In collaboration with “the other side”

“End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass.”—J.R.R. Tolkien

I’m not big on labels, but if anyone asked, I’d normally sum up my book’s main topic as miracles or gratitude or maybe how to manifest.

When I wanted assistance from the other side, I’d usually appeal to the generic universe or the Holy Spirit or what I often call “The Dude.”

Last thing I expected is the journey I’m on now. A journey of collaboration with loved ones who have a much bigger perspective.

The universe is sneaky like that.

Last week, I mentioned a guest post from a dear friend who has been communing with the other side for a lot longer than me. We connected after Taz passed. Among other things, he has a podcast called “You Bet Your Afterlife.” He’s an incredible writer with great depths of wisdom and humor. Please enjoy this piece from Keith Boyer that I begged him to let me post here. It’s a letter to his dad:

“Happy” as a descriptor isn’t generally applied to death.  Not in our spoiled and materialistic Western culture, anyway, blinded by the shine of gold as it is.  But now, a half century later, thanks to you, I see the Light and I feel you, everywhere.

When you graduated Earth School I thought my world had ended.  Your little buddy, your “George,” the last of the immediate breed, was lost, lost, lost with your last breath, never to be found.

Seeing the family gathered around the living room when I arrived home that evening, their faces told the tale I couldn’t bear to hear.  It was no surprise, yet it was abruptly shocking.  I was 12, you 42.  Your life’s mission was, seemingly, prematurely accomplished and suddenly I felt older than time itself.

The boy was lost and no one could find him, not even himself.  But guess what, Dad? I found a new me.

Not necessarily improved, at least not noticeably until many more miles had accumulated on my odometer, but new and different, with adventures that lay before me over roads that would take me places I’d never before dreamed.  I wandered aimlessly down Bereavement Avenue to Terror Street, around Mystery Circle to Ecstasy Highway, and ultimately arrived via Grateful Valley back to the Land of Love, my birthplace, my homeland.

Your love was lost to me, or so I thought then, but guess what, Dad?

Others have taken up your love torch during my lifetime, often to my utter surprise and always to my total delight.

To no one’s surprise, Mom — my heroine, my earthly savior — instantly took up yours and carried it with hers, higher and brighter than any  other, to my eternal gratitude.  Bless her, she carries it still.  You chose well, sir, the best of the best, and I thank you.

More unmistakable, unconditional love was provided just in the nick of time– humbly, graciously, and freely by grateful survivors of one of your diseases, the one I inherited.

I thank you for it all.

For the laughs and the joys and the games with the boys, for the kisses from the girls.

For the feasts, for the drink, for the hunger for more, for the unquenchable thirst for truth wherever it lay hidden.

For the gathering storms of self-inflicted trouble, for the questions with no answers, for the sickness, for the wounds, for the healing.

For the fears, for the tears, for the nights under bright lights, for the creeping, short-lived shadows.

For the grief, for the rage, for the simmering bitterness — the toxic cocktail I guzzled so long that ultimately, helplessly erupted from my guts like St. Helens herself and jolted loose my miracle out of nowhere. Shoot, thanks for the siblings, even.  Wink/nudge.

You’ve known all along, and you came back.  You knew time and space were powerless to stop you, so, by and through Conquering Love you reappeared to save me from myself.

You demonstrated with dizzying dazzle three decades and change after your departure that, after all, you’ve gone exactly nowhere.  Then the best lessons began to rain down on me, drenching me with developing insights and visions that have ripped a lifetime of scales from my eyes and allowed me to see you and everything in existence as we all really are, as we’ve been since before time was birthed.

Light.  Energy.  Vibrational beings, all.  Love taking form, just for awhile.

When I sang my impromptu concert for you tonight, you were there, front and center, thrilling with love and compassion for your new George.  And guess what, Dad?

I felt it in every song.  I’ve been feeling you again for many years now, at long last, after burying you inside myself for so, so long while I wandered, lost, in search of US.

But I don’t have to tell you that WE are now found, and new George is okay. Nay, blessed beyond measure.  With friends in spirit I don’t always feel I deserved in life, yet here they are.  Have you met Mark the mountain man, Carrie the tattooed hippie chic, my Colombian sparkplug Adriana?  And Big Rod makes a mean pizza from scratch, so be sure to look him up. All gone-but-not-gone, too soon.

“Daddy” Dick and Joyce will blow your mind with their talents, their genius, both singly and combined.  Your spirit hands will be red from applause, if they’re not already.  Joyce is a new arrival, but things happen mighty fast in your dimensions, or so I’m told, and she’s quite the quick study.

Oh, Dad!  What an amazing, getting-my-money’s-worth life it’s been so far. In its own time, the reunion to end all reunions will be ours.  I so look forward to the concert you and I and our friends will perform, that royal bash I’ve been planning on the far side of the moon, and to the zippy trips we’ll take across the cosmos and back.  Finally, to maybe give it a go in other lives with new stories to live.

Hope you’re well rested by then.  We’ve got 50 Earth years and counting to make up for.

Thanks again, Dad.  Love beyond words to you, good sir.  You and I may be the only ones who appreciate our paradox, but the life you launched me into, with all its apparent imperfections, is precisely perfect, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Happy anniversary, Dad.  Mission accomplished, indeed.

Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest book, The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World).