Hi .. I am new here.. I am 48.. I lost my husband on January 18,2005 ..age 57.. after a short illness which turned out to be cancer.. It had spread to his liver and stomach and he was not concious at the time of diagnosis.. I was with him till the end.. (he passed away 12 days after being hospitalized).. after he took his last breath and his heart was no longer beating he blinked his eyes twice.. not the hazy ill looking eyes but eyes that looked as they always had..clear and full of life.. I can't stop thinking what this may have meant.. I can't stop thinking and wondering if he is at peace .. I guess I am here for the same reason everyone else is... to learn more about what happens after we pass away.. I am having trouble coping and pray each night that he will give me a sign that he is 'okay' .. I talk to him and beg for any sign whatsoever... I feel him all around me as he made our home the home that it is ... we have two small children.. ages 11 and 8... at times they seem stronger than I...
Can someone here please help me to understand the afterlife and where we go from here?
Thank you ...
pandies

That's a tall order, pandies..you might want to start here:

What is the Afterlife?

And perhaps some answers here:
Frequently Asked Questions

pandies,

I am very sorry to hear about your loss, at such a young age too. I can totally empathise with you as I lost my wife to cancer at age 61.
It`s odd, at times, how spirits guide us, because within a month or so of her passing I began to experience "occurrences", which to me, were comunications from her (ADC`s), although I knew very little about such things at the time. They became so frequent that one day I decided to just enter the word "Afterlife" into a search engine on the internet and was "guided" to Bruce`s marvellous web site.

Shirley gives good advice. Start exploring the various avenues here. Try Bruce`s "pretend" technique for communicating with your husband - it always works very well for me with my wife. One important aspect I found was not to rush things. The more I relaxed  and did not worry or try to force contact too quickly, the easier and sooner my issue became resolved.
I now have frequent contact with my wife, have visited her "There", and she also often visits me in my dreams, sometimes bringing both her and my parents too. Over the past eighteen months since her passing I have changed dramatically in my spirituality and just wish I knew then what I know now.

I wish you every success in your quest, pandies. take it slowly and do not worry.

regards, roger
  :)

    pandies,

    I can't give you an answer really, but I can understand. My husband died Nov, 24, 2004. He was a Marine and in Iraq when a roadside bomb detonated next to the passenger side door of his humvee, where he was sitting. He was 25. We have a daughter who is three. He hung on for 15 days, 8 of wich where in the U.S and I could be beside him, although he was unconcious. The docs said he would live, but he got an infection and before I knew what happened, he was gone.
I thought for sure I would get signs right away, because he knew I believed in that stuff. It is very frustrating, because every where I turn is another theory for what goes on.
We just miss them so much, and want to be a part of their lives still, and want to know how they can be a part of ours.
Like I said, I cna't really answer your question, just sending out good thoughts that you will be comforted somehow, that you will get some signs or validation that I know you so want so much.
Love Meli

Hello,

I am sorry to hear of your sudden loss.  It was years after my own mother's passing that I came to explore the Afterlife and the messages that would let me know she continued on.  Try to remember to accept that it is often little things, a song on the radio, a sign in nature, not always a direct contact which will also signal a presence.  Sometimes even a thought at a time when your mind is on other things, can signal a contact.  I also found useful the books by Ted Anderson about animals and the Spirit world.  Energy exists in all creations.  It is good to have your children there for you.  Yes, they can be so strong and comforting can't they?  

Love,
Cheryl

Hi Again, :-[

Sorry, in the post above the name of the author of the books I mentioned is Ted Andrews.  Duhhh, me. Both books are really great and have helped me in many ways if not only to be more observant of our natural world.

Love,
Cheryl

Hi pandies

I was saddened for you and your children to hear of your husband's passing. I understand that need for immediate contact; when I have had friends pass over I certainly have thought they would have the decency to make my phone ring or whatever! I'm not so good at this taking my conciousness into other dimensions and having an experience comparable to what we experience here so I understand the frustration that that brings on. I find the problem with looking for signs is that the looking seems to make them not happen and things that happen do so when I am looking another way and not expecting anything. I think there is a component of how conciousness works at play here and that all I can do is try to be patient. When we are in pain, that is not so easy.

We had one friend who passed over several years ago (48-49yrs, pancreatic cancer). We were in a different house at the time. After that, one of the smoke detectors would beep. I wasn't sure that the battery wasn't too low but I think it happened even after I changed it. I would jokingly ask out loud if that was our friend. Then a couple of years later we moved to a new house (with new batteries in the smoke detector). One night while I was drifting off to sleep (ie not focused on waking conciousness) and had been thinking of our friend, the smoke detector beeped as though resetting itself. It rather woke me up fully. Of course I atrributed it to our friend. It has not beeped since either.

Sort of a trivial example but clearly you can't go looking for that sort of thing.

There's lots of stuff to read nowadays of folks describing things that happen at the moment of death. I have heard other stories of extremely lucid behavior from previously partially comatose individuals in the moments right before death. I'm sure if you look around you will find other stories of this kind. (one I recall was in a Readers' Digest but I don't remember when; I think the young girl who was dying had been quite weak but sat up and spoke lucidly right before death).

When this friend dies, my son was quite upset so we ended up going to a bereavement group run through a local visitng nurses association and aimed at kids. The people were wonderful and I think it helped him to understand that other kids suffered loss too. The adults met separately. I did sense a reluctance to talk about any communications people had received (and the focus of the group was on coping now) but at the end a couple of stories of unusual things that happened after did come out. (The facilitator didn't seem familiar with afterlife stuff so at the end I gave her a copy of George Anderson's book). The teenagers had the most problems and the younger kids coped better. My son was 11 when this happened and responded like a teen.

Does Judy Guggenheim still have her chat room? Maybe you would be interested in that?

Meli-

I am sorry to hear about your loss. I am wondering what sort of stories will come out of this war.

Often when people say the are communicationg with those on the other side, one message is that those there know we are thinking of them and are with us. The problem seems to be to learn how to be aware of that communication, which is what Bruce and others can do and teaches. I'm not so good at it so I am sympathietic to the ones who are trying but not yet succeeding. I wonder if those on the other side also have to learn new effective ways to communicate with us.

I wish you both well.

You might be interested in this website. I believe this is also the site that hosts Bruce's chats?
http://www.after-death.com/

It's not uncommon for someone who is close to death to have a sudden burst of energy right before they pass over.  My Mom did this and since I didn't know anything about it at the time it really startled me.  

My Mom died over a year ago now and I was pretty desperate to receive a sign from her for awhile.  I don't look for signs anymore because I figure if she can communicate with me, she will whenever she's able and there's nothing I can do to make it happen any sooner.  

I regret your loss. However, it isn't that he's gone. He just isn't available in the same manner as befoe.

You might be interested in past life regression (to "open the door") followed by poking about in the "
spirit world" and asking him to come talk with you. The International ASssoc for Regression Research and Therapy (IARRT) has a referral page. If you are interested in this approach, I suggest that you select a Board Certified Past Life Therapist, and tell 'em up from what you desire. It isn't difficult, but it is useful for plan a bit in setting up the session.  It's not foolproof, my success with my patients in contacting loved ones who have recently died is about 85%.

The type of work Bruce does aims at the same place, but is more externally directed for rescue of earthbound spirits as opposed to exploration. Still, it wouldn;t hurt to learn Bruce's methods and do it all yourself.

I wish you every success in communicating with your husband.

dave

I want to thank ALL of you for responding to my call for help... After reading all your replies... I feel there is hope and a real afterlife... I am a Christian but in times like this.. i seem to lose faith rather than lean on it.. Im going to attend the chat this evening... and also take the advice of others that have responded to my original post... I have found all of this most interesting and wish I would've become involved at a much earlier time... If I had ...  I would be looking for different signs... more subtle signs... instead of 'lights' etc... I think I've watched too many movies... smiles..
Hope to see some of you in the chat session this evening...
To Meli:
Hon.. my heart goes out to you ... a big salute to your fallen soldier... I have a soldier in our family as well... my son in law..he is army... he just arrived home from Iraq this past Tuesday.. at least one wonderful thing has come of 'our' new year so far...
Bless you all...
pandies