Intimations of Life and Love beyond Death

Last month, I bought a book entitled Miraculous Messages from Heaven, subtitled as 101 Stories of Eternal Love, Powerful Connections, and Divine Signs from Beyond, a a2013 edition of Chicken Soup for the Soul edited by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Amy Newmark. The book is a compilation of stories of experiences of connections with loved ones who have passed on from this life, aptly termed as “miraculous messages from heaven”. I, too, have received miraculous messages from beyond when my beloved mother passed on last year (April 19, 2013).

I would like to share my stories to the readers, to everyone who would be interested to read, especially to those who have experienced losing loved ones in this world and who also have the hope of being reunited with them in the next life. We share a common humanity; we are pilgrims in this world who have some common questions about the origin and purpose of life, and about death and the mystery of the afterlife.

Materialists debunk the existence of the afterlife with the argument that it cannot be empirically tested, or that we cannot observe it with our human senses. Materialists would say everything came into existence by pure chance; everything that has no empirical proof cannot be said to be true or factual. On the other hand, believers in the afterlife believe that there is a spiritual realm; God exists and this world and the whole universe have been created by an all-powerful and all-wise Being. Everything has a purpose; nothing came about by chance.

Openness to the sense of wonder and mystery and to the existential need to love and be loved without end stands in stark contrast to the coldness of materialism, to its negation of an afterlife and a higher purpose for human existence. My stories below can only be appreciated by those whose hearts are open to mystery and wonder and to the existence of a life beyond this world.

It was April 19, 2013. I joined a group of UP Cebu faculty members to see an art exhibit in Mactan, Lapu-Lapu. We then partook of a dinner in an affair at the Lapu-Lapu Shrine which showcased small and medium business enterprises and a fashion show of designers’ summer outfits.

When we were going back to the van to go home, I smelled for a few seconds a very sweet scent of flowers, like the scent of freshly blooming jasmine flowers (Sampaguita). When I got back to our apartment in Lahug, Cebu City, I received a text message from my elder sister that pained me to the very depths of my being – my mother who was living in Calamba, Laguna was brought to the hospital but she was declared dead on arrival. My mother is a stoic woman who would not want to be a burden to anyone of us, her children; she would not tell anyone if she was not feeling well and would rather bear her sickness in silence. Her death came as a surprise to us and we learned that she died of bleeding in her stomach. She was 83 years old.

Alone in my room, I cried my heart out, and as I was crying, I smelled again the scent of jasmine though there were no jasmine plants around our apartment, and my room was far from the street where someone carrying jasmine flowers can pass by. I did not associate the smell yet with the presence of my mother, but when I heard my elder sister telling the story of her officemates smelling a very sweet scent of blooming jasmine flowers when they boarded an elevator with my sister, I realized that it was my mother’s sign of her presence and visitation of her children. She visited my elder sister in Makati and she visited me in Cebu. I remembered that my mother likes buying Sampaguita garlands after attending Masses and she would place them in our altar at home in Calamba, Laguna.

I love to read near-death experiences and I have learned from these stories that spirits can fly, unencumbered as they are by the human body. Spirits can travel very, very fast, as fast as the speed of thought. They can be anywhere they think of going to. So, without the need for airplane or boat, my mother, whom I really wanted to come to Cebu but never had the chance to do so while she was still alive on earth, was able to visit me in Cebu when her spirit separated from her frail, sick, and wasted body. She even visited me in our office as I smelled again the smell of Sampaguita while I was alone in our office days after we buried her body.

My mother sent me another message through a dream. She told me repeatedly as she used to do when we, her children, would call her from different places, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you”. It was her message of saying “I forgive you for not calling me up as often as you should, and I love you just the same.” It was for me, a message of eternal love, a sign of an eternal connection with my beloved mother. Mothers are God’s great gifts to us for we are connected to them even if our umbilical cords have been cut off from them.

The loving connection with our beloved mothers would remain beyond this life. The same is true with our loving connection with other people whom we have loved much and who have loved us also. I yearn to see my dear sister Virgie once more and see her healthy and beautiful, not anymore wasted by dialysis due to kidney failure.

In my solitary musings, I asked God to let me visit my mother and sister – even just in a dream – to see how they are doing and promised Him I will come back to earth. God did not grant me this request, but He answered my question on how is my mother in a different way.

Rommel, the caretaker of our house in Calamba, Laguna, related to me his dream about my mother. He said that he dreamed of my mother meeting him as he was walking along the road. My mother was wearing all white, the kind of dress she wears when she goes to Church to be a lector.

They entered through a white gate, and inside he saw a white house, and they entered through the door of the house. He did not expect the view inside to be so wide and so expansive. He said the place was so bright. My mother told him to take a walk to see the whole place.

Rommel walked and walked and he said he did not feel tired walking. The place seems to have no limit, no end. He saw people wearing white watering flowers at both sides of the road. The people smiled at him. Rommel said that the people did not seem to mind the time. Everybody was happy and was good at one another. He saw a very clear stream with falling waters and people get waters from this stream using garden-like containers.

The people watered the flowering plants from the water of this very clear and clean stream of water. Then he returned to see my mother and my mother asked him to go back to our house because no one was in it. She asked him to take care of our house and of our two dogs. She led him through the door and when he passed through the door, he could not see my mother anymore or the house. He only saw tall grasses which he parted with his hands to look for my mother. Then he woke up from his dream and it was already morning.

I wrote this dream down on my notebook to remember it well, and also because I believed it is God’s message and my mother’s message for us, her children. She is now in a place of beauty, of light, and love, where there is a very fresh stream of waters. The people watering the flowers from the very clear stream could mean that they are watering souls on earth with their prayers symbolized by their drawing out of waters from the fountain of God’s grace to water the souls of their loved ones on earth.

The last dream I had of my mother occurred last December 2013. I was in my mother-in- law’s house for the Christmas break with my husband. It was our first Christmas without our mother, so sadness filled my heart that December. Then I had a dream. My mother and I were in our house in Calamba, Laguna. My mother was preparing to leave to see some show somewhere, and she left food for me to eat.

In the dream, I felt uncomfortable that my mother was leaving, so I said to her, “Nay, can I go with you?” My mother told me I have things to do, or that I am still doing a lot of things. Then I woke up. I thought of the dream and realized that it was my mother in the dream.

I have things to do before I go to see the other side, the other world. And so I keep busy with those things I am supposed to do in this world before I cross over to meet my loved ones again who have gone ahead to the other world and be with them in a place of wonder and love forever.

Three of my family members have passed on from this life (both of my parents and my older sister), and my curiosity about the next life increased because of this. My father passed on in April 3, 2001; my older sister Virgie in April 19, 2011; and my beloved mother Prisca (nicknamed Itching, but whom we call “Nanay”) in April 19, 2013. I believe that the similarity of the date of death of my older sister and my mother is not a mere coincidence, but is part of a divine plan.

About the author: Belinda F. Espiritu is a faculty member of the University of the Philippines Cebu. She holds a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature and a PhD degree in Communication. She would like to hear from the readers about their feedback or comments on her articles through her email address: belinda.espiritu@gmail.com to set a conversation going even after her articles have been published.