“Magical Happenings”?

In Steve’s final memoir blog post, written two weeks before he died, my lifelong-agnostic husband wrote:

“I now accept the possibility that a part of me will live on after death. I have a strong sense that some part of my being or my spirit or whatever you wanna call it will persist in the universe, and allow me to look out for my loved ones from wherever I’ll be.”

Now that I think about it, I’m a bit surprised that during his life, my former research physicist and engineer husband didn’t see the relevance of the First Law of Thermodynamics—the Law of Conservation of Energy:

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be changed into another form.

There’s a lot more scientific and historical stuff that can be said about this theorem, but it could be seen to support the idea that while our physical bodies may “die,” our energy/essence/soul is not destroyed but rather does, indeed, move into another form on a different plane—the spirit plane, if you will. And as Steve wrote, it does “persist in the universe” and allows us to look out for our loved ones from wherever we’ll be.

Is there any substantiated proof of this? “Scientific proof”? Not that I know of. But many people’s anecdotal claims certainly support it. And now I have some anecdotes of my own to add to the collection …

(NOTE: The next couple paragraphs provide details of what happened immediately after Steve died to provide context and to give you an idea of how it can go if you’re confronted with a similar situation.)

When someone dies at home, a person of authority (like a Hospice nurse or an EMT) has to officially declare the person dead. In our case, the Hospice nurse came and “called the time of death.” (It wasn’t the actual time he died but rather the time that she observed and determined it.) After allowing some private time for me with his body, the Hospice nurse and two Hospice staff washed his body in private, and—at my request—put him in his favorite t-shirt and comfy pants. The nurse had already called the funeral home so at some point, the funeral director and a staff member came, transferred Steve’s body onto a gurney and covered it with a sheet (I chose not to watch this step).

Pausing at the front door before leaving the house, they peeled back the sheet from his face so I could say a final farewell, and then covered his face again to go outside. (Somebody said that’s a legal requirement but I can’t confirm that.) I then followed the gurney out to their white van, and watched as they loaded the gurney into the van and drove away with my husband’s body. (Yes, all of this with a lot of tears on my part.)

And then something “magical” happened …

I walked back into the house, closed the front door and, standing at the end of the foyer with my back to the door, my sister handed me a glass of wine and we toasted Steve. At that moment, I heard a noise behind me, turned around, and the (heavy!) front door swung WIDE open. Not a little wedge like when the back door is opened and a vacuum is created. (There were no windows or doors open in the house—it was February.) Nope. It opened wide open—“by itself.” My sister and I looked at each other, looked at the door, and then at each other again. “Did you see that?” So was that Steve’s spirit? Was he coming or going?? (See Footnote¹.)

There is no “logical” explanation for that wide open door.

And then more happenings …

A few weeks before he passed but after the Hospice decision had been made, in a moment of Drama Queen histrionics, I sobbed to him, “Who will I talk to all day when you’re gone?” He replied, “You can still talk to me after I’m gone.” Well the day after he died, I was driving home from CVS and I reached out to him in my mind, “I don’t feel you around me like other people have said about lost loved ones.” And I “heard” in my mind, “That’s because I am within you, I am in your heart.” You might say, “Well that thought came from you.” But it was not something I was thinking, or recently read, or heard on TV. In fact, I was fixated on another thought: what am I doing wrong that I don’t feel his presence.

A few days later at the funeral parlor I was presented with an entire wall of urns to choose from to hold his ashes—beautifully decorated ones that bling-girl me was drawn to. But I thought what the hell, I’ll ask Steve. So I silently asked him, “Which one do you want?” I was “guided” to a small section almost hidden on the bottom shelf in the corner that had fairly plain wooden boxes that I hadn’t even noticed. I realized that a plain wooden box was the perfect container since he loved refinishing antique wood furniture—AND he was not a bling kind of guy. So I ended up with a box that had beautiful wood grain—specifically picked for him (and by him?).

A few weeks later I was sitting on the couch in our my home office feeling particularly distraught—crying not just with silent tears rolling down my cheeks but rather sobbing (even wailing a bit) out loud. Without any causative thought on my part (like “Gee, I wish Steve was here to hug me”), and completely out of the blue, I “felt” him hug me. It was just for a nanosecond, but it was definitely a hug. Not a physical hug per se, but rather I felt wrapped in arms of energy. Hard to describe.

I’ve heard similar stories from A LOT of family and friends who have lost loved ones. I guess it makes sense: if Oneness is true then we are ALL connected, even across planes of existence—like the physical and the spiritual.

So, scientific proof? Probably not to a scientist. But it sure is real to me and a lot of other people.

I still reach out and “talk” to Steve sometimes. And often when confronted with a problem, the common sense solution just “pops” into my head. And trust me, I’m not necessarily a common sensical person—I depended on Steve for that. Maybe I still do.

But with all this “conversing,” at one point, I was concerned I’d become the proverbial “old woman with 40 cats who goes around the house muttering to herself and talking to her deceased husband.” But this “connection” with Steve brings me solace and help when I most need it. So I’m not going to question it. I’m just going to take it at face value—and keep “conversing.”

P.S. If you experience the at-home death of a loved one, the above process may be different for you, including that here in my little town in Arizona, I was grateful to see that the funeral director didn’t use a—cringe—“body bag.” Nor did they have a traditional hearse. Rather, it was all handled humanely and respectfully. Likewise, because I just couldn’t bear to look at the hospital bed Steve had been in just hours before, the medical supply company worker came (per my request to the Hospice nurse who arranged it) and dismantled and removed the bed later that day—even though by then it was well after 5:00 p.m. on a Friday night. I greatly appreciate the kindness they all showed.

BTW—There’s probably no danger of me becoming an old woman with 40 cats—I’m allergic!😁

---

Footnote:

¹ Some cultures believe that an open window [or door??] near a death bed allows the souls of already deceased family members to come and retrieve the soul of the person who is dying or has died, to take them into the next life. Other cultures believe that if the room is completely closed, the deceased person’s soul will be trapped and unable to move on. So with the wide open door did Steve’s deceased family members come to guide him to the next plane? Or was Steve making sure his soul wasn’t trapped in the house? Or did he just want to let me know he was still with me “in spirit”.