David was twenty-nine years old when his father died at home of cancer and the undertakers came.“You might not want to watch this,” he was told as they brought in the gurney. David isn’t sure where the words came from but he replied, “That is not my Dad, only his body.”
It was the beginning of a decades-long search for the answers to questions that ran deeper than, “Where do we go when we die?”
Raised in a Roman Catholic home, David struggled with the idea that his father’s body would someday be resurrected. He kept in his heart the priest’s explanation at the funeral that his Dad was a soul created by God and was, therefore, eternal. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder, “Why would my Dad, as eternal soul, want to come back into a body that was messed up?”
Today he’s convinced he’s found the answers to his questions.
David had other questions that priests couldn’t answer satisfactorily; like: “Is there a meaning to Life? What happens to the love given to others throughout the lifetime of an individual that has passed? And, more importantly, where did that love come from?”
Eventually David left the church and became what he calls “a seeker”. Today, he’s convinced he’s found the answers to his questions, and it all comes back to that idea of soul and his father being more than a body on a gurney. Each of us is soul with free will and conscious of ourselves, he says. Further, we are unique creations of Divine Spirit, which is an aspect of God. We exist because God loves us.
“I began to get a glimmer of understanding that soul manifests God’s love through its relationship with Divine Spirit.” In David’s lexicon, Divine Spirit is another term for Holy Spirit, or the creative energy that brought us into existence. “It is through the physical form that soul uniquely manifests that light of love here on this earth,” he says.
David built on this concept when asked to write his mother’s eulogy. He tried out the idea that, as souls, we come into this world with only love to give, we give that love throughout our lives and take that refined ability with us when our physical bodies die.
He tried out the idea that, as souls, we come into this world with only love to give…
“I posed a question: People remember how we each gave out love; that is why we are here to honor my Mom. So, is it our sole purpose here on earth to better learn to give out God’s love?”
And, he took the idea further: “Maybe it is to recognize God’s guiding hand in this world and help Him make it a better place by allowing His love to shine through each of us.”
David believes evidence of our creator is all around us in the form of light and sound—the fundamental energies that make up our existence.
“Throughout our lives, as each of us as soul refines our ability to give and receive love—and as the light passes through soul—the resulting vibrations resonate on this earth as well,” says David. “This is why we sometimes feel relaxed around certain individuals we meet. Their vibrations are compatible, or in alignment, with our own.”
David believes it was that compatibility which allowed him to see his mother in a dream as she gradually became comfortable with the next world while still in this one. In his dream, he saw that, prior to her death, she passed nightly into the next world, then returned to her body. This made her transition easier when her time came.
“All I could do was give love, melding my memories of Mary Lou within the flow of Spirit and letting them go.”
More recently since the passing of his sister, David has found himself applying all of what he’s learned—but the learning isn’t finished.
“Since I understood that we are all connected by Divine Spirit, I asked my spiritual guide to show me how the soul that was Mary Lou is doing.” he writes. At first, he was taken aback at the reply: “Don’t interfere.”
Yet, he trusted his inner guide and accepted the advice. “All I could do was give love, melding my memories of Mary Lou within the flow of Spirit and letting them go,” he says.
“I had been expecting to have a dream experience, or to see her inwardly somehow. Not being able to do that was very hard to deal with, but I felt a strong reassurance from my inner master.”
Still, he felt hurt, “until I became aware of Divine Spirit filling the void with God’s love. I know my memories of Mary Lou will always be within me as soul, and those memories of her will add their own uniqueness to the light that shines through me into the world.”
David’s written poetry for his mother, his late cousin, and for his sister.
One way David has found to fill the emotional gap left by the physical absence of his departed loved ones is to relive heartwarming memories, then put them down on paper, either in story or poetic form. He feels that most of us can do the same, by finding a quiet place to open our hearts to memories of our loved ones. Using this method, David’s written poetry for his mother, his late cousin, and for his sister. Here’s an example:
Mary Lou
After struggling throughout her life with many health woes,
Sensing that her time on this earth was coming to a close
My sister was led to comment on a recent day,
“Nobody knows when, but everyone dies someday.”
What did we say to the one who has passed from this Earth,
Stuck in the middle of us and a survivor from birth?
What memories of the Soul we knew as Mary Lou?
Remember the feeling of her love given to each of you.
Love, that invisible and unbreakable strand that binds us all,
Guiding us home while listening to God’s beckoning call.
Her body ravaged by cancer is now in its final resting place,
Look deep into your hearts and see her in God’s loving embrace.
The Meaning of Forever Project continues to accept stories of comforting experiences with loved ones who have passed on, and of near-death experiences that have helped to show the continuation of life beyond the physical body. You can email your story to us atthemeaningofforever@gmail.com and you can find more about our project on our Facebook page, and our Meaning of Forever Website.
When someone says, “I will love you forever,” what do they really mean? Will they literally “love you forever,” even though you both know the human being speaking those words will not–cannot–be with you forever?
At The Meaning of Forever Project, we have a theory: That when two souls truly love each other, their love does last forever, beyond the life of one physical body–beyond (if you accept the idea of reincarnation) the life of many physical bodies. The stories you can read on our blog back this up (click here).
Your story may be like one of them, or it may be about a different experience entirely. But if it has reassured you that your loved one (human or animal) continues, even after physical death, please send it to us at themeaningofforever@gmail.com.
If you don’t consider yourself a writer, don’t worry, just write from your heart. We’ll work with you on the finer points of language and construction to shape it into a post that conveys exactly what you mean. We won’t publish your story until you are completely happy with it and give your okay.
Please join the discussion. Drop us a line at themeaningofforever@gmail.com Your experience may bring hope and comfort to others, just as it has to you.
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