere. Then it decided it wasn’t time to die and flew back in and remembered it all later.
That’s interesting but who in their right mind wakes from a dream and insists it was real?
Isn’t the anesthetized state of patients in surgery, a form of sleep? Yet not so much that we don’t expect some of their senses to still be receiving input.
So they hear things and recall them. In the dream state they experienced them in, they confuse their perspective as being in the third person rather than the first.
You say that their claims of recollections of conversations and activities make them hard to dismiss but that flies directly in the face of all the horror accounts of people who were anesthetized physically but mentally remained fully aware of their surgeries when they took place.
The only thing remarkable is perhaps their perception of leaving their body and observing the situation from above, but it’s not clear this cannot be explained by the dream like state of the mind under induced sleep.
In the end, I can’t prove their spirits didn’t leave the body and you or they can’t prove they weren’t simply dreaming that it did. Occam’s razor says you choose the dream explanation, since we know all about dreams and we all have them.
You’re speaking from ignorance and hence what you say has no relevance. No, I’m not “… claiming that they died and their spirit was levitating outside the body…” I’m simply referring to what’s known as an out-of-body experience, not related to NDE. I suggest you actually learn about such things before you sit back and make uninformed pronouncements about them.
Your explanation that, while under anesthesia, the patient can still hear things going on is dismissed by the oft-documented cases where, for example, someone unknown to the patient enters the surgery and then leaves, and after the surgery the patient recounts the events, sees that person and says “that’s the person I saw.” This kind of thing is exhaustively documented. Your laziness in becoming informed doesn’t give you the ability to explain anything, only to be satisfied with your ignorance.
While googling “out-of-body surgery” to see if you could easily read up on it, I ran across this passage that might further take you to task: “…people who have reported being able to ‘see’ things that have been verified by medical and nursing staff during a deep coma or even during times when the brain had not been functioning.”
The use of Occam’s razor when speaking from ignorance can produce a different result than when being informed. With the wealth of evidence for out-of-body experiences, Occam’s razor would say that people can and do have such experiences. But you’d have to have an open mind – and an open book – to learn of such things.
I’m not sure why you’ve now resorted to repeated and unnecessary insults against my person, in the face of nothing of the sort returned by myself. This does generally indicate an insecurity of your own beliefs, hoping to establish that those who disagree with you are “ignorant”, or “less informed”.
To be sure, they are just beliefs, and not to be considered facts.
If you are so certain of them, you might put them to the test by professing them at the JREF forums. If not enjoy your sheltered existence.
Have a nice day.
John, don’t be so self-righteous! In your message, to which my strong language was a reply, you used expressions such as “glaringly obvious” and “who in their right mind…?” And here, “your sheltered existence.” To “ignorant” we can add “hypocritical.”
I said you’re ignorant not as a pejorative but as a fact, as you know nothing about which you speak, yet are seemingly disinterested in becoming informed while deigning to spout off on the topic! You’re what we would call a “real piece of work”! If you took it as a pejorative, I’d have to conclude that does indeed point to insecurities that you harbor.
Is it now that you’ve turned the topic to who’s more gentlemanly because you’ve run out of weak defenses on the original topic? Why so afraid of the topic? Why so afraid to learn? Are you afraid, in truth, to learn something which might force you to reassess your held beliefs? Are you so insecure, John? It can only be concluded that you’re poorly informed because you’re afraid to discover how limited you are. That’s the wrong direction, John. Don’t hide from knowledge, strive for it.
In the end it’s about whether you feel capable of being more knowledgeable. Don’t doubt yourself so.
I have no desire to turn the comments of Judi’s article into our personal pissing contest. I tried to part gracefully with:
“In the end, I can’t prove their spirits didn’t leave the body and you or they can’t prove they weren’t simply dreaming that it did.”
The humble concession I offered that neither of us could ever prove ourselves as factually right, but that wasn’t enough for you, and you continue this brow beating turning the entire discussion into an ad hominem rant about me.
Note not a single word in this reply is directed at your person.
If you’d like to continue this with the gloves off do it where it’s on topic:
http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=7
Registration is free. PM me with your thread, username batvette. Oh, and if you are as right as you insist you are, and can prove it, $1 million dollars is waiting for you there. Really. Be sure to bring those ” This kind of thing is exhaustively documented” references.
Unless you were just being abusive to someone more ignorant than yourself in a forum where you knew you’d never be challenged by anyone of authority on the issue.
Free your inner goldfish from the little pond that is this forum, and swim into the blue sea to cavort with the big fishes.
Yes, please do continue this somewhere else…
Thanks, John. Your input is making me less of a cynic every moment. And Sandi – not only did I read it silently, I read what your wrote orally, and then went out to his office and told him to check it again. Hugs to both of you, Judi
Such great news to hear from Bob! Just keep telling him, as I know you do, that you love him and want to see him, and do so audibly.
What I want to ask is, why do you want so badly not to believe in this? Why is it “losing one’s mind” to open to things beyond the mundane world? Perhaps being at odds with it keeps the door closed on having these experiences?
As Bob is by your side at all times, look at your surroundings with that in mind. When you hear a bird singing, sing back. Good luck!
Hi Z! I have trouble believing that Bob is just around the corner. If it wasn’t for my friends telling me that they had communication with Bob I would not have any communication from him. There is a mocking bird that was here for his service and seems to reappear each year. At least I assume it is the same Mocker. I like to think that it is a message from Bob, but if you were ask me point blank if I thought it was him I would have to say no. I want to believe it – I want to believe these are really messages from him, but the “proof” – what ever that is – has not convinced me yet. I’m still keeping an open mind. After all, the people that are “reporting” to me are some of my best friends and favorite people.
Well, what I hear is an open mind to believing your friends rather than an open mind toward other realities. We open ourselves to these experiences by inviting them, reaching out to them. It could be said that that’s merely investing one’s belief, and then believing because one has an investment, but the payoff is in the experiences we have in consequence. The topic can be argued all day, as it often is, though there’s nothing that can persuade someone but the experiences themselves. And for that we have to reach out, to show an open door to them.
You’ve gone to the psychics, so clearly you have some hope for it. But there’s a difference between being mentally open and spiritually open. In the end I think it’s nothing more than taking the step of “loving the universe.”