Does anyone have experiences that have made them believe in life after death?

[Magicpaintbrush]

My DH died in April. He had bowel cancer and was only 46 years old and not ready to die. I made the mistake today of picking up the photo album I made full of photos of him and I am having a really tough morning, my heart is absolutely broken. The only thing that gets me through the days is talking aloud to him and hoping that he is somewhere 'else' and can hear me or see me, but then I have moments where I think I am kidding myself and I am just a sad, grieving woman talking to thin air. I don't know what to believe, I hover between the two. But today I absolutely cannot and do not want to believe that there is nothing after death, I can't cope with the thought that he exists nowhere at all anywhere. He was so strong and had so much personality, it makes no sense. Does anybody have any personal experiences or know of any true stories that have led them to believe there is 'something' after we die? I would find it really comforting to hear from people that believe and have a reason why they believe. To those who believe we are just dust after death, you may be right, but today I can't hear that, and I don't need to be told that as I already know that is possible - which is why I haven't posted this in AIBU as I know the first 30 replies would be people rushing to tell me I'm deluding myself by hoping there is something more than darkness after we die. If anybody has anything to share that would bring some comfort today I am very ready to listen x

So sorry for your loss.

I believe we will be reunited one day with those we've lost....no direct experience, I just don't think the world is so cruel as to not.

Yes, too many to list. I have never been to a medium and probably never will, but sometimes I am blown away by coincidences and ‘signs’. And I tend not to talk about this IRL but apparently I was always chatting away to people in my room as a child that no-one else could see!

And before anyone starts berating me or calling me ‘woo’, I have an MSc and a wholly scientific background.

My thought is that how can we possibly have the answer to something so unknowable, so to be so sure that there is nothing other than what we see in front of us (which is, to an extent, an illusion), is utterly closed-minded and pointless.

You have suffered nothing less than a tragedy, and the shock is beginning to wear off so the grief becomes overwhelming. It’s a long road and nobody should tell you how to walk it and I want to send plenty of good thoughts your way.
Edited to add: keep talking to him, don’t over analyse it, and never ever worry about what other people are thinking.

My DH has been battling a 'whack-a-mole' cancer since 2014 but this latest diagnosis of last month, is going to be his last I suspect. I feel the same way about him as you do about your DH @Magicpaintbrush I am in the pits of grief over what is to come over the next few months but am trying to stay upbeat around him so the last few months of our lives together are not overshadowed.

I have had several experiences of the woo sort over the years but I was with my Dad when he died and his Mum came to get him.

He had been non verbal for five months but a few hours before he died, the went from being unconscious to sitting up, raising his arms out and greeting his mother exactly as he always did in life (I won't put his exact words here as he called her by her name and the nickname he always used for her). His face lit up on seeing her. He slipped back down onto the bed, looking the most comfortable he had for weeks and slipped away a few hours later.

No-one will ever convince me that his adored mother didn't come and get him.

I have asked DH's Mum to come and get him when his time is here.

A few of the strongest signs since my daughter died last year.

For her funeral I had to choose 3 songs. There was a fourth I was going to add, it’s an old song you don’t hear much but she always liked it. I emailed the celebrant but then changed my mind and asked her to remove it. After the funeral, I walked into her wake just as that song came over the sound system.

My other daughter and I were driving to get our memorial rings made. She started talking about a song she and my late daughter remembered me playing all the time when they were kids but she hadn’t heard it in years. The radio was playing ads as she was telling me this. The next song was that song.

In the days leading up to her first heavenly birthday, I asked for a very specific sign - a coin, you don’t see them much these days nobody carries cash. Every day I’d say “please send me a coin, please put a coin in front of me”. On the day of her birthday I was leaving my other daughters house, looked down at the path and there was a 2p coin.

I am so sorry for your loss. Anything that brings comfort is fine in my book. I went to my nieces wedding in May. My mum, her Nan, died last year. I could’ve sworn I saw her dancing away, a fleeting glimpse, but it was lovely to think that she was there enjoying the moment.

I'm sorry so many of you are also going through grief and loss, but it is comforting to hear that things have happened which feel like signs there is something more. It is so hard to be in this no-mans-land of grief, just putting one foot in front of the other but feeling like life is on hold - I think because I'm so far from acceptance that I still keep thinking he will walk back through the door. I don't honestly think I was in my right mind for the first six weeks after he passed away, and the thought of him being 'somewhere else' but still existing in some way is something you cling to to get through the days. It's one thing to deal with what I and our DD have lost, but another level of grief altogether to know what he has lost - the future he will never have, so to imagine him living on somehow with family members who passed before him is comforting. But I swing between belief and despair.

OP I am going to suggest the book A Grief Observed, by CS Lewis. He wrote it after losing his wife. I gave a copy to a friend after his wife died and he found it very resonant and touching.
I have had experiences of unexplainable things, but not directly related to losing loved ones, so I can’t help with that, but I also talk to people I have lost.
I am very sorry that you lost your DH.

The day after my dad died a white owl sat on my bedroom window sill looking in at me. I had never seen an owl in my life, let alone a white owl! So I take that as a sign from my dad.

I'm so sorry for your terrible loss. 46 is way too young.

Oh @BeKookyExpert sending you love and hugs.
😢To lose a beloved child must be beyond heartache.
I am so glad you had some signs.
My grandfather would sometimes stretch out his arms to hug someone in the days before he died. He definitely saw his mother. 🩷

I too, am so sorry for your loss Op, and those of the pps.

In my case, I have been the beneficiary of a few ‘coincidences’ to do with my health, and I hold the belief that my mother’s hand was guiding me, and the others involved.

I also observed that, very shortly after my dad passed , his sister called me, to say she felt him go. She told me the time he died, which was about an hour before she called. She lives 400 miles away. My aunt knew he was ill, of course, but we had not called anyone with the news at that point.

So yes, I have no religious faith, it I choose to believe there is an afterlife of sorts.

So sorry for your loss @Magicpaintbrush and other posters too.

myDad had several heart attacks around 25 years ago and had emergency heart surgery.
he ‘died’ (flatlined?) in the theatre.

he said he saw the tunnel of light then saw a sort of sky filled with pink sort of clouds. He said he know that beyond the clouds he could see anyone he had lost, and do anything he wanted - he gave the example that he could have played a piano like Mozart- anything.

he then came back to his body because they were shocking his heart and it restarted.
he says he doesn’t worry about dying now because of his experience.

I felt my dad go. I felt a strange pressure on my hand anccompsnied by a sinking feeling. Ten minutes later the phone rang. He died at the same time he held my hand. I know it was him saying goodbye.

I believe we are primarily souls and that part never dies as it is energy- it can only be transformed. Our bodies are a bit like a car, and our soul is the driver. So eventually the body is cast off but the soul goes on. We are on Earth for our souls to learn and progress- it is like a school. I hope this point of view can give you some comfort that your husband is still around you, just in a different form.

Years ago, I went to say good-bye to a close friend who was dying of cancer. She was physically very depleted but perfectly lucid and able to talk in the same articulate way she always had done. I held her hand as we talked, soon forgetting about how very thin she had become since I had last seen her. At one point she said to me: 'There's something else for me now.' We were looking one another and I had a very brief few seconds of feeling I was confronting what we call the spirit and believing without doubt that she would live beyond her physical death.

14 days later, she died, and 15 years later to the day my DD, my only child, was born.

I'm so sorry for your loss @Magicpaintbrush . Your husband sounds like the sort of person who could light up a room and who everyone could lean on.

My mum lost her parents when she was young and with the passing of time she mentioned them rarely. One day when mum was very elderly but not unwell she told me that she'd had the most incredibly realistic dream that her parents had come to see her. She was really animated as she told me how lovely it was to talk to them again and she was so comforted and reassured by the experience which was obviously vividly real to her. I have to say I smiled and said, 'how lovely mum' but to myself thought it was just mum going a bit doodally (Sorry mum!). Mum died the next day. I immediately thought that she was right, they had come to collect her. It's given me a real peace that she's not on her own and that I can look forward to meeting her again one day.

I do hope these replies give you comfort and that one day your precious photos will bring you only happy memories.

My mother had an unusual name. She died several years ago. I was recently walking to a job interview and feeling anxious and I said to her, “I could really use your support right now” and the woman walking by me going in the opposite direction said “Hi, it’s (unusual name)! Everything is fine!”

I am sorry for your loss x

The night before my nana died, I dreamt of my grandad, he came to see me in my dream and told me he was coming to take my nana away and look after her. She wasnt ill at the time, but the next day my dad got a call from a neighbour to say her curtains hadn't been opened. When he went round she had passed away in her sleep. I always take comfort in that dream and do believe we will see our loved ones again. So sorry for your loss xx

Hi OP 🩷 I like to listen to accounts from people who have had near death experiences (lots on YouTube and podcasts). There are so many of them and they are very powerful and uplifting to hear - and they all say they no longer fear death as they know there’s something else.

So sorry for your loss.

Yes. My husband died aged 45, suddenly but not really unexpected. I had lots of little signs that you could probably explain away, but many years later I had an experience I can't explain, went for a tarot reading with mediumship, the reader knew me but didn't know any of the details about him. She described the cause of death, the position I found him in, the way she spoke was just how he did.

But the biggest thing for me was, I felt his presence. Didn't expect it, but I could feel him pass me and somehow I knew he was standing behind her. After she had finished, I told her I had felt him there and without prompting, she confirmed where she had felt him behind her.

That said, I believed anyway, but I am doubly sure now. I'm sorry for your loss. It's the most horrible place on earth, the club that no one wants to join, but you're not alone. You will get there. Biggest of hugs xxx

Firstly, so sorry for your loss. He sounds like an a beautiful person.
Colm Keane is an Irish journalist ( who has sadly passed away) who wrote several books about " near death experience" and premonitions and stories regarding death and the afterlife. His only son died of cancer in 2007 and he started researching the whole area. Before he died he told his wife he was not worried re death and was going to the light. Going Home and Heading for the Light are two of his books.

I did have a premonition my DH would die. I don't know if it's just coincidence or if it means something more, but about 18 months before he was diagnosed with cancer I spoke to both my mum and my nan separately and told them I had a horrible feeling he was going to get cancer, and he did. In fact when I spoke to them about it it's very likely he already had it but we didn't know because he had no symptoms at that point. By the time he started getting symptoms it had spread from his bowel to his lungs and liver, but there was no sign of anything until then. So I had that feeling, prior to it happening, but I didn't know it would be bowel, that shocked me. I also, for about ten years prior to that, would wake in the night with terrors that he would die - only about him, not about anyone else. Just this dread and fear, like my subconscious knew that something awful was coming and I couldn't stop it. Does it mean something that I had these premonitions, or was it just fear talking? I don't know. I read about 'soul contracts' - it's a thing where they say that prior to being born you agree to experience a particular and challenging life experience in order to grow and learn, even if it is terrible and hard, your soul develops and learns as a result of it. It might be nonsense, but I did wonder about it, because of the premonition, like I was expecting something terrible to happen and it did.

He was amazing. So funny, so charismatic, brave, my best friend. I don't care if it's outing; he was a police inspector and I was so proud of him. He did so much good, he was so capable and confident. He was my best friend. He was the best company in the world. He made me laugh more than anyone in the world. He was a brilliant dad to our DD. He felt things very deeply, we never ran out of things to talk about. He fought the cancer until the last ten minutes. Even on the day he died he kept trying to get out of bed, he was trying to talk to us. He fought it with everything he had. He was so strong. He was incredible. I will be so proud of him for the rest of my life.

I used to work in an undertakers, and it's a hard thing to describe but when you're with a body, there really is nothing there. Just an empty shell. The persons "soul" or identity has long left there. And I felt that really strongly after sitting with my Dad when he'd passed away.

I think we will always carry those people we love deeply around us though, they're part of the fibre of our beings, part of our DNA. And that's how they never leave.

I’m a registered nurse of many years and I have had the privilege of being with people as they have left this world. In many cases, I am convinced someone from the other side comes to guide them over. An elderly lady told me her husband Joe was standing beside me, waiting for her. Another gentleman said he could see his mother and father coming over.

@Magicpaintbrush your DH sounds wonderful.
I totally believe there’s something after death. My mum and I used to find random 1/2p coins when I was a kid, after she died I’d find 1/2p coins at random places in the house.
I went to see a psychic a few years ago, my mum and dad were definitely there; there’s no way the psychic could have guessed the information she told me.
It was very comforting, it still is.