The Second Chance (D & R)

I got the call on a Sunday morning, letting me know that he had died. We were expecting it, praying for it even, but when it actually happened, it still devastated me.

Friends called with their sympathies. "Your father was so proud of you, he was always talking about you and how much he loved you." Puzzled, all I could say was, "Really? He never told me he was proud of me, and never once in my life did he say he loved me."

"Well, he did," they would insist. "More than you know."

Three days after his passing, strange things began to occur. First, my then-husband decided to go out for a smoke about 11:00 pm. As he walked past a painting my father had done, a brilliant blue-white flash went off right in his face. He hadn't turned on any lights. I saw the flash as the light flooded the hallway. My first thought was a feeling of intense anger. My second thought was that this light didn't behave as regular light does. It was like the color of when magnesium burns, and it only went so far and no farther, like it was contained.

My husband came back into the bedroom and turned the light on. He was very pale and shaking. "Did you see that?! What WAS that?"

I asked if he turned on the light and maybe a light bulb burned out. He said no, he hadn't touched any lights, it just happened. I could feel a sense of anger and suddenly I felt like I was 4 years old, scared of the dark. I pulled the blankets up higher around my face.

Around 12:00 midnight, the phone began to ring. We had approximately 4 phones in the house, but only the one in the area by my father's painting was ringing. I picked up the extension in the bedroom but got an immediate dial tone. The phone in the dining area rang three times, then stopped. It repeated this pattern for the next hour, while my husband and I were cowering under the covers.

"Go in there and answer it," he told me. I looked at him like he was nuts. I could hardly move I was so freaked out.

"No way! I don't want to leave this bed!"

So on it went for that next hour. We thought perhaps, because we lived within 15 miles of an Army base, that maybe that brand of phone was picking up some kind of signal. I called the phone manufacturer the next day and explained what had happened. They said the phone wouldn't do that, it was impossible for just that one to ring and not the others. So I mentioned that my father had died three days prior. The tech guy was freaked out, but he had no explanation.

I had the uneasy feeling that, for some odd reason, my father was very angry at my husband, and was trying to warn me of something.

I had a dream a few nights later, in which I lead him through ancient Roman streets back to a small structure that I understood to be home. He looked at me and his eyes were made of amber, and I saw small bits of ferns and insects embedded in it. I took it to mean that he was saying goodbye.

Five years passed, and my husband was caught in an illicit affair with a co-worker. He had been draining our bank account of the money I received from my father's passing to pay for fancy dinners, clothes and jewelry for this woman, who was also married. I won't go into the horrible details of it all, I will only say that it almost destroyed me. I had just been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, I was sick and on meds, and then my world imploded and buried me beneath it.

I began to take a great deal of medication. I was so angry I couldn't function. I was by myself with two small kids and no family or friends within 100 miles. I started taking so many pills it became a real possibility that I would not wake up the following morning. My kids needed me and I walked around in shreds like a zombie.

It was then that dad came back to save me.

I started having dreams in which I was eating a bunch of pills, and he would appear and look at me sadly with his soulful brown eyes, shaking his head as if to say, "No, don't do that. That isn't the way." I would wake up awash in tears. I also had dreams with my ex in them, in which he was deliberately provoking me and I was so angry I was choking on it. Dad would appear between me and the ex, and he would look at me and shrug his shoulders as if to say, "So what. Let it go, don't let it get to you."

I felt worthless, abandoned and utterly lost. After a day of taking so many pills I was vomiting, I had a final warning from Dad in a dream. I told him I would stop. I woke up bawling and knew it was time. I returned all the meds to my doctor that afternoon and told him I wanted off. He assisted me through withdrawal and I never went down that path again.

The anger towards the ex was harder to kick than the opiate addiction. Time and again, Dad would come to me in dreams and try to show me that it was to my benefit to let the anger go. It was hard to do because each time I dropped the kids off, the ex would provoke me and we would fight. It was dreadful, the kids would cry, I would be enraged, and that fool would somehow feel better each time he upset us all. I hated that he took the kids in that condition.

I decided to move to Texas to get 1700 miles of geography between me and him. It was a beautiful feeling, knowing I never had to see the ex again. It took years and many dream visits from Dad, but I slowly let go of the anger and betrayal.

Then I started having dreams that I had married a man with a bunch of computer equipment. Dad was in the dream helping us move. In these dreams, this faceless man would do something to trip my anger switch, but Dad would do his shoulder shrug, look at me and smile. I felt he was saying that it wasn't worth getting upset over, and I had to stop being so reactionary.

Four years later I met and married an IT manager who built his own computers. Over the years, there would be times when I would get angry, and Dad would be there in dream time, extolling me to let it go, to flow with it. I always found this to be somewhat amusing, because in real life, Dad was a real firebrand with a hot temper. I figured that once he got to the other side, he realized the error of his ways and didn't want me to make the same mistakes.

My father, who was so hard on me while he was alive, who never once signed a birthday card for me, never once said he was proud of me, and never ever told me that he loved me, had gone over to the other side and became the kindest, most caring father anyone could ask for. I believe with all my heart that he not only showed me how important it was for my mental health to roll with the punches, but he saved my life. Without his intercession in my dreams, I'm certain I would have been an overdose statistic a decade ago.

Not only has this proven to me that there is life after death, but it also has given me hope that, no matter how badly we screw up in this lifetime, we all get a chance to make things right and help those we leave behind.

Dad showed me he loved me and saved me during the darkest time of my life. Thanks, Dad. I love you too.

I really like this. Speaks volumes to those of us that have lost a loved one.

reply to post by Overstuffed


Thanks, Overstuffed. Every word of this is true. It is painful to lose a loved one, but I know that our spirit goes on after death, and that love is a spiritual thing which transcends death. I no longer fear being dead, but I still fear the transition!

Funny that. I recently lost my fiancee. Always used to just suspect afterlife when I was younger. A suspicion that had gotten stronger over the years. With her death, I went from just suspecting to knowing too.

reply to post by Overstuffed


I'm so sorry you lost your fiance! Two questions: How long ago did she pass, and did she come to you to "say goodbye" in a dream or perhaps while you were awake?

She passed away on November 27th, just a few short weeks ago. She's been in my dreams constantly and I still feel her around. I've woken up in the middle of the night or early morning several times (as recently as tuesday morning) and it has felt like she was still alive laying in the bed next to me. Between her and I, it really hasn't been a goodbye, it's like she is either here with me, or sometimes getting some stuff done that needs doing or gets done in the afterlife side of things or in my dreams I sometimes am visiting her there as was the case when it was her birthday on the 17th. The day before christmas, I went and picked up a folded piece of paper to write a note on, and when I opened it up, there was a note she had written that was in a parcel she sent me back in july.

A few days after she passed, she did stop by to the nursing home to say good bye to her grandmother (who happens to have severe dementia and hasn't been told yet by any of the family). Her mom still hears her now and again, plain as day.

One morning, I woke up with the feeling that a nuke had been dropped somewhere in the area that her biological father lives. There were some really bad things that he did to her while she was growing up. The next day, her mom told me that her biological father had called and mentioned a dream that morning of her ripping him up one side and down the other over said issues, and yeah, letting that kind of anger go would be like a nuke going off.

Wonderful story, thank you for sharing. I saw that you asked someone else if their loved one had come to say goodbye.
After my father passed away my mother, my 2 sisters and 2 brothers and I were together (which doesn't happen often) talking about daddy and remembering his out of this world sense of humor.
After the funeral I went back to Texas with my mom. Sleeping in my parents bed with my mom I had a wonderful dream where my dad came to say goodbye. I dreamed about the moment when all of my family was together. In the dream while everyone was talking I glanced across the room and there was my daddy, standing there watching us. When he realized I noticed him he looked into my eyes with so much love and smiled. It was a smile that said, "I know you will all be ok, you have each other." And then I was awake. I will cherish that dream forever.

The way I look at it, loved ones don't "die", they pass out of their physical bodies but remain present. What really strikes me as poignant (and wonderful) is that the only thing that survives this transformation is love. All the petty stuff, all the nonsense, is gone, and what remains is the pure soul of the person and the bond they have with you. Not HAD, but have.

I love reading about other's experiences in this area, because I have had a few others with people who have passed on. For instance, my paternal grandmother, who raised me, died when I was 10 years old. Three days after she died, I had a dream that I found her in the kitchen, cooking like she always did. I was so happy to see her there, and asked her if she could stay. She said that she really wanted to stay, but it was her time to go and she was not allowed to be with us physically anymore. I felt so sad but she hugged me and said I would be just fine and to be a good girl.

I believe that, when we are in REM sleep, our brain waves are such that we can easily be reached from that other dimension and loved ones can easily communicate with us on a very deep level. When we are awake, there is too much distraction and static. Sometimes, though, things just "show up" that were connected with that person, such as the note Overstuffed wrote about. Some people can feel the presence while awake, such as a cool breeze which comes up out of nowhere and suddenly you feel their presence quite strongly.

The only time I have ever had communication while I was awake was after my oldest daughter's father was murdered. She was 14 at the time, and although her father and I were divorced, we were still amicable. He had a girlfriend who had a lot of handguns (never a good thing). He broke up with her, told her to move out and went to sleep. She responded by shooting him with a .38 point blank in the chest while he slept, then waiting 1/2 an hour to call 911 and claim that the gun went off "accidentally". Long story short, my daughter was hysterical from it, and I didn't know how to reach her. I drove to an old cemetery in the country and wandered around the 100 year old gravestones in a fog, not knowing what to do. I suddenly heard his voice saying, "I'm fine, and you guys will be fine too. Look over to where the sun is shining and I'll prove it to you."

It was foggy, but a small hole had appeared in the clouds and a ray of sun was shining on a new grave in the back of the cemetery. When I went over to look, a new gravestone had the name CHARLES WALKER, which was my ex's first and middle name. I knew then that it would be ok.

I would love to read more about other's experiences with this. I hope other people will post and share on this thread. It makes me have so much hope for mankind, knowing that, in the end, nothing survives but love.