Читать книгу We Live Forever - PMH Atwater - Страница 10

“Life is a blackboard upon which we consciously or unconsciously write those messages which govern us. We hold the chalk and the eraser in our mind.”

—Ernest Holmes

Marriage only heightened my curiosity. I was always experimenting. I found that jars sealed better in the pressure cooker if I gave the lids a hot water bath before applying them to the glass lip and screwing on the band. Cakes stayed fresh twice as long if you beat the egg whites to an easy froth and then folded them into the batter. Bulk-pack fruit and vegetables were interchangeable in any recipe: you could substitute pumpkin for applesauce, or use mashed prunes or cooked carrots, squash, peaches, or just about anything you wanted. It didn’t matter if you were baking a cake, cookies, or pie, the only limit to what you created was your imagination. Thus, meals at our house were always a surprise.

And so was death.

During the days when my former husband, John, and I leased 160 acres near Filer, there were many farm tragedies. We were privy to all of them. This situation intensified once he became a crop-duster pilot. He specialized in flying night jobs barely inches above the soil of tree-lined farm fields. A number of gruesome and horrible accidents snuffed out innocent lives. We both stared death in the face at moments of personal risk because of auto accidents and serious illness, as did our loved ones and each of our three children. This kind of thing happened so often that for a time I used to set a place for “death” at the kitchen table, replete with dishes and chair, so that our children wouldn’t be frightened of our family’s familiar consort.

Among what caught my attention then was the incredible number of people who, far from having a brief hunch or scary feeling, actually exhibited preknowledge of their coming death. Conversations my husband and I had with survivors and next of kin revealed intriguing stories about how the deceased must have known what was coming because of the way he or she behaved before the tragedy occurred, shifting routines about three to six months before his or her death.

After a while, I noticed that these changes centered around a need to wrap up business and personal affairs as if there existed some unspoken reason for expediency. Insurance policies took on importance, as did the need to visit loved ones and to be more intimate or philosophical than usual. One last “fling” was often enjoyed before the individual relaxed and was at peace. Just before the death event, the victim seemed to “glow” as if something important were about to happen, something for which the individual had prepared.

Sometimes this preknowledge consisted of more than a series of behavior changes; it was verbal and up front. One such example is the case of a woman in her late twenties who was killed in an early morning automobile pileup on the highway outside Jackpot, Nevada. During the investigation that followed, relatives told the same story—that the woman knew she was going to die, even how and when. She had had a recurring dream starting about six months before, a dream that accurately depicted her death. Because of the dream, she had been getting her life in order and telling others what to expect. No one believed her. After the accident, her loved ones and friends were grief stricken, even more so because of their refusal to give her the benefit of the doubt while she was still alive.

Another incident involved a high school senior who calmly told her parents she would die in a violent accident the day before graduation. This news was given nearly a year in advance, and the announcement sent her parents into a near-frenzy of worry until they convinced themselves that their daughter must be mentally unbalanced. She was sent to several psychologists for evaluation. Each released her with the caution, “Make certain she takes this drug as it will relax her.” There was no dream, no reason for the daughter to say such a thing. “I just know,” she’d insist, as she readied herself to die.

A year later, and the day before graduation, she and a girlfriend were sitting in a car waiting at an intersection for the light to change when another car suddenly careened out of control and slammed head-on into theirs, killing both girls instantly, yet injuring no one else. Investigators discovered a note the daughter wrote revealing that she knew that she and her best friend would be killed at the same time in the same accident. They also discovered that the other girl had displayed behavioral changes suggestive of someone who knew death was coming, even though she had said nothing to anyone about it.

After another year rolled by, each of the two mothers had a dream in which her deceased daughter returned for a “visit” to explain why she had died. This visitation was so vivid that neither mother could keep it to herself. One of them confided in a local astrologer; very soon the other mother did the same thing. The astrologer contacted the psychologist of the first mother, the one most burdened with grief, for advice on how to handle the situation. I was consulted as well.

A meeting was arranged where all four parents and the psychologist could hear each mother describe her dream. Neither set of parents knew the other before the meeting. Still, the daughters visited their mothers on the same night at about the same time with the same explanation. Both girls had agreed before birth to participate in the violent death event in order that the first one could help the other work through a lingering fear of dying violently. This death scenario was the only reason each girl gave for having been born. A dramatic healing resulted from this session, and much pain and grief were released.

Some of our friends were not only agricultural pilots but also corporate, highway, and construction pilots, as well as flight instructors. A number of them died in fiery crashes. One such crash took the lives of two of our best friends when the DeHavilon twin jet they were flying nose dived into the mesa outside of Boise. It was a stormy night, yet they canceled their instrument approach, thinking the lights of the city meant they were closer to the airport than they actually were. Relatives confirmed that each pilot had exhibited the foreknowledge pattern before the accident as if the event were somehow “expected.”

Another crash I was privy to involved a midair collision at midnight over a farmhouse near Adrian, Oregon. Both pilots plus the farmer’s wife in the house below were killed. The woman was trapped inside when burning wreckage fell from the planes and set the house ablaze. According to surviving kin, all three acted as if they had known they were going to die, even though they never spoke of it.

Of the several thousand accident reports I have studied, this unusual knowingness was present in almost all of them. Here is a summary of what I discovered from this inquiry; it is a pattern of behavioral cues indicating that people know, at least subconsciously, when they are about to die:

• Anywhere from three months to three weeks in advance of the event (perhaps even a year before), individuals begin to alter their normal behavior. There is something intense or uniquely thoughtful about this shift.

• Subtle at first, this behavioral change becomes a desire to wrap things up, reassess affairs and life goals, while switching from material concerns to philosophical or spiritual ones.

• This is followed by a need to see everyone who means anything special to them, to be friendlier, closer. If physical visits are not possible, they make these connections by writing letters or telephoning.

• As time draws near, the people become more serious about straightening out their affairs and instructing a loved one or a friend to take over in their stead. This instruction can be quite specific, sometimes involving details such as debts still owed, what insurance policies exist and how to handle them, how possessions should be dispersed, and what goals, programs, or projects are yet undone and how to finish them. Financial matters seem quite important, as is the management of personal and private affairs.

• Typically, about twenty-four to thirty-six hours before death, individuals relax and are at peace. They often appear as if “high” on something because of their heightened alertness, easy confidence, and sense of joy. They exude an unusual strength and positive demeanor as if they were ready at last for something important to occur.

You may not think that this pattern applies also to infants and toddlers, but I suggest to you that it does. I have found that little ones, in ways unique to their size and physical development, are quite capable of expressing how they feel and what’s on their minds; if old enough, they do it through their drawings.

This was certainly true with our granddaughter Myriam. I am struck that her mother, Lydia, knew while she was pregnant that the child would not live long. She repeatedly had dreams, as Myriam grew, that she would run away and never return; she also had visions and flashes of her lying in a hospital bed. In her last dream, mere weeks before the child died, Myriam rode up an escalator as high as she could go and then disappeared into a brilliant light—with nary a backward glance. None of us knew about this, as Lydia kept these dreams secret until after Myriam died. It was no secret, however, that Myriam herself changed three months before her seizures: she was strangely listless and ate little; photos taken of her were utterly black; there were several near misses in accidents that could have killed her; and she made people uncomfortable because of how she stared “through” and past them as if searching their souls. Her previously happy disposition had just begun to return when all but two family members unexpectedly began to grieve. I was one of them. None of us knew why we were grieving or for whom. She died shortly after our grief spells suddenly ceased.

I have observed that intuitive knowing about imminent death not only readies people to meet life’s end, but more importantly it assists them in preparing loved ones and friends. Exceptions are those who display no such behavioral cues in advance of their demise. Still, I never cease to be amazed at how commonplace this pattern is and how perfectly natural is our link to the spirit world.

By the way, Myriam came back after she died. Many of us saw or sensed her. Each night for two weeks following her death she snuggled up in her older brother’s bed, chatted awhile, then slept with him so that he wouldn’t be traumatized by her quick departure. He talked about her visitations at breakfast each morning; when he no longer needed her, she quit coming.

Well known in the medical field is the fact that the vast majority of grieving parents have a post-death reappearance of their child. Invariably, that visit is to reassure them that their child is fine. Not just little ones, like Myriam, come back. So, too, do adults.

Linda Puig of Kentucky shared this with me about her husband, Frank:

Seven years ago he had a bright light appear under a door he could not open. This experience followed open heart surgery. He always said he would get in the next time because it was so peaceful. For seven years we joked about this. “Be sure you knock the next time you see the door,” I would tell him. On February 6, he did. I’ve had many lovely dreams about this wonderful man that have made perfect sense, since his departure. Most recently was in October, a few days before his cat died. I told my mother that he was coming for his cat (the cat had been sickly). Mom laughed. A few days later she cried when it happened.

This darling man has “guided” his family through some difficult circumstances since his death. One of my daughters had an eight-pound ovarian cyst removed plus an ovary, and we felt his presence with her. This past July our son had a most devastating motor vehicle accident and survived. Despite a moderate brain injury, he has made a miraculous recovery. Frank was with him, too. I find it truly amazing how the departed still love and care for their family from the other side.

Again and again I have seen that, even if foreknowledge is ignored, our actions and the happenstance of snap decisions can still be guided as if another force were intervening in our behalf. We know when we’re going to die because, in being born, we set in motion a plan arranged at a higher level of consciousness—the realm of the soul.

The soul exists. It is real, and I have seen it.