Before dying by Eleanor Stem

White Light of Death

Once I worked in the upstairs offices of a bank, located in the Dallas area. A coworker was an older man who never married. He lived with his sisters and took care of his mother. We will call him Lewis.

One day, Lewis sat down on the chair next to my desk. He asked, “Do you believe in life after death?”

Being quite young, I hadn’t thought too much about it. I shrugged and said, “I guess. Why do you ask?”

Then he proceeded to tell me of his mother’s last day on this earth.

She had been on her deathbed. Lewis’ father was already gone. His parents were young during the Prohibition era and they loved to dance. As Lewis put it, “Every Saturday night, they’d go out and shake a leg.”

He sat on a chair by his mother’s bed. All of sudden, she raised her arms. “You come here and let me help you.”

She faced the other side of the bed and proceeded to attend to someone or something. Lewis asked, “What are you doing, Mama? Who do you see?”

“Oh, I’m just fixin’ this little boy’s collar. He’s dressed like they did at the turn of the century. One side of his collar's tucked under his coat.” She patted what would have been the little boy. “There now, fixed.”

She lay back and closed her eyes. Lewis’ mind wandered, thinking of his youth and his parents.

Mama said, “Do you think they’re in heaven?”

Lewis jerked awake. He must have drifted off. “Who Mama? Who do you see?”

“There, at the end of the bed. The Jacksons are here.”

They were the couple Lewis’ mama and daddy danced with on Saturday nights. Even though it was Prohibition, they’d go honky-tonkin’, kick their feet and swing around.

Lewis couldn’t see who mama saw, but he said, “I’m sure they are. They were good people.”

He no longer allowed his mind to wander, to drift off to sleep. His mama was having hallucinations. As the clock by her bed ticked away the afternoon, a little girl dressed in frills came to her bedside, neighbors from her past, church matrons and friends who had died in France during WW1.

“There are so many crowdin’ in, Lewis. I’m afraid they’ll move the bed.”

Lewis couldn’t see anyone or anything. All he saw was her lace covered chest-of-drawers. The lamp on her bedside table, the clock that ticked away the day.

“They want me to come with them,” she sighed heavily, “and I am tired.” Her voice weakened. “So very tired.”

Later that afternoon, Lewis’ mother passed away.

* * *

I was with my dad when he died. We were in a curtained room in the ER. An oxygen mask covered his face. I stood beside the gurney, my husband off to the side. My dad kept looking at where my husband stood. He pointed over and over, his glassy eyes wide. My husband looked where he pointed but we didn't see anything.

My dad died a few minutes later.

After the hospital’s minister came and gave us condolences, the ER doctor and nurse, who had attended my dad, came in. I asked, “Do you ever see the spirits of those who die?”

Without hesitation, the doctor nodded. “Yes.”

With a great deal of hesitation, the nurse finally nodded and said, “Yes, I have, too.”

 ~*~*~*~*~

 

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Astral Travel by Eleanor Stem

We are born remembering where we came from, what we can do. While in-utero we are partially with the growing fetus and also within the ether. We divide our time between the two and swear to the heavens we will not forget. 

By the time we reach the age of two or three our spirits are totally enclosed in the fleshly casing we call our bodies and we forget. We start to feel lonely, bereft. The light does not penetrate easily into our souls through dense skin, sinew and bone. 

We forget we can astral travel. 

Now, please bear with me; I promise this will be interesting. You just have to read a little before getting to it: 

I knew this lady who had to move to another town for work, leaving her husband behind. For about 6 months, they visited each other every other month. The only friends she made during this time were two coworkers, a man and a woman. 

She heard about a music festival that was popular in the area. Musicians competed with each other. They sold crafts and funnel cakes but to get there she had to travel narrow roads that wound through long stretches of farmland. As with her life of late, it was located in an isolated area. 

She did not want to go alone but it was supposed to be fun. She also wanted to get some Christmas gifts for her family. Her female coworker was out of town so she asked the guy to accompany her. She did not want to tell her husband. He would be upset. 

Toward the weekend, she became nervous. On Saturday, when she was supposed to meet the guy, she texted her husband to let him know her plans and to trust her. She stuck her mobile into her purse and almost ran out of the apartment. 

The road to the small town and music festival was pretty, but again isolated. She didn’t like her male coworker very much. The more she learned of him, the more his dark moods concerned her. One day he stood near the door of her office as he ground out some ill and she literally saw his aura, brownish, like a dark, disintegrating shield. She backed away. 

They got to the festival and separated, he to a conference call and she to the crafts. After a while, they met where the food was being served. He asked if she liked funnel cake. She responded she’d never eaten one. He said, “Well we can’t have that, can we?” 

As they sat across from each other at a picnic table, people with their children meandered through. Music could be heard in the background, cheers from the stadium where groups performed. 

She cut into her piece of funnel cake, a rich delight of whipped cream, pastry and apples. The guy confided something to her, but she watched over his shoulder, not hearing what he said. His mouth worked as if she were deaf. She found living apart from her husband lonely. Friendly coworkers didn’t help. 

Suddenly she heard a loud pop. Something altered in the ether. She turned in that direction where, close at hand, energy shifted. As she watched, fractured space folded back to normal. 

But she never made the connection to astral travel. A woman had just sent her food remnants into a rubbish barrel. She must have thrown something heavy in there. 

That night, she spoke with her husband. He said he’d been at the festival with her, saw her eat the funnel cake. She wore a white shirt. From what he saw, he knew she was not being disloyal. He felt good, reassured. The pop she had heard was when someone knocked on the door, hurtling him back to their house and onto the couch where he sat. 

Amazed, she explained what she had felt, what she had heard, that the ether had popped. She had worn a white shirt. 

Everyone acted normally. The guy across from her kept talking about his ills and needs. No one had looked up to see if something had made that loud pop. 

She alone had heard the shift in the ether, seen the air move while her husband had been with her.

 ~~~~~~

Many thanks to Terri for her story.

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What is Death? by Eleanor Stem

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Egyptian Judgement in the Afterlife

I believe in reincarnation, that’s all there is to it. Souls clump together and help each other through lifetimes. We learn, collect good and bad karma, love or dislike each other, hurt or shore up the other. When we’ve known souls for several lifetimes, and one leaves this plane, it is difficult to bear. We miss them. Our hearts break for our losses, while they are glad to be back. Once we move on, we again remember what we thought we’d never forget, but did.

As 2015 shot out of the gate, and within weeks of each other, both my husband and I lost life-long friends, people we knew since we were children. We grew up with them, rode bikes together, suffered through puberty, know their children, their spouses. 

Husband’s friend lived down the street. He was always intense, and dedicated all of his energy to whatever he did. While young, he played in a band, traveled all over. One interesting place he lived was in Oklahoma among the Native Americans. He was a collector. He collected Native American artifacts, arrowheads. He loved music. It was part of his life. He breathed it, felt the thrumming of chords and notes in his flesh and sinew. He collected rare cd’s, band tee-shirts, memorabilia. Loved to have his picture taken with a musical group and post it on facebook.  One Saturday in mid-February, his chest hurt. By morning, he was gone. 

My friend and I started out as pen pals when I was twelve and she ten. At the time, I was embarrassed to have a friend so much younger than me, and I didn’t tell anyone about our age differences, fearing I’d be ridiculed. She lived in the West Midlands of England, near the Potteries where people in her neighborhood worked in factories and crafted Wedgewood and Prince Albert dishware. I visited her more than once, met her family, her aunt and uncle. I lived the same town for a year with my boys while I researched a novel. She saw my anger when I divorced; I saw her sorrow when her father died. Just before Christmas, she was diagnosed with cancer, and left this mortal coil a month and five days later.

We were shocked by these quick deaths, so unexpected. Medicine today is quite good. The doctors should have saved our friends, our loved ones. Why didn’t they? People with the worst, most insidious cancers can live quite a long time. Why didn’t my friend, or my husband’s friend stick around?

Because we are the ones who choose when we come or go, what our lessons will be, how we will learn these lessons, who we want to run with, love and dislike. Once our life's lessons are complete, we leave. We review. We either hang out in the clouds or begin another life. Our guides help us. God aids us. We are not alone.

I had vivid dreams of my friend laughing at my sorrows. She was glad to be on the other side. I asked where her life review took place, and she answered, on a hot, sandy beach. She was always cold in England, and this satisfied her a great deal. Almost a year ago, she told me she was bored. In my dreams, she admitted her life had been too constricted, controlled. Now, she wants to play, have a more exuberant life, be slightly naughty. She stuck around for her memorial service, then with a sweep of her skirts, she was gone. I hope this new place she goes to will be filled with more love, more light, and be better than the violence and hate of this earthen plane.