When a parent dies, it is as though a "piece" of us dies also ... we are never really the same again.  Below is an extremely interesting experience I had a week after my own father passed in 1988.

I wrote up my spiritual experience (after more than 20 years of procrastinating) I had through an intentional meditation of mine the week my dad died at Eastertime.  My experience in this case is because when my Dad died on Friday, 3/25/1988 at Freeport Memorial Hospital, a week later, I decided to do this meditation on Good Friday because I did not get the chance to say goodbye to him in person.  I was working at St. Therese in Waukegan and my dad was in Freeport Hospital, all the way across the state of Illinois.  I simply did not get there "in time."

Weird stuff had been happening to me for several weeks before this.  I was working FT at St. Therese then, having been hired just two months prior.  Anyway at home, I kept seeing little pinpoint flashes of red light here and there which I thought was weird.  I had a gold bracelet of my Grandma Evans (my father's mother) that I wore from time to time and it was sitting on a table in the living room.  One night, there were these little red light flashes jumping around in the vicinity of that bracelet.  Oh well, weird stuff happens to me, so I just take note of these occurrences.  Now in retrospect, I think it WAS my grandmother in my apartment hanging around because she knew my dad was going to pass soon and she was waiting to be there to meet him when he passed.  She was sending me a "message" more or less that she was around. 

The night of 3/24/1988, Thursday, I had worked all day.  I knew dad was in the hospital (another myocardial infarction), but Easter was 4/03/1988 and I was planning to go out to Stockton, Illinois where they lived then to see them.  Easter dinner was big to my dad.  Since I had only started at St. Therese a couple of months prior; I just couldn't "take off" for a few days and leave because of my dad being in the hospital.  The night of 3/24, I was tired but it was like some little "gnat" (for lack of a better description) kept pushing me to call my dad at Freeport Hospital and so I did just that. I really had decided to call my dad the next evening, Friday, giving him a bit of time to recuperate in the hospital BUT that little "gnat" as I call it kept pushing me to call NOW.   I called his direct number at the hospital around 7 p.m. and my dad picked up.  His speech was extremely garbled and I had a hard time understanding him but he actually sounded in quite good spirits!  He was telling me how proud he was of what Vincent (my son) was turning into as a young man (16 at that time) and making sure I was coming out on Easter.  The next morning, Friday, I went to work until about 8:30 a.m. when my sister's boss called me from the telephone company telling me Margaret had gotten a call that my dad was dying and to come quick.  I remember walking down the corridor to the parking garage at the hospital and when I got to the end of it, I felt sort of like a sudden swoon but was fine.  (I think this was the moment my father passed quite frankly and there was a breaking of that father/daughter psychic connection momentarily).

My dad's funeral was at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Stockton the following Tuesday - his wish - and the church was packed that day.  The night before at his wake, I was the last one to see him before his casket was closed and I think it was meant to be that way, predestined quite frankly. 

On Good Friday, we had the day off (of course - Catholic hospital) and that afternoon, I decided to meditate to make contact with my father because I did not make it to Freeport to say goodbye before he passed.  I have gotten in trouble by telling several priests about it - like doing this kind of meditation was a mortal or cardinal sin or something - they are wrong - but anyway, I don't talk to any priests at all any more about anything because they are so close-minded.  I would probably tell Pope Francis about it if I ever had the chance, but that's about it. Too may "religious" people live in a "box of church dogma" and if you are not open to the spiritual world, how can you experience spiritual occurrences?

Anyway, it was 12 noon on Good Friday, 4/01 of all things, and I just wanted to be left alone that day as it was still sinking in - all that happened that week.  I made the decision as to my specific intention to meditate for the sole purpose of contacting my dad to make sure "he had made it to the other side/heavenly world okay" and that's all there was to it.  I lay down on my bed on my back, took a couple of deep breaths, relaxed and said the Our Father for spiritual protection.  I was totally conscious and everything and had all my wits about me.  Instantaneously with finishing the Lord's Prayer, I felt/heard a click or pop RIGHT in the MIDDLE OF MY HEAD and felt a swoon to my right.  There I was in an extreme state of heightened awareness with my consciousness mainly in my "spiritual body" but I was also still in my physical body - I was in two bodies at the same time.  I felt I was a hundred thousand times more aware than I had ever been my entire life, instead of six senses, having like 100 senses, and felt very light and straight (comparing it to a feeling of maybe being on the moon with no gravity and having the freedom to bounce around all over the place).  First thing I thought to myself "..Wow, I don't even want a cigarette and I want to "STAY" in this state of awareness!"  I don't want to go back to where I was!   I felt the healthiest, most aware and most alive I had ever felt on any other day in my entire life.  I knew where I was, time did not exist.  Do you know what I think?  The plane of existence I was on was simply "eternity."  After happily "bouncing around" (for lack of a better description) for a couple of minutes, I had the "sensation" that Grandma and Grandpa Evans (who died in 1951 when I was 2) were high above me - way above me - and I recognized them immediately (although with my physical eyes, I did not see them - I didn't have to).  Funny thing was, I wasn't even really looking for them and just like that, they showed up!  I felt them coming down behind me - my grandma to my left and grandpa to my right.  Then it was as if their "beings" totally enveloped every cell of me (and for comparison again - sort of like being a very tiny baby wrapped warmly in a blanket).  My grandparents were more alive than I could ever remember them in life.  They both passed in 1951, one right after the other when I was 2 and I have memories of them, very much so.  AND it was as if no time had passed since I had last seen them.  I got the "sensation" from them that they were greeting me with something like "Hi!  How are you?"  I could tell the difference between the essence of both of these souls also - my grandmother was the strongest essence.  But I know one thing, the two of them are still together.  When Grandpa Evans died, everyone said it was from a "broken heart" after my Grandma died.

They (my grandparents) stayed with me during my entire meditation (maybe keeping an eye on me?).  This reaffirmed to me that when my dad passed, both of them were immediately there to meet him.  The next thing that happened was I felt this very strong wave like vibration coming from very far away and above me entering through the top of my head and swirling down through my "solar plexus."  I can't really describe it - it was like a river that kept coming and coming, getting closer and closer to me.  It was huge and all-encompassing.  When it got to me, it stopped but I felt it was still moving - I still felt its vibration rippling through me.  Important - the being of energy that I felt going through me like a river during my meditation entering at the top of my head, went down through my entire body, pulsing down through my head and through my solar plexus region and out my feet.  This was continuous and constant.  I think maybe it was the Holy Spirit, this entity who knew I was there on the "other side" as a visitor and knew WHY I was there.  I felt the presence of my father then and knew all was well with him and he was happy. 

Then after experiencing all this, I had the sensation of my Grandma Evans to my left as a "golden light being" and she inferred to me that I had to go back to my normal life.  I wanted to stay there, like that, in the condition I was in but it was like a "hand pushing me back," again felt strongly in my solar plexus area.  Then as fast as the whole thing started, it ended and I was my normal self again!  I looked at the clock and exactly 15 minutes had passed while I was in this advanced state of awareness but to think of it, I could not connect that experience with time because where I was, there was no time.

So now, Easter week is always special for me.  I don't tell of this experience too often as it drains me of energy going through it all again - I think it is difficult for me because I am attempting to "combine describing two planes of existence at once" and when describing something like this that is too intangible, there are no words in language to truly describe it, it drains me.  Plus I have been told by several people that I am "too esoteric of a person" for them to understand.  I know one thing, if I ever get to go "back there," I am not leaving.