Beyond The Veil: On Living and Dying Between Two Worlds

How do we come to terms with the unknown when our loved ones die?

In October, as we approach the Pagan festival of Samhain — the original festival that morphed into today’s version, Hallowe’en — I feel that veil thinning.

As they say, the veil between the two worlds — that of the living and that of those who have passed — becomes thinnest on the 31st October. It is when we use lanterns to guide our ancestors home, and therefore when we depict ghoulish forms wandering the streets, lit by freakishly carved jack-o-lanterns.

But for me, it’s not the only time I am thinking about the souls of those who have left this world behind. In fact, I think about dead people a lot.

Most specifically, the deceased who have been close to me.

I think about the journey from physical life to the afterlife, whether the spirit lives on, and what they see of us. Do they see how much their death affects those left behind? Do they remain stuck or can they move over to the other side easily?

So many questions I simply will never really know the answer to. Until perhaps I can answer them myself when my time comes.

There are so many things that have happened in our lives that we forget as the years pass. Those moments with friends that seem so memorable at the time drift into a blur that we can’t quite figure out, years on.

But death is not something that can be forgotten.

As a teen, I lost two people who meant a lot to me — my Grandma and a kid at school, Rob. My Grandma was 94 and had lived a very good life. It was her time. Rob, on the other hand, was a different story. He was a couple of years younger than my friends and I but he had been taken under our wing because he never seemed to quite fit in with his peers.

And he was sad. Really, really sad. His father had passed away and his mother had remarried, and in her new marriage, he felt pushed aside, unable to get on with his stepfather and never feeling like his mother had time for him.

We felt that we were giving him that love and support he so needed. We didn’t realise how bad it was until it was too late.

One morning, his mangled body was found on the train track near our village. He had taken himself down there late at night, lay down, and let fate decide the rest.

I have never forgotten him.

But I have often wondered — did he see how we all mourned his passing? We cared so very, very much, and yet I never saw that the smile he showed us wasn’t the full story. I wished I had done.

In October 2019, I was visiting a friend who lived in the same town as my dad on the morning I heard my uncle had passed away.

My phone had rung and I decided to ignore it. I felt my friend deserved my full attention and allowed my mobile phone to take second place to real human interaction.

But when I heard a message arrive soon after, I realised this person really wanted to get hold of me. I pulled the phone out of my bag and saw it was a message from my cousin, telling me that her father had died. I rang her straight back and she told me he had gone quickly and peacefully.

But she was worried about my father and how badly he must be taking it. Thankfully, I was only a ten minute walk from his place and so I could excuse myself from my friend’s presence and go over there easily.

Of course, my friend understood. But she asked me if she could say a prayer for my uncle as he transitioned from this world to the next. You see, she can communicate with dead people and it wasn’t the first time she had done so on my behalf.

We lit a few candles and held hands. She spoke a blessing to him out loud and then sat in silence as she connected with his spirit. She told me that he was feeling unready to move on, that he was not feeling ready to leave his loved ones, and she wanted to reassure him that he had permission to go onward, that he shouldn’t remain stuck in-between worlds.

She told me he may take a few weeks to pass over, but not to worry, she would keep tabs and help him to go there.

Her words and her prayers brought me comfort. And then I went onward, feeling strong enough to pass on whatever comfort I could to my dad as he came to terms with losing his closest brother.

In recent years, there have been a few occasions that someone has channelled messages from loved ones. This particular friend, another one fairly local to me, and then one friend I met here on Medium have all brought messages of comfort sent from deceased loved ones.

My Grandma has been channelled twice. Each time, she wanted me to know that she sees how much I do and that she is proud of me. I bawled my eyes out the first time she was channelled.

More recently, after I had published a memoir essay about the echoing voice of my deceased stepmother, Liberty contacted me, implying she had reason to believe my stepmother was sending messages via her. The appearance of the symbol of a large red flower confirmed for me that it was her coming to Liberty.

The messages that she was communicating via Liberty included aspects of her character that Liberty could never have known about. But she wanted me to know that she is immensely grateful for all I do for my father. She didn’t just ask for the messages to be communicated to me, she insisted. And so Liberty obliged.

Despite hearing these messages from the other side, channelled via mediums, and seeing or sensing hints in my own life that appear to be messages from deceased loved ones, a part of me still questions whether these are real.

The “logical” part of my brain insists that because there is no solid “proof” these messages could easily be brought about purely by imagination. After all, our minds can conjure up all sorts of vibrant things when given the chance.

But there are too many stories and incidences that, should they not reflect that there is an afterlife where the spirits of our loved ones reside, must otherwise be mind-blowingly wild coincidences.

And yet, even in the logical world, we never allow the passing of a loved one to happen without marking it with a funeral, to say our goodbyes. For, spiritually, we cannot simply accept death happening just like that. The ceremony gives us closure.

In the same way, and as the spiritual teachings of the religions of the world guide us, the ceremony is equally necessary for the spirit of the deceased. That marking of the passing of a loved one is what gives release to the spirit as they transition from one world to another.

It’s the in-between time that can be the hardest for us left here on earth, before we get to say goodbye, and that brings assurance to us that we allowed the spirit to fly free and be relieved of the pain of physical life. It won’t relieve the grief that remains, of being left to continue navigating a world that is suddenly missing a vital life source, but something, at the very least, can be resolved.

As a teenager, I always used to like to annoy my friends by reminding them that death was just a part of life. Being a wind-up happy-go-lucky, “keep calm and carry on” kind of a gal was my speciality. I always had a song to go with every phrase anyone uttered, could find the significance of each and every date in the calendar, and loved reminding people that they will die one day.

It pissed my friends right off. But in an amused kind of a way.

Yet, years on, having seen those closer to me meet the inevitable, I find myself halfway between confused and purely curious. I want to let my loved ones move on, away from the physical realm, but I also want to know they are still there for me. It brings me comfort to believe they are.

But what’s left is a not-knowing. A not knowing what happens when death comes knocking, or what we should do to prepare our own loved ones to be able to deal with the inevitable happening to us.

Morbid as it sounds, it’s just life…or the final point of it, at any rate.

At least, it’s the final point that we know of. What comes next is anyone’s guess. But let’s hope it’s a smooth ride.

Postscript: Three weeks following the passing of my uncle, we had the most beautiful send-off for him in a tiny chapel in London, overflowing with the many, many people whose lives he touched.

I hope that was enough to give his spirit closure, and to move over in peace.

May he and all of the departed loved ones rest in peace.