If you ask Renee Moor what inspired her to found Journey Home, a non-profit community service dedicated to “empowered living and dying,” she can list many ways her own life has prepared her. It began with proving herself after being told, as a late-developing child, that the best she could hope for was assisted living; it continued through two decades as a behavioural therapist helping parents cope with autism diagnoses for their children; it carried on through her practices as a Buddhism psychotherapist, a student and instructor of yoga, and as a master in the art of reiki healing. But even these, compounded by the deaths of her father and husband within 18 months of each other, don’t complete the story.
The experiences that locked into place the final piece of Renee’s life puzzle came in her dreams.
“My dad just kept coming and coming in my dreams and guiding me,” says Renee of the years after her father’s death. Seated in the space she has created for people to meet, share, and learn from each other as they go through their individual experiences with death and dying, Renee is relaxed and confident. “In all my twists and turns of life,” she says, “I found my way.”
Already a reiki master and busy yoga instructor at the onset of the Covid pandemic, Renee found herself in the same situation as many: cut off from her livelihood and society in general. It was in those dark days alone at home, with the time to fully process the loss of those she loved, that she began to thoroughly embrace the practices of meditation embedded in both yoga and Buddhism. Then came a series of visions and vivid dreams that inspired her to train as a death doula.
Much like a childbirth doula, a death doula supports a dying person and their family through the dying process, first by helping them gain information and insight, by connecting them with available medical and community supports, and finally by helping make the last moments a positive experience.
“I saw a huge gap in services, because doctors and nurses focus on treatment; funeral homes and crematoriums focus on the remains—but, there’s no one there for the death.”
In contrast, says Renee, her father showed his family that death can be beautiful. “He made his dying about us and we made his dying about him.
“He knew he had six months to live after his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and after his fear, anger and sadness, he chose acceptance and love. Each day he showed up to life as fully as he could, both on his good days and his bad days.
“We as a family have beautiful, funny and grateful memories of the season my dad died. After his dying, I wanted everyone to experience a death like this, but life had other plans for me then.”
As time went on, though, says Renee, “He kept coming to me in dreams and meditations. He would offer the most profound philosophies, and now I see he was preparing me. As I opened my heart and mind, his message became clearer to me.”
Renee looks back on three dreams as pivotal to placing her where she is now. One came not long after her father’s death, where she saw him striding down a rocky slope with arms wide open. “Don’t worry about me,” he called to her. “I’m in a better place.”
Some time later, as Renee’s life went through more changes and she began to focus her energy on services for those touched by death and dying, her father appeared in another dream. He asked her to meet him on Dundas Street, which is a stretch of highway that connects the city of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada, with the city of Toronto, about 65-kilometres away. For Renee at the time, this location was symbolic of her life adventures up until then.
“… [N]ow I see he was preparing me. As I opened my heart and mind, his message became clearer …”
As she walked down the street to meet him, a large building seemingly made of white lights guided her toward him. Again, her father held his arms open to her and she ran to him. As they met, Renee’s car keys caught in the back of the sweater he was wearing. As her older sister helped disentangle them, Renee’s father said, “Don’t worry. We all get a little lost sometimes, but now you’ve found your way.”
Soon after that dream, Renee became aware of a location for rent in a small town next door to Hamilton. Surveying the bright, high-ceilinged space inside a large heritage building in the centre of the community, Renee knew this was the perfect location for Journey Home. As she stepped back outside and looked toward the main street, she understood the true force of that dream: Journey Home would be located in a town called Dundas.
Not only that. As a student and instructor of yoga, Renee knew that the entanglement at the back of her father’s neck had significance. It sits opposite the throat chakra which represents how we express ourselves, how we listen and how we communicate. For Renee, Journey Home is more than a suite of services for an underserved segment of the population; Journey Home is her means of expression.
All the same, championing an organization whose services centre around death and dying is a daunting prospect. While people who work in hospice care and a handful of medical professionals understand the value she brings to her community, the majority of health practitioners have not been so receptive. Despite having established a board of directors, together with a group of supporters and co-workers to help ensure Journey Home’s success, there are days when she feels very alone.
But, says Renee, her father has an answer for that, too. In another dream, she came upon him carrying large sacks of flour up a stairway. “I’ll do the heavy lifting,” he told her. “You just keep baking the bread.”
Editor’s Note: Until recently, the retail space next door to Journey Home was occupied by a thriving business called The Village Bakery.
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.
It’s been a long time since you’ve seen a new post on The Meaning of Forever Blog, but I had to step back because my husband was dying and he needed me. Now that I’ve retaken level ground, the intention is to begin posting regularly once again. We’ll start with my story.
The apparent irony was not lost on me; that the person whose blogs touted an antidote to the pain of loss would be told a year-and-a-half into her project that she was heading for a heart-breaking loss of her own. But God wasn’t playing a cruel joke; It was handing me a gift. Stories of love from people around the world—with widely-varied lives and beliefs—let me focus on the positive, and to find reassurance in the experiences of others. When I needed it most, these stories confirmed what my project partner Joan and I weren’t alone in our assertion: Love truly does last forever.
Scott’s cancer diagnosis came in July of 2017, and only a few months later we learned it had already spread to his lymphatic system. There would be no cure, only treatments to hold off the inevitable. We knew three things that helped us accept this:
The loving force that created us works always for our spiritual good, no matter how that looks to us;
Before we entered these bodies at birth, we agreed to undergo experiences in this life that would take us toward that good, whether or not we remembered; and,
That everything in the universes of Divine Spirit is in its rightful place.
From diagnosis onward, we knew this was not the end for Scott; rather, it was the beginning of a new spiritual passage. We had no idea where the road would lead us, but we trusted there was purpose in the journey. We focused our energy on living the best life we could, while we could.
As his final days neared in early 2022, Scott would wake sometimes from a doze seemingly in the midst of a conversation. This signalled he was moving between worlds, preparing for his final transition. We joked about it, how he got a kick out of switching from one state to the other, how he would surprise me at times with a sudden exclamation to some being in his other world. I asked if he knew where he was going, and he said he’d been shown, that he liked the place. As we talked about his leaving and me being left behind he assured me, in his gentlest voice, that the length of time until we’re together again—when it happens—will seem “like the blink of an eye.”
We’ll be together again “In the blink of an eye.”
Scott’s final thirty-six hours were traumatic for both of us. It became impossible for him to take in enough oxygen using the prescribed at-home devices. After a harrowing night, he agreed to be taken by ambulance to the hospital emergency, where medical staff managed to stabilize him for a few hours—long enough for me to go home and get some sleep. But it didn’t last and I was called back, this time to accompany him to the Intensive Care Unit where we could say our final good-byes in private.
But we never got to do that. While I waited outside and the nurses settled him into his ICU bed, Scott left his physical body for the last time—just as they rushed me to him. I came upon him sitting upright, eyes staring, one hand raised as if hailing someone, heart already stopped. The nurses let me stay as long as I wanted, to hold his hand while his colour and warmth drained away, and to accustom myself to the fact his body was truly dead. I felt both cheated and guilty.
For all the attention we’d placed on bringing our best selves to the effort; for all our resolve to walk this last stretch of road together; for all the emergencies and near-misses; for all his determination to remain in his physical body as long as he possibly could—when Scott’s final moment came, I missed it.
Why didn’t I just stay with him all day? But we’d both been awake nearly thirty hours when I left him that last afternoon, and there was nowhere for me to rest. His room in the ER was barely big enough to hold a bed and the equipment to keep him breathing. There was one rigid, armless chair for me, which the doctors and nurses had to squeeze past to do their vital work.
“For all our resolve to walk this last stretch of road together…when Scott’s final moment came, I missed it.”
Part of our adjustment two years into Scott’s illness in 2019 was to sell the beautiful home we’d built on a magical property in the country. Scott was a gardener. He loved to plant things, to watch them grow and nurture them through their life cycles. He was with them before the first sign of shoots in spring until snow covered the ground in winter. He loved brightly coloured flowers and adopted reds and yellows as his theme. He envisioned our gardens as the house went up, and arranged them so there were special views from the rooms we used the most, ensuring there was always something in bloom. Later, still a gardener at heart when we’d moved to town, he arranged for delivery of fresh flowers every week with a card addressed to me.
It may have been the morning of, or a few days after I’d come home a widow exhausted and numb, that I saw this just before waking: A magnificent tree, tall and full, with giant trumpet-shaped blossoms in brilliant red and yellow, more vivid and fantastical than anything of this world. I knew it was Scott showing me a glimpse of his new home and saying all was as it should be, that I hadn’t let him down.
These events happened more than a year-and-a-half ago. When I look back on the months between, it’s hard to believe how much has happened since then, how much my life has changed and how many steps I’ve already taken to move forward. But earlier this year, as winter gave way to spring and the March 26 anniversary of Scott’s passing neared, the trauma of those last weeks came crashing back. As did some of our conversation in his final days.
When we got around to talking about funeral arrangements—which we left far too late, neither of us wanting to seem like we were rushing the end—I asked Scott what to do with his ashes. “I don’t care,” he said. “Just don’t keep them.”
“I asked Scott what to do with his ashes. ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘Just don’t keep them.'”
I knew what he meant. He didn’t want me so attached to him that I couldn’t get on with the rest of my life or allow him to be fully freed of his. I agreed but added, “I’m going to need you to hang around for the first year, though, just to make sure I’m okay.”
As the one-year mark loomed closer, I became increasingly anxious about what to do with those ashes—and whether I’d actually be able to let them go. I began to wonder what it would be like once Scott’s first-year promise expired. He prided himself on being a man of his word—and on being punctual. He expected the same of others, including me, though I often fell short on punctuality. All the same, I knew I needed to follow through on his wishes. After much consideration and contemplation, I decided the most fitting place to scatter the ashes would be from a high cliff overlooking our new neighbourhood. We had managed to hike there one day while Scott could still breathe well enough to make the trip. It had felt good to stand side-by-side looking out over our newly-adopted neighbourhood.
But as February gave way to March, I began to wonder if Scott would disappear forever once I spilled those ashes over the edge. In effect, by keeping my promise, I would be releasing him from his. But, how would I face the rest of my life without the visits and dreams and tiny signals that I’d had to comfort me all through my first year without him? At some point, a romantic verse from our teens began repeating in my memory: “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”
I started imagining how I would go about fulfilling my end of our bargain.
The section of cliff I write of is a busy place. People come from all over to hike the trails that eventually lead to a rock promontory rising 100 metres (300 feet) above the town, affording a grand view into the distance. There is rarely a day when a glance toward that look-out does not reveal any number of tiny figures gazing down on life below.
When could I get the peak to myself, and how exactly would I handle Scott’s ashes? It would have to be early morning on a weekday, the least likely time for tourists. Winds would have to be calm, something that rarely happens that high up.
I hadn’t asked the funeral home for an urn, knowing I wouldn’t be keeping the ashes, so they rested in a closet inside a sealed plastic bag within a sealed cardboard box, tucked inside a drawstring bag of deep green velvet. The most practical thing would be to put just the plastic bag inside a knapsack. But I would need something to cut the seal at my destination and another bag to enclose the first in case of spillage. I’d also need a small scoop to withdraw the ashes a bit at a time—both to test the wind and because I couldn’t bring myself to dump them all at once. And I’d need to accomplish all of this before the first wave of hikers arrived.
I needed to make a dry run.
“Now with the strength to continue on my own, I turned from the peak, shouldered the empty pack and made the trek back out.”
The day before I took the practice hike, I had another vision—again, just before I awoke. This time, I saw Scott. He was striding toward me, hale and healthy, dressed in his usual khaki pants, black fleece jacket and thick-soled boots as if ready for adventure. I was so delighted to see him this way. And I didn’t just “see” him; I could feel him with me as surely as if he were physically alive. I awoke with the courage to keep planning his last journey.
A day later I drove to the departure point, got my gear together, put the pack on my back and began our rehearsal walk. Soon, in my inner vision, I could see Scott off to the side, dressed just as he’d been the morning before. So, we walked together, me rehearsing exactly what I would do, what I might say as I let those ashes go. The steeply undulating trails were still slippery with ice and mud, so I made a note to be better prepared next time.
At the destination, I checked out each of three points from which I could scatter Scott’s last remains. Even though there had been only a gentle breeze when I’d left home in the town below, I could feel a stiff wind up there at the top. Carrying Scott’s ashes back out, they felt twice as heavy as they had on the way in, but I found that weight comforting, as if he were still with me. As I shed the knapsack and climbed back into the car, I thanked him for coming. We now had a plan.
A few days later, I took that last walk with Scott. Accustomed to the weight of the knapsack, and with the addition of cleats and a walking stick, my steps felt sure. He was not there in my inner vision this time; it was just me and his ashes and a close, foggy spring morning. At the peak, the air was calm. His ashes fell in a satisfyingly straight line into the rocky gorge below, and no other humans came near to interrupt the peace of my small ceremony there.
Now with the strength to continue on my own, I turned from the peak, shouldered the empty pack and made the trek back out.
I have felt him with me since, both in dreams and waking life and I know his visits come, no longer from obligation, but from love alone.
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.
Andrew sent us this story about his life-long relationship with dogs, and how his dogs have taught him that the loving connection between master and pet continues despite the separation of physical death.
By Andrew A.
Please understand that we are just a ‘normal’, everyday family who never got interested in paranormal stuff or anything weird or spiritual.
We were never religious in any way, but we always believed in God and that all good, kind, loving people are going to be with God in Heaven. That sums up our spirituality for the most part. We never, ever thought we would encounter the things I am going to describe here. But, having experienced them, we have greatly expanded our ideas about the afterlife and all things spiritual.
I grew up with dogs and they were my best friends all through my childhood in Ontario, Canada. In 1987, I got married, moved to Massachusetts, and two years later we had a daughter. I wanted her to grow up with a dog like I did, so we adopted a two-year-old mini poodle from a woman who fostered rescued puppies when my daughter was about three months old in 1989. We called her Fluffy.
In 2000, when Fluffy was too old to play with, my daughter wanted a younger mini poodle, and I wanted to rescue another dog, so, after a lot of fruitless phone calls, eventually I found a breeder in New Hampshire who had a young adult dog that was not up to American Kennel Club specs, so she wanted to get rid of her.
We drove over two hours to see her and fell in love with her immediately. She was seven months old, white, with longer legs than a normal mini poodle and a beautiful, curved tail that arched over her back, even though it was cropped. When she walked, her hips swayed from side to side, like a sexy model; she really was a character.
My daughter called her Angel and she turned out to be that in every way. She was incredibly intelligent, intuitive, sensitive, caring, very perceptive and responsive to human emotions. Angel could run faster than every other dog besides a greyhound, because of her long legs, and she loved teasing other, much bigger dogs to chase her in the park, and then outrunning them to exhaustion.
“My daughter called her Angel and she turned out to be that in every way.”
About six months after we got Angel, my daughter saw an ad in a local magazine saying that two mini poodle puppies were available for adoption. The foster home was very close to where we lived, so I said to my daughter we could go see them, but I didn’t want to get another dog, especially a puppy. However, when we walked into the woman’s home, I just fell in love with the little, black, bouncing bundle of energy that I saw.
She and her brother had been rescued from a terrible situation of starvation and abuse in a puppy mill. Every adult dog in the mill had been euthanized, and she and her brother were the only survivors, being only a couple of months old. I happily paid the woman her small adoption fee and we promised we would take good care of her. My daughter called her Muffin and we took her home to give her a bath (she smelled terrible!) and introduce her to Fluffy and Angel.
Fluffy was too old and deaf and blind to care, but Angel jumped off the bed and ran to us to see what we were holding as soon as we walked in. While we bathed Muffin, Angel stood and watched intently, and being almost one and a half years old, she immediately adopted Muffin as her baby. She was totally possessive and protective of her and even would let Muffin take food and chew toys out of her own mouth.
Muffin just adopted the role of the prized, spoiled baby of the home, and never lacked any self-confidence or assertiveness, even though she was much smaller than Angel. Our afternoons and evenings and weekends were filled with hikes and parks and woodland walks with the dogs, exploring anywhere and everywhere they could go.
They ran down trails, swam in streams, chased each other around baseball diamonds and fields, chased squirrels and rabbits and birds wherever they could find them, and just enjoyed every minute of life together. They were always together, no matter what. Angel found her full identity in being Muffin’s mother and protector and best friend, and Muffin just loved being the adored, spoiled baby of the family.
In October 2004, I had to euthanize Fluffy one night at about 2:00 a.m. She was almost 16 and was clearly in pain. I had never euthanized a pet, and I had no idea how difficult it was, and the aftermath of it. I was absolutely devastated when I left the animal hospital without her. Even though I knew she had had a long, wonderful life with me, I could not shake the grief and sadness. I continued with life as best I could, but I found I could not sleep at night. I was in a hyper-energetic mode and could not calm down.
“I said aloud, Fluffy I am OK, you can go, I will be fine, I have Angel and Muffin to keep me company.”
After two weeks of not sleeping, I knew I was going to be in trouble if I did not calm down and adjust to the loss. Angel obviously picked up on my heightened energy levels and never came near me for those two weeks. She would not sleep at the foot of my bed as she usually did and stayed out of my room and away from me completely. She slept with my daughter on her bed and stayed in her room.
Muffin did not seem bothered by anything, and slept right next to me under the blankets, cuddled against my torso, as usual.
One night I was walking Muffin and Angel in a park, trying to figure out where all this extra energy was coming from and why I could not calm down and get to sleep. I suddenly had the thought that, what if I was not feeling my deep emotions for Fluffy, but rather, what if I was actually feeling Fluffy’s spiritual and emotional energy towards me and for me?
I decided to try release it, and I said aloud, “Fluffy I am OK, you can go, I will be fine, I have Angel and Muffin to keep me company. We had a great time together, but now please go to the Light and be happy, and I will see you when I get to heaven. Don’t worry about me. Go to the Light and be happy.” As soon as I said that, I palpably felt a presence of energy lift off me and leave, and my emotions and energy calmed down. That night Angel came back on my bed as usual, and I was able to sleep again.
Angel and Muffin both had heart murmurs, and my vet told me often that Angel was much worse than Muffin. But there was not much we could do about it. I moved to California for a job in June 2014 with the two dogs, and Angel started to collapse while walking outside. In November, she stopped eating, and five days later, she passed away while lying next to me on my bed. She was just over 15.
I took her body to the vet and they had her cremated. Muffin and I missed her terribly. I thought Muffin was going to die of depression. She was just totally lost without Angel. She stopped eating for about a week, and it took a lot to get her interested in life again. Eventually she adjusted, but she really was never the same little happy-go-lucky dog ever again.
“I was very confused at first, but I simply had to deduce that Angel had returned to sleep on my bed with me as she usually did.”
Shortly after Angel passed away, I was sleeping deeply one night, but my sleep was disturbed, as I was woken up by a tangible pressure on my legs. That was where Angel used to sleep, at the bottom of my bed, and I often felt her pressing against my legs. In my half-awake state, I assumed she was lying on my legs, and told her to move, as I often had done. Nothing changed. I then remembered that she had just passed away, so I assumed that Muffin must have uncharacteristically gone to the bottom of the bed and was lying on my legs.
I roused myself to move Muffin off my legs, but then I saw Muffin sleeping peacefully right next to me. I was very confused at first, but I simply had to deduce that Angel had returned to sleep on my bed with me as she usually did. I accepted her presence there, moved my legs to make space for her and went back to sleep. This happened a few times afterwards, and then it stopped.
I came back to Toronto to care for my parents in 2016 and I brought Muffin with me. She was then 15-and-a-half. Before I left California, I asked my vet to fill out whatever paperwork Muffin needed to enter Canada, and to give her whatever shots she needed. I had never given her anything but the Rabies vaccine, but that day, in addition to the Rabies, the vet squirted another vaccine up her nose.
That night, Muffin had her first seizure and started to go blind. (Over the next few years, her right eye shrank away and totally disappeared). I thought she was dying. After that, she had a seizure about every two weeks, although some days she had multiple seizures. I gave her some herbal and vitamin supplements and eventually, over several months, the seizures tapered off and stopped.
But I am convinced that Muffin would see Angel every time she had a seizure. After each seizure she would howl and cry incessantly, and run around frantically for hours on end, looking for something. This could last for four or five hours. I would have to take her walking outside or she would go crazy inside. Often this was at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. She would totally ignore me (which was extremely unusual for her) and her food and everything else, other than what she was looking for but could not find, and I have to assume it was Angel.
Eventually she would exhaust herself, fall asleep and then wake up the next day, back to normal, until the next seizure happened. Eventually, when she was almost 19-and-a-half, I recognized that she had very little quality of life; she was deaf, blind, sad, lonely, incontinent, she started having seizures again, and was having trouble standing and walking, so I decided I had to euthanize her. A very, very sad day for me.
I cannot wait to be with my dogs again in heaven, along with all the other wonderful animals I have met on earth.
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 at themeaningofforever@gmail.com and you can find more about our project on our Facebook page, and our Meaning of Forever Website.
The Meaning of Forever 