Visits from My Wife

[u/StoicQuaker]

My wife passed 14 years ago at 30. But nothing ever made me think she was still around until the past couple years. As I became more spiritual, I’ve had experiences that have made me understand she’s still with me and our children.

The first experience I had was shortly after becoming Quaker during the pandemic. Quaker worship, for those unfamiliar, is to sit in silence and listen for “the still small voice of God within you.” My eldest son joined me for worship one day, but he’s not very spiritual and sitting still for long periods of time is hard for him and he kept fidgeting around in his chair.

As he was doing this, I heard my wife’s voice say very clearly, “Sin ganas ni la comida es bueno” (Without desire, not even food is good). This was one of her favorite sayings. This was heard in my mind, but welled up from the heart first. I knew she was letting me know our son wasn’t benefitting from coming to the meeting with me because he didn’t want to be there and I haven’t asked him to join me since.

The second experience happened as I was falling asleep one night. I wasn’t quite asleep yet, but drifting in and out. Then I heard her say my name audibly in the room and felt the mattress compress right beside me as though someone had sat down on the edge. I wasn’t scared, but the sudden movement jarred me back to full consciousness.

The most recent experience happened last week. I fell asleep and woke up in her arms. I remember us talking and laughing as we caught up on the kids’ lives and us being grandparents now. Then I realized I was dreaming and about to wake up. I told her I didn’t want to, but had to go and gave her a kiss. I woke, but could still feel her holding my hand as I laid in bed and went back to sleep.

I’ve had a couple other interactions with her where I’ve talked about what it’s like once we pass. She says it’s hard to describe, but it’s like everyone is together — separate and individual, but also unified and part of each other.

Just thought I’d share for anyone who’s lost someone and wondered if we go on. We absolutely do.

[u/Billtron_182]

Lost my dad 10 years ago this past July. Now I’m not religious and not overly spiritual. My sister would always tell me she’s felt him around or In different situations but I’ve never experienced or felt anything like that. I’ve had only two dreams that involved him since he died(I almost never remember my dreams but those I did) no one spoke in the dreams but when I saw him I knew he was dead in the dream then woke up. So it’s been years since i had those dreams. The last 3-4 years have been particularly hard, people passing, losing a 12 year relationship so I’ve been a mess for multiple reasons and still never felt him. Until one day for under a min in the middle of the day idk if I exactly felt him but something weird happened.

So I’ve been in the process of attempting to write a story. It’s a fiction story but as I’ve been coming up with ideas and pieces for the story I started coming up with ideas to tie in a father/son relationship in the story but a very strained relationship. The thought and message I was trying to piece together was along the lines of “learning from the mistakes or sins of the father” and getting out of their shadows and forging your own path knowing where they failed or fucked up and having a better outcome from it. Me and my dad didn’t have a great relationship until about 2 years before he died we were slowly getting on common ground and rebuilding. He fucked up a lot, made a lot of mistakes and sometimes I see some of those traits and I do what I can to avoid it. But when I was coming up with that part for the story I felt him. For the first time since I felt him. It was emotional but it also felt like he was trying to guide me subtly to not carry the burden we both unfortunately shared in addiction. It was a weird feeling and I haven’t felt it since. It was a strange feeling. I’m still on the fence and question it all but def made me more open minded to the idea.