The day my father died was like no other. I was woken by the sound of my mother crying downstairs, having just discovered him. It was 4am. The day from that point on was a frenzy of activity as paramedics arrived, and then family and friends filled the house. By late afternoon I crawled upstairs to take a short nap. It was there that I had the most unusual dream.
In it, I was urgently trying to solve a maddenly strange mystery. How had my father, who had never shown any interest in such things, developed the ability to jump out of his body? Had he been taking secret evening-classes in shamanic journeying? How on earth had he developed such an advanced and subtle skill without breathing a word about it to anyone?
Upon waking, the actual situation dawned. But my dream was closer to the truth than might commonly be believed, because my father was still around. I could feel his presence more clearly than the day before, when he’d still been in his body.
Two years before he died, I had been drawn to reading books about neath-death experiences and after-life communications. I had studied voraciously, as if (it seemed later) in preparation for his passing.
My studies came in useful that day. While pandemonium reigned in the house, I found a quiet corner and started speaking to my father.
“What’s going on?” I heard him say in my mind.
“You’re dead.” I replied.
His astonishment and disbelief were palpable. I said what I could to reassure him, but it wasn’t long before someone was calling my name and that little moment of peace slipped away from us.
And so it went for the next five days. There was a huge amount of practical organising to be done, while surging tides of emotions washed through the house: grief, disbelief, anger. My father had been much loved, and everyone was overwhelmed at his sudden loss. Except me.
Why? Because it was palpably obvious to me that he hadn’t gone anywhere. He was still around: I felt him all over the house. Eventually our chats became less furtive and we could speak at greater length.
He was slowly accepting his new role. How could he not? He had been a staunch rationalist while still alive, and so when faced with the fact of his continued existence despite no longer having a body, the rational thing was to accept what I kept telling him: that he was dead, and yet he was okay. I kept suggesting that he look around for what might be spirit guides, friendly souls who were there to help him in his transition. But this didn’t seem to bear much fruit. Perhaps something more thorough was needed, but I still didn’t have the space for that.
After five days, however, things changed. My new girlfriend (Sundara, now my wife) flew back to Scotland. We’d only been living together for a few months when this happened. A little visit to London had turned into, well, something nobody had been expecting. She was as shell-shocked as the rest of my family, and as soon as she’d gone I realised that a lot of my attention had been with her, holding her through this strange ordeal.
But once she had gone, I was free to give my full attention to my Dad. He wasn’t distressed now, but he was still rather baffled by what was happening to him. I told my mother I needed an early night, closed the door, and then it was just me and him.
Now I told him it was time for him to move on. His time here was over and there was a better place waiting for him. He wanted to know that my mother would be alright, and I promised him that I would make sure she was. I urged him again to look around. Helpers would surely be nearby, he would be able to recognise them by their shining light. I urged him to follow them, and to trust what was happening. All would be okay.
It went on quite a while and I poured everything I had into reassuring my Dad and sending him on his way. Exhausted, I did indeed take an early night.
The sleep that followed was unlike any that I’d had before. My dreams were filled with light, light, light. I seemed to be ascending higher and higher, towards a light that bathed me in a precious sense of warmth and homecoming. It seemed to go on and on and on, an endless ascending journey into light.
When I awoke in the early morning, however, everything was different. Now my father really was gone. A vivid presence for the preceding five days, now his absence was shocking to me, and suddenly it was my turn to feel the tide of emotions. I fled the house and walked at 5am through the nearby park, crying for him. Not since I was a small child had I found myself walking and crying at the same time, and so loudly that the early morning dog-walkers across the park could surely have heard me.
I stayed in touch with my dad for a few more months, but the communication became less clear with time, and I started to wonder if I was hindering rather than helping his progress. Eventually, it was time to let this go too.
And then, almost exactly ten years after his death, I found myself reading another book on the afterlife. The author was writing that at some point there will come a tipping point in Western culture, where the ever-growing evidence for survival after death produces a sea-change in our collective understanding and expectations.
Suddenly a tremendous tiredness came over me. I lay down on the floor and let this strange exhaustion have me. Just as I was about to slip into unconsciousness my father came to me. His face was absolutely shining! He was much younger now, in his handsome and radiant prime, and he was with someone else, a female with whom he seemed especially connected and who had also come to see me. His mother? I had no idea. They both seemed overflowing with happiness and delight.
“It’s totally amazing here!!” he seemed to say, and I felt his joy hit me like a wave.
And that was that. He and his companion faded away, and I picked myself up off the floor, dazed by this strange experience.
I have continued to read books about the afterlife ever since, my reading seems to orbit forever about this central revelation: that we are more than our bodies, and belong to more than just this earth. I later read that what happened to me that night with my father has been termed a “shared-death experience” and that such things are quite widespread: a relative or close friend shares the experience of the dying person and their transition from this world to the next. Maybe my years of studying, and the way I sent my father on his way, earned me the privilege of making such a journey with him.
But I agree with the author of that book: the moment when our materialist culture wakes up to this larger picture will make huge waves. Indeed, those waves are already lapping at the fringes. I’ll be forever grateful that I got to share in my father’s journey, and to witness his stunning ability to jump out of his physical body, without attending a single shamanic evening-class!