Linda Died and Then What?

I had a great friend Linda, who has since died from complications from colon cancer. She was a lawyer and had a very deductive side to her brain, but also was very spiritual and was much like me in her thinking spiritually. We would talk for hours about death and dying and what to expect after that. She would always claim that she wasn't afraid of dying and, in fact, looked forward to being out of this body and this world, because it was much too difficult and people and family never lived up their goodness.

            When she was diagnosed with cancer, her mind changed quickly about her willingness to die. She woud call me often and tell me how precious life was and what a gift it was to just be breathing and to be healthy. I would listen carefully, because I wanted to understand what turned this staunch lawyer mind in a completely different direction about death and dying.

            Our talks lasted very long at first, but as she progressed in her stage-4 cancer diagnoses, they would get shorter and shorter, until finally, our last conversation was about 5 minutes to tell me good-bye. We vowed to try to stay in touch from the other side. 

            This may seem strange to some of you, but the day she died, I was sleeping and something—a presence—a light—came into my room. I woke up and saw her plain as day. She was giggling, like a little girl. (She could get like that sometimes.) She wondered if I could hear her. She asked me over and over again. I kept saying, "I hear you. Can you hear me?" She laughed and said, "Yes, I do." 

            But being still in lawyer mind, she needed proof. She asked me to do something like lift my hand and shake it. I did it. She laughed again. "I can't believe this," she replied. 

            Then the strangest thing happened. She said that she wanted me to find the silver bell that she gave me for Christmas 8 years prior and ring it every time I was talking to her, so she would know for sure that I saw her in the spirit. Well, I had no idea where that bell was. I hadn't seen it in years. We talked for a while longer. I asked her what it felt like to be in spirit. She said that she felt light and free and wanted to stay with me and her family a while longer before she went to be with God. She said she was given a choice about that.

            She also said that she asked to come back to the earth plain to help on this side after she was trained to do whatever she was supposed to do on the spiritual side. 

            I fell back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning and reached for my alarm knocking something off the nightstand. What was right next to my bed, but that silver bell—like it had been there the entire time. I'm getting chill bumps as I speak about it. 

            Linda doesn't come back and talk to me as often as she used to. When she does, it is almost as if she is farther away and harder to hear, but I can still make out what she's saying. She's bigger and grander is the only way I can describe it. But she comes when I need her, like a guardian angel. I'd like to believe that maybe she is my guardian angel, helping me out of the toughest spots in life. 

            Wouldn't it be lovely to think that people in our lives that know us the best, go on to be our guardian angels in the spiritual realm after they die? It would make the most sense to me. Who would know us better? Who would be able to help us the most? 

            I have put aside all that I have learned about religion and what I'm supposed to believe and just let what is happening to me in life teach me the lessons of I'm supposed to learn. I know I want Good and love and truth. I'm not forsaking God and Jesus in my search, just forsaking the books and lessons that have kept me stuck in a box my entire life. I know there is more and want that more to teach me all that It can so that I can be the best Bo I can be. 

            Here's to living out of the box.