The
fatalities of two young men,
one of them my youngest brother, years ago compelled me to make my peace with the
whole issue of death and dying, thus initiating a journey that has evolved into
a vocation, a calling that you see reflected in this website. Over the years I absorbed so much from this
exploration that I finally had to wonder what I could do to share this important
knowledge with others.
Jimmy was my youngest sibling, and he and his best buddy were 21 years
old. Their physical demise [car accident] occurred at a time when "near-death experiences" began to attract
a lot of medical and scientific, as well as popular interest, thanks to physician,
Raymond Moody, Jr.'s first book Life
After Life. I read all the materials I could get my hands on of this
nature, including the writings of Kenneth Ring,
PMH
Atwater, Dannion Brinkley,
so many others--for all these 21 years since [as of July '06]. This
journey has gifted me with insights and inspirations that eventually led to the
creation of this and another website, in order to share them with others and to
contribute some advantages
in the process that have even yet to be fully available, otherwise.
An incident of the nonphysical variety happened shortly after their deaths and
has been highly influential in my journey since, an after-death communication
[ADC], and this is not my story, but my mother's, which is here,
if you would like to read it. In essence, apparently Jimmy visited her,
there is just no physical explanation for what happened. And she soon told
me -- and thereby clearly contributed to an irrepressible personal need to know
more about nonphysical reality and how it relates to us in this world .. and how
we relate to it now and at and beyond the instant or state we refer to as 'death'.
The fact that it had as much impact on me, who was not present at the event, as
it did on her demonstrates one of the main points of this website -- the
"power of
story." I have heard and read probably thousands of
such stories, and individually and collectively they have made an enormous
difference in my life. But short of having your own experiences of this
nature, there's nothing like hearing someone like your mother or good friend
tell you, from hir
mouth to your ears. Maybe it's a stranger instead, but there is something
that connects. You may vaguely remember a book or tv program years later,
or just the amalgam of such stories from others you did not get directly from
their lips [or gestures!], but when you take in such an account in a more
personal way, years later you will remember where you were and many of the
physical circumstances of that moment, like you were marked by cosmic indelible
ink in that moment. You recognize a whole other dimension of impact that
is hard to put in words. Even the most skeptical listener is not
immune. Even if you would imagine heshe
never gave it another thought [and they DID ;-)], still, it is
inevitable this will prove a priceless gift later if not sooner.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the renowned
thanotologist / psychiatrist who worked with
dying children and their families, has remarked, “I have collected
twenty-thousand cases of near-death experiences and I stopped collecting them
because I had the illusion that it was my job to tell people that death does not
exist. I believed that it was of
utmost importance to tell people what happens at the moment of death and I
discovered very soon (with just a hint of
pain in her voice) – and the price wasn’t terribly low – that those
who are ready to listen know it anyway, just the way my children – when they
are ready for it – know that they are dying.
On the other hand, those who do not believe it, those people you could
give one-million examples and they would still tell you it’s only a result of
oxygen deprivation. But this
doesn’t really matter because after they die, they will know it anyway…”
Jimmy, I've missed getting to know you and watch you probably become 'a family'
and / or whatever adventures your adult life might have developed into.
Nevertheless, I have often contemplated your great influence on my life path as
a result of your unexpected [okay, shocking] exit at that young age.
You may not be visible to me, but you sure have been present in some fashion
almost daily since that
time. Your passing in this way has spurred some profound soul-searching
and a fascinating journey. If this work, a direct consequence of your
sudden leave-taking, bears any good fruit, you had everything to do with
that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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