Love After Life

Felt like I had a cold or allergies all day today, so I haven't done much more than prayer and meditation and sit on the swing in they yard and talk with Irene. It's nice just having normal conversations with her about normal stuff.  Even though I'm feeling kind of sick, I have no feeling of panic or loss or sorrow.  We finally got some cooler air and breezes with a front that came in and I they feel heavenly. There are some things I read in the forum, and some parts of the conversation I was having with Irene that made me think differently about the whole Heaven concept.   Basically, people here relate to the afterlife, for the most part, as some kind of spiritual or wisdom thing.  Most people think there are bad, or "not a good" places you go if you're not "spiritually evolved" or have a "high vibration".  The usual culprits for low spirituality are lust, addiction, cruelty, greed, etc.  People see other people as not very spiritually ...

During the day I talk with irene all the time.  It's not continuous - I do work and focus on that when I am working, and I do sleep and do other things that require my attention. Occasionally I talk "to" Irene, but now I mostly talk with her and allow myself to "imagine" her responses (as per my post a few days ago about Irene and irene) and her with me. This gives me such a great sensation.  I feel like she is close and has her attention on me when I do this, as I have my attention on her.  When I walk the dogs or do dishes I love to have conversations with her.  We talk about the children, grandchildren and our great-grandchild; how we are doing as far as getting through all this; what we plan on doing in the afterlife; what I'm doing here with whatever time I have left; we talk about our lives here and things that we went through.    During these conversations (which, on my end, I speak out loud), we often have a banter that makes me laugh out lo...

This morning I was thinking more about what I wrote about yesterday and realized that what we've accomplished here in just four months is nothing short of miraculous, every bit as miraculous as it would be for me to astral project and be able to see, hear and touch Irene again. For those of you who may not have ever experienced the kind of grief you experience after the love of your life dies (not necessarily your spouse; it could be a child, parent or someone else), that deep and profound pain is unlike anything else. For many, it ruins everything for pretty much the rest of their lives. As my friend who lost his child told me, you never experience joy again without also feeling the pain of that loss. That kind of grief carries with it an entirely different way of experiencing the world. Even when you feel good, you feel the loss and you also often feel guilty for feeling good. If you aren't thinking about your loved one for even a small time, you're heartbroken about ...

Last night I once again asked my spirit team for experiences and encouragements and did some meditative intentions before going to sleep.  I actually had another dream I wrote down in my dream book I keep beside the bed. In this dream, I was at a family reunion of some sort - I wasn't this identity, and the family wasn't my real-world family, but they were the "me" in the dream's family.  What stood out was that in the dream, my wife had recently died and, even though it had been some time since, I felt a profound sense of loss and of being alone. As the dream progressed I found myself at work, which felt like a facsimile of my old print shop job, and I still had that deep sense of loss and of being alone as the boss closed the back door and was preparing to close up shop.  I was doing something similar to uploading and deleting artwork, and was trying to explain to my boss something about the dot gain (old printer's reference) when I saw myself through his ...

The weather got cooler today and it was raining.  You'd think that'd help, but sudden changes in the weather was always something that put both of us in weird moods.  I've gotten through the day okay with meditations and prayers and affirmations, but early I was highly unappreciative of my current situation and had to work myself towards a more appreciative perspective.  I started watching some more spiritual videos and found myself appreciating the fact that I live in an age where all kinds of spiritual information and guidance is right at hand. One of the things I've been puzzled about is why we (Irene and I) came here in the first place. I mean, with so many options available, why actually incarnate on Earth and go through the loss of memory, the limited perspective, the inevitable physical and emotional pain, the doubt, the fear, failing bodies, etc?  The past few days I've become increasingly irritated by that question. Last night and this morning I was talki...

8:00 a.m. So, after writing up this whole post about how I'm going to refine my technique and set up a schedule, I just did a visualization meditation where I visualize interacting with Irene and she let me know I'm overthinking it again.  I'm always trying to fix things that aren't really broken, always trying to improve things that are really working just fine.  Just let go of expectations and do what feels right. 3:00 pm. I think the summer heat and humidity is really doing a number on me - it does every year.  I am really messed up today. I've been battling fear and doubt and confusion all day long.  I don't understand these emotions or where they come from.  I'm thinking all sorts of things that have never even entered my mind before - negative and hurtful things.  I've already meditated sitting and lying down several times just to try and get a handle on it.  It's weird because it's nowhere near as hot today outside - I should be better...

Yesterday was so bad I couldn't even write in this journal. Didn’t let the kids see it too much.  They were going through Irene's clothes to take to the goodwill and were going through her hope chest where she kept treasured memories of them.  We had all agreed to do this yesterday, but I felt like I was a junkie and people were finding all the drugs I had hidden in the house and were throwing them out as they went through Irene’s stuff and took them away or got rid of them.  I couldn’t breathe, I was panicking, I was close to running in and telling them just to leave everything alone.  I had to go outside into the back yard patio and sit by myself trying to breathe through tears pouring from my eyes.  My heart was beating me up like a sledgehammer crushing me into countless pieces.  Dear God that was so, so painful, but I knew it had to be done.  After they left I crashed into prayer after sobbing prayer that did nothing to stop the crushing, ove...

I feel so good today, that doubt and fear driven away at least for the time being.  I totally know Irene is here.  That commercial is still blowing my mind. Something I learned today is we are always connected mentally and spiritually, so I can talk to her even while she’s not in this particular physical area – when she’s out doing other things in the spirit world or with other people in this world. I don’t have to always imagine her here and it’s okay to focus on locations here while talking, like her papasan chair, even though she may not be right there – she can still hear me, and such locations give me something to focus on when I speak – it helps to comfort me.  She understands the situation completely. Gave Marley (one of our Pekingese, along with Pico) a bath today and an examination while I brushed him and a lot of my concerns about possible growths, tangles and matted hair appear to be unfounded.  We’re going to the groomer tomorrow morning and I didn’t...

I crashed hard yesterday evening after Ivori left. She came out to finish off the 2nd level of the pyramid.  I sobbed and sank and felt overwhelming grief, loss and pain.  I ended up praying aloud to god for strength, comfort, relief and love to get through. I ended up so drained and exhausted I barely made it into bed before I fell asleep around 8:30. I think I fell asleep praying. Woke up feeling better, but I sat down in a chair with a chair beside me and talked to Irene aloud and began praying aloud. I sounded like an old school Baptist preacher I think.  I'm grateful I'm alone here and this house is big with solid walls so no one can hear the crazy old man inside. The Sears guys came by and gave me an estimate on roofing and siding.  During the presentation I saw this super-healthy looking female cardinal, just a hyper-prime example of female cardinal, fly down and start eating at our bird feeders just outside the window.  I’ve never seen a female c...

I had a very nice, long conversation with Irene last night.  Found a natural, comfortable position in bed without kneeling or trying to be all meditational or yoga-ish and just started talking as if we were having a normal conversation, told her some things about us and our life that I thought she might not know. I feel completely intimate with her now – like there’s absolutely nothing I want to keep from her at all.  We always were able to talk about anything, but there are always things you think are better left unsaid at times.  We can talk about ANYTHING now, no little things that are best kept hidden or silent.  I feel like none of that matters to her either – we’re beyond any little white lies or personal spaces.  It’s amazing how freeing this feels and how close it makes me feel to her.  Also, I don't want every conversation I have with her to be so heavy and "me" centric. She and I would have the most amazing conversations about all kind...

Woke up at 2 a.m., time to take my antibiotic, stayed up and started talking to Dad, Mom, Reed, Karl, Jamie, Donnie, Lynette and Corey (as well as Irene).  I’ve invited them all to hang out at the house with us and watch all the TV they want. I’m honesty astonished at how much love I feel in my heart and how that “connection” sensation is now affecting me now that I’ve better articulated what it is in my own mind – it’s a sense of ecstasy, as if all of the beautiful emotions a human is capable of was in one sensation – like the white light before it is broken down into individual colors.  It’s mind blowing how happy I am right now.  It seems surreal when compared to a few days ago.  Have I become bipolar? I realized that there was a huge burden that was lifted from me that I hadn’t really realized was there – my worry and hurt about Irene suffering and being in a situation where she couldn’t do almost anything she wanted to do.  How joyful it makes me that...

At some point over the past few days I must have decided to get Ivori to do some gardening.  She’s really been excited about remaking Irene’s pyramid-shaped flower garden in the front yard.  I started outlining a new spot and today farther out in front and she went to buy some flower and gardening stuff for it before she came out.  Irene loves gardening and just didn't have the energy or strength to do it the past few years.  I have this idea forming as to what I want to do in the yard and in the house, kind of move it towards our vision of what we wanted it to be.  It occurs to me to try and get a new roof put on the house - something Irene always wanted to see happen.  It's a miracle we haven't had a problem with the current roof.  It's pretty bad. Ivori was really excited when she found all the gardening stuff on sale and on clearance and texted me pictures. I told her that was another special thing about Irene – every time I went to the store to...

I've felt so  miserable the past few days.  I'm so sick of being in pain.  It's like having a bad stomach virus where every few minutes you throw up uncontrollably, even after everything you have in you is long gone - only, you're not throwing up, you're sobbing so loud and pitifully the main thing you're grateful for is that nobody is around to hear this disgusting racket. I am so sick of myself.  I feel like I can't breathe - I've had to sleep practically sitting up even after taking an antihistamine.  I'm in a complete panic.  I don't even remember if anyone came over or called the past few days.  I sit and do work at the computer with tears rolling down my face whimpering like a beat dog.  Decided this morning not to put up with this sense of loss, pain, self-pity.  Fat lot of good it did me.  This grief doesn't care about anything I do or think.  It’s irrational and in charge – I know Irene is fine, that she’s with me, tha...

I woke up 2AM with my tooth killing me.  It finally subsided and I went back to sleep but didn't rest well. I felt a little sad this morning for about a minute, but I think that has more to do with lack of sleep than anything else.  I couldn’t get a dentist appointment until Tuesday. They sent a prescription in for antibiotics, but I still had pain meds they had prescribed me before. Later in the evening both my tooth and my emotions erupted in major pain – tried every over-the-counter pain killer and combination including oral jel and the prescription pills and I couldn’t get it to stop.  I'm starting to feel grief - real emotional pain. It's not just pain, it's flat out panic and despair.  I've become someone else than I have been for the past couple of weeks.  I'm sobbing uncontrollably, kneeling beside my bed and praying desperately between convulsions of physical and emotional pain.  I wished that Irene had written me more a card or note or l...

At just past midnight this morning I woke up had another long mental/envisioned interaction with Irene.  Those interactions are so pleasant.  Later I started feeling sadness, like Irene wasn’t here.  I still didn’t feel grief, just sadness that she wasn’t here physically.  I miss her. Then around 6:15 I suddenly felt completely comforted by her presence again - like she had to have her attention elsewhere and now it was back. I was totally fine from then on. On Wheel of Fortune there was the old gray-haired guy named Karl with a K, like her dad.  I wondered if Karl was with her and around here. The rest of the evening I just felt that same protective barrier keeping my emotions normalized, which I know must be Irene, because I know what’s down there trying to lure me into it. I have something of a self-destructive streak I grapple with - I tend to think about things that cause me pain.  Irene would say she could see my gears turning and a mechanical ...

Ivori came out and Emanuel (her son, our grandson) was putting a new swing bench together in the front living room (the old one broke).  He needed an allen wrench. Usually, the boxes come with the tools necessary to put the thing together, especially if it’s an allen wrench.  I looked around for allen wrenches, literally pulling stuff out of my tool boxes and fishing around in them for about 5 minutes and didn’t find one. I called Robert and asked him and he said he’d round his up and bring them over.  Meanwhile, Ivori was standing at the cabinets in the hallway looking for an allen wrench and said out loud, “Irene, I know you have allen wrenches, show me where they are!” and she immediately turned and walked into the mud room looked down at the tool box I had just searched, and right there in plain sight, the first thing her eyes landed on was a whole brand new set of allen wrenches. I know I did not have those allen wrenches before. We were all amazed.  One o...

Today I paused the TV to get up and get something out of the kitchen and the TV changes by itself to another channel. I was going to watch a recorded show anyway so I sat down and started a recorded show and watched it a bit, paused the recording and got busy doing other things. A couple of hours later I finished watching my show, then switched to live TV and realized it was on ID network – a network I haven’t watched in a week. Apparently Irene changed the channel to ID network right in front of me, I just didn’t realize it at the time. That was one of her favorite networks. When things like this happen I always acknowledge it. I talk to Irene virtually all day long every day, unless there are other people around. I've even started acknowledging and talking to other people who have passed who I think will probably be around - my mom, dad and brother; Irene's son Jamie; her biological dad Karl and mom Lynette; and her step-father Donnie. I also acknowledge the presence...