When I was in my thirties, I would have been a bit sceptical about relationships continuing after death, but I am older now and perhaps wiser. The things I have witnessed and experienced have changed my perspective. Today, I have a tendency to agree, that some form of relationships manage to continue on regardless of death.
I was very close to my son and when he died in a vehicle accident at the tender age of 17, I thought I would never see him again nor hear his voice, but I was wrong in my assumption. Life often holds more for us than we could ever imagine, and God in his wisdom, gives us opportunities we might need to heal and to move forward. Sometimes those opportunities include communications from a loved one who has died!
After the death of my only son, Jason, trying to find balance, meaning and comfort in my life was a slow, arduous, and a complex process. I had communication with Jason in the first three months after his death. Five years passed but Jason was never far from my thoughts. One day, the pain of missing my son returned so abruptly I broke down, sobbing. Between huge gulps, I spoke to God in prayer, begging Him to give me a dream where I could once more see my tall, beautiful, blond-haired son. I pleaded. I begged. I cried. “It is very easy for you, God. This is so simple. Please, please give me this dream. I miss him so much. All I ask for is a hug. That’s easy for you, just one hug in a dream.” I cried on and begged as if my life depended upon this one thing. In those five years since his death I had dreams every night, but not once had Jason been in any dream. I ached with a mother’s heart, yearning to see my son, to hold him, if only in a dream.
God answered my prayers and I indeed got my dream. Strangely though in my dream, Jason was much younger – he might have been seven years old. In the dream I was chastising him for something he had done. I said, “Jason don’t do that. Do you want to get killed?”
And this little blue-eyed boy, my son, looked at me and spoke the most compelling words he ever uttered, “But Mom, death isn’t forever”
I awoke and immediately felt upset. I thought, “Five years without a dream and now I don’t even get a hug!” Then as I became more fully awake, it dawned on me I’d just been given something far better. Jason had returned to me as a child to comfort me. My son had given me words that have filled me with hope again and again ever since that night. Any time I ache for reassurance and comfort, I need only recall that one sentence from Jason, “But mom, death isn’t forever.”
Ellie Braun-Haley shaley@telusplanet.net