I am just a bit curious. My life has been a mixed bag. My mother believed in God and attended church. My sisters and I were baptised into the Church of England. My dad thought it was all a load of old hog wash, the more organised the religion, the more he proclaimed it was “voodoo”.
My first husband was a practising Roman Catholic and eventually I was baptised into the Roman Catholic Church. Then he died, and I got a bit cross with God and stopped going to Mass. I had a reading with a Medium who gave me messages from both my husband and my Dad. My husband (when he was alive) would have considered consulting a Medium to be very much against the teachings of the church. My dad would have told me to pull myself together. In life, and for differing reasons, both would have been very opposed to the idea of being able to contact or receiving signs from people who have died.
My second husband died 12 weeks ago. He said that when you are dead, you are dead. He said that funerals are for the living.
I don’t know what I think. I want to believe there is something, I don’t know what that something would be for me, having loved two husband equally.
I console myself by thinking that there are only two possibilities. Either they just died, end of story. So they are not sorry and sad about leaving.
Or, they watch over us, and wait for us.
The latter is what I want to believe. I have not had any signs or dreams. I just wake up and remember.
I believe different things. I get doubts. Want to believe there is something. It helps. But Really don’t know. I kinda think we live on in what we leave behind. Memories and we existed and made a mark. My husband told me he had a near death experience that was weeks before he died. So did my father. I know my late husband was a Christian but he didn’t discuss much about it. My father wasn’t. I am and pray but since my husband died I have not wanted to go to church actually but more to do with preference for online instead. I get some comfort when I think he might be looking down. I just don’t know.
Having been a died in the wool sceptic, since my wife passed I have experienced things I cannot explain,at a big stretch I could say coincidences,but I don’t believe in them.
I have stopped believing in God and all that religious stuff. How can God , let good people get cancer or other illnesses and die and yet bad people sail through their lives causing havic to others .
I do believe my husband is watching me , sending me rainbows, white feathers, robins , shapes in clouds , flowers blooming from nigh on dead plants , even a seagull would knock on my window ,at all hours .it eventually annoyed me , and i did say to it " Chris if thats you , its notfunny anymore " I might be deluded and lost my mind , but these things help me to get through each day .and they are not harming anyone .
I have to and do believe my husband will be waiting for me with open arms to take me home , when its my time to go , and we will be together again for eternity , if im totally wrong and there isnt anything , well i will be dead and wont know .
xtake care x
A lot of what you have written describes my own thought processes right now @Willow112 . I was a practicing Christian for many years, but after my Dad died i found it harder and harder to go to church and praise God (especially as it was a lively pentecostal type), so when i relocated i made no effort to find a new church. My thoughts then moved more towards believing that we put faith in an afterlife as a coping mechanism because we cant bear the thought that we just die and dont see each other again. Then in recent years ive started meditating which led me to explore Buddhist philosophy. My Mum was a Christian and had a near death experience many years ago, so was always confident she would be reunited with her husband. Now Mum has gone my head cant work out what it wants to believe, everything i latch onto i start to question. Is she around, watching over me? Will we be reunited? Is she just GONE? Why do we have to settles for robins and feathers, why cant we communicate directly? Ive contemplated visiting a spiritualist church but that goes against my Christian faith and also i dont think Mum would approve! Also it doesnt sit well with me that you have to rely on a third party to communicate with your loved one, even more so when you then bring money into the equation eg paying for a medium. My counsellor says im looking for answers where there are none - my head wants answers and evidence, my heart just cries out to have some sort of connection with Mum again. I guess its all part of trying to work out what your relationship with your loved one looks like after loss 
I’m open minded don’t know what to think really.I don’t believe in the rainbow thought.But some things very occasionally have happened that are unexplainable don’t know if it’s wishful thinking.I like to think we will be reunited one day but who knows.I’m not religious at all even though I was brought up in the Church of England
I wouldnt say im religious but i have always hoped that there is something after we all die. X
I hope, and I wish, but that’s all. John didn’t believe in an afterlife, but I hope so much that he’s wrong. But I did like the idea of the release of souls in His Dark Materials; it would be nice to think we were all absorbed back into the air.
After loosing my husband in January after being together for 51 years I really don’t know what to believe, I do think a lot where is he, is he ok , is he watching me. The latter makes me sad as I feel so guilty for being here and basically living. I can’t stop crying which I know would annoy him. People keep saying he’s not in pain any more but how do they know!
I really don’t know what to think anymore…I had a couple of strange things happen to me when I was much younger. They say your energy lives on but until I have had a sign from my husband or hard evidence from a medium then sadly I can’t believe that there is after life. Do I want my husband floating around waiting for me which could be 30 years…again I don’t know. Something we will never know until we have gone. I do wonder why though that children are born and get an awful illness and pass away. Why were they born in the first place to suffer. Life is so unfair and cruel x
I’ve always believed in the afterlife ( maybe naively). I have been to see 3 different mediums, one who my cousin took a picture of my late husband to without informing me first ( just to make sure the medium didn’t know me). My husband and family came through every time, told me various things and this has comforted me greatly but I don’t “rely” on them, I don’t go every week but the things they’ve told have given me a little peace of mind. We’ll not know if there is an afterlife until it’s our turn so fingers crossed. Each to their own Good luck
Hi Allison
Being a disciplined ex military man I have always been of the opinion that “hocus pocus” was just that,however since my wife passed seventeen weeks ago I have experienced things I cannot explain,it’s caused me to totally re-evaluate my thinking,
I hope your day hasn’t been too bad.
Ron.
Apologies from the start as I expect this will end up as another book but there are so many aspects to this, as many as there are people!
I can’t subscribe to religions or beliefs that separate human life from all other and then put it at the top with a single ruling God and expecting us to accept the dreadful behaviour of humans to each other and other living organisms, I am sorry if that offends anybody but I am trying to express my personal thinking on this.
I have posted elsewhere that I believe in a spiritual connection with all natural life, I believe somehow we humans are all part of this and on our death we become part of this, I have subscribed to this for a long time before my wifes death, I assumed we would both become part of this. The problem I think we all have is a desperate need to be in contact with our loved one, we all look for signs or hope for contact of some sort, there is no doubt that some of this cannot be explained and I think it is beyond our human understanding to do this so it leaves a lot open to interpretation, there is also a lot of wishful thinking, if it gives comfort then why not?
Personally I believe that my spirit will join my wife and my son along with all others back into the natural world whether we are conscious of this remains to be seen! I do have strong feelings that my wifes spirit is present and i do talk to her because it helps me.
I am also comforted by signs, up until the funeral I was completely unaware of the Robin phenomena’s but at the cup of tea afterwards a Robin sat in a tree by our patio and sang his heart out all afternoon, to the extent a few people commented on it and then I was told of the “when a robin appears a loved one is near” a nice and touching thing I thought, that robin has been on my patio every day since now I have to admit that I do feed him but earlier this week I had several days of a tough time and tears, one afternoon late I was feeling particularly down and was looking for the robin but he was away on business so I asked my wife to send him, 15 minutes later he arrived, I fed him, he didn’t want it but he sat in a large flower pot by the french doors just watching me through the glass for about 45 minutes until it was getting dark and then he flew off presumably to bed.
@Alison4 hi , i think it helps to think of these robins and feathers and other things as a connection with our partners . They cant physically tell us thst they are watching us ,helping us and still loving us
So these things are sent to comfort us , obviously if we believe , it might be something that was personal to our partner or as a couple
Doesnt have to be feathers , or robins .
We have continuing bond with our partner. The love we have can never die.
I personally dont mind all the hurt and pain i feel , i need to feel it. I want to feel it
Its part of the love i have and alwsys will for my husband .i do believe one day all the hurt and pain will go , when i. With my husband again . About a year after he died i felt he was getting further and further away from me , and i couldnt handle those thoughts . Now i think the opposite each day im getting closer and closer to him . I just like to think .he has gone ahead of me to sort everything out .so it will be perfect when we are together again . Hey you might think im crazy maybe i am , you wouldnt be the first person to think that lol
But if it helps me and not harming anyone else and im not telling people how it should be . Then theres no harm .
xtake carex
I’d like to believe that out loved ones are watching over us and waiting to greet us when our time is up but unfortunately I believe that once you are gone, you are gone and that makes me sad.
Yes I do get what you are saying which makes me very sad as well…
Hi Victoria
I was a fully paid up member of the sceptic club.since my wife passed seventeen long weeks ago I have experienced the most unusual events which have completely altered my views,I really hope you too can find some solace.
Kind regards Ron.
Thinking that he is still around is what is keeping me going really. Unfortunately I can’t go along with the robins and feathers. We have always had them. My house is at then end of a country lane which turns into a bridleway at the end of my drive and is surrounded by fields. There are often foxes around and there are pheasant shoots visible from my bedroom window. The farmer shoots pigeons to protect his crops and there are feathers all over.
The only different thing was a pair of collared doves appeared for a few days just after he died but they only stayed about a week.
I had a reading from a Medium after I lost my first husband. She told me some things that seemed very accurate, claiming she had both my husband and my dad with her. She said my husband was my soul mate and one day we would be reunited but he was going to send someone to help me and that the letter ‘J’ was involved. I married Jeremy 5 years later. She also said some quite specific things about my dad, family jokes which would mean nothing to anyone else. However, for differing reasons my first husband and my dad took a dim view of Mediums when they were alive. I can’t help but wonder though. Why can’t they make contact directly, why does there have to be a middle-man involved?
I haven’t had any convincing signs since I lost my second husband.
So, I am still sitting on the fence. Xx
I personally 100% believe there is life after death, I have had incidences occur that have left me with no doubt in my mind.
We all have our own individual beliefs, I myself am a spiritualist and believe in spirit/nature and we are all as one. I also believe spirit is energy and that energy is a connection to all life in every form.
I think we all in our own unique way search for the meaning of life and what happens thereafter. There are and never will be any concrete answers so all we can go on is our own individual belief system/experiences. All my loved one’s who have passed thought that when you die that is it, nothing, end of, yet surprisingly each one of them has shown me signs that could only be from them and very personal signs that have left me with no doubt. I am now fully at peace with their passing and grateful for the love they blessed me with and celebrate their lives as opposed to feeling sorry for my own… Love for me is eternal. Life is precious and to be lived fully. I appreciate my positivity in grief may not be what people wish to hear as I see all the heartbreak and pain on here daily and how nothing seems to help or maybe some wish to remain in their heartbreak. We all have choices in how we deal with things. There is no right or wrong but there is always light and hope for those who choose to seek it
Really great question. Here’s what I believe.
I believe that there is no meaning to life; it just is. And that while we’re here we may as well make the most of it.
I believe that if there is an afterlife for humans then the same must be true for animals. I’ve had four pet cats and each of them has had their own distinct personality and ‘spirit’, so if our spirits continue then so do theirs, in my opinion.
I can’t recall searching for signs, after my grandparents had died. But they were aged 88 and 99, and their health had been declining. So, their passing was the inevitable next step. Whereas, my dad was only 76, and the fittest and most able and competent septegenarian I know. He was still driving, still teaching, still looking after his family and the community. His passing was a sudden, terrible, devastating shock. So, I’ve searched harder for answers.
When he passed away, I had the thought, “Does he know that he’s passed away?”. It’s still very confusing to me, over 9 months later. I read that, for the bereft, comprehension of sudden death, beyond the simple mechanics, can never be achieved.
Have I had signs? Maybe, but I can’t say with absolute certainty. I know for certain that he lives on through me. Of his children, I’m the most like him. I’m also 1 of the closest to him. So, our connection will always be solid. I also know that his voice in my head is so strong, and he will continue to guide me. But how much of it is my recollections of his teaching, and how much of it is him now consciously having an impact on my thoughts and actions?
I keep my dad in my head and my heart all the time, and I can’t begin to think about how, if all goes to plan, I’ll have as long on this Earth without his physical presence as I’ve had with his physical presence (I’m 39, and am assuming that I’d live to 78…). That just doesn’t bear thinking about. So, I at least have to believe that he’ll be waiting for me at the end. 