The influence of grief on the deceased

- 11 - Do not believe for a moment that he is lost in the depths of space! No, he is closer to you than you imagine. But an impenetrable vail hides him from you. He can see you and he loves you forever and he sighs about the sad situation your lack of trust in God has placed you. He wishes with all his heart for the point in time when he will be granted his wish to show himself to you. But this point in time depends entirely on you, namely whether you want to accelerate it or retard it. Pray to God and say with me: ‘Dear God, forgive me for having doubted your justice and your kindness! If you have punished me, I acknowledge that I have deserved it! Please accept my remorse and my subjugation under your will gracefully!’ M. You have managed to have a ray of hope light up in my soul! It is like a flash of lightning in the night that surrounds me. Accept my gratitude! I will pray. As God commands! Benjamin C. 10. The desperation of a Father The following account stems from the English medium Grace Cooke (died 1979). Her psychic gifts emerged for the first time when she was twelve years old. Her ability as a clairvoyant, clairaudient and as a deep trance medium lasted for more than 60 years. She entertained contact with a multitude of otherworldly entities and they often asked for her help. She describes such an experience with the following words (9, P. 12): “A married couple had lost their only son, a 14 years old boy, the brother of a 17 years old girl. They all loved one another and they were happy. The young people were promising students and they were amongst the best in their respective classes. The young boy became seriously ill one day. In spite of the fact that everything possible done for him, he went down-hill and eventually died. The family was inconsolable. As religious as they were, they still believed in life after death. But when this tragedy happened, their faith underwent a bitter test. The father’s own words, when he wrote to me, were: ‘I searched and prayed and fervently called upon my creator, but heaven’s doors remained shut. My prayers were not heard, only the cries of my own heart returned to me.’ After months of the worst kind of mental and spiritual anguish, an inner feeling directed him to a church service. He sat on the hindmost pew in the church – a broken man. I was the speaker of this special event and I noticed a spiritual light around this man who was a stranger to me at that time. But my second sight (clairvoyance) then showed me the spiritual figure of a youngster who stood close to his father. A telepathic connection ensued between the youngster and myself, but nothing happened at this first encounter. When the church service had come to an end, I made enquiries about the man in the hindmost pew and I made a point of remembering his name. On my journey home I mulled over some of the incidents, when I suddenly heard an unknown voice whisper to me: ‘Please write to my father.’ In my thoughts I answered: ‘To whom shall I write?’ The answer came immediately and I received the name of the man in the church. I had a long day that day and as I was tired, I brushed the affair aside. It completely slipped my mind by next morning. To my slight annoyance, because I was snowed under with domestic chores, he appeared again and once again said: ‘Please write to my father. Tell him that I am alive and that I am often with him at home. Please write immediately, because it is urgent.’ His supplication was so strong and touching that I saw myself forced to sit down, grab paper and pen and write. His words flooded through me. This was the letter of a son who wrote to his beloved father, from whom he had been separated for a long time. The son now confirmed his identity clearly and explicitly. He wrote numerous details about his childhood, his possessions, his watch and also about his long departed grandfather whom he had met on the other side of the veil and from whom had had received his watch as a present. He also mentioned his sister and his mother and he remembered domestic details that had changes since his death, things that he had actually seen when present in his spiritual body. It was in every respect a letter of reunification, used by the son the bridge the abyss between them after a long separation, during the time when ‘heaven seemed closed’ and the father cries of anguish did not receive an answer.