Saying Goodby

Visiting My Dead Mother

By James Donahue

There are a lot of stories about mystics who help people visit with the dead. There are stories about ghosts that haunt the world after they leave it. I have learned that some of these encounters may be true, especially the ghost stories. But the veil that separates us from the dead is thin enough that once we know the secret of penetrating it, connecting with the dead is possible. I achieved it.

I should say that my wife Doris and I achieved it. Shortly after my mother’s death, Doris and I were communicating with entities in the astral one evening in our apartment in Springerville, Arizona. We previously had success in communicating with Doris' deceased brother, Wayne. We decided that night to try to make contact with Mom.

It was easier than we expected. The moment we asked to speak to her, she was there. Mom expressed an extreme happiness about her situation that I did not expect. She did not seem to know that she was dead. She was full of praise for our son Aaron, because she said he "healed me. I can breath. I feel wonderful."

Aaron, who was in California at the time Mom was dying in an Albuquerque hospital of congestive heart failure and emphysema, said he made an out-of-body visit. He said she was already half out of her body but fearful of letting go. He said he took her hand and guided her up into a garden where dead spirits can either wait for loved ones or decide to go on into the light. That was the moment that she was declared dead by hospital personnel.

She said he took her to a wonderful place full of trees, green grass and flowers, where she was warm and comfortable. She seemed to understand that something happened to her and that she was no longer able to be with Dad, or us. She said she planned to wait where she was for Dad. But she said she was concerned because Dad was not taking his vitamins and she wanted us to direct him to do this. It appears that the dead can look in on us from where they are, while we rarely get a glimpse of them.

It seemed strange, sitting in that kitchen, asking questions and having Mom answer through Doris's voice. But after a while I was convinced it was really her that we spoke to. The phrases she used, the things she told us, were coming from her mind, not ours.

Later, when I had occasion to speak to Dad about the vitamin issue, he admitted that he had quit taking them. He was shocked that we knew this. I told him it was a message from Mom. That she was waiting for him in the garden where Aaron took her on the night she died. I don’t think he believed this story.

A few weeks after this encounter, I made my first successful escape from my own body and entered the astral. The first efforts were brief and crude, but the more I worked at it, the longer I found that I could stay in that other world, and the more vivid the images became.

After Aaron returned from California, he gave me a new tape from the Monroe Institute that he said would make the out-of-body experience much easier. On a quiet evening when I was alone in the apartment, I put the tape in the stereo, put on my headset, propped myself up on pillows across the bed, and turned it on. I drifted off into focus ten, then into focus twelve, and determined that I wanted to go visit my mother. In almost no time at all, I was suddenly standing face to face with her.

We were, indeed, in a lovely lighted place. She was no longer an old and dying woman as she had looked when I last saw her on Earth. Instead, she was a woman in the prime of life. Her hair was dark, and she was radiant. There is no sound in the astral, so our communication was telepathic. I cannot remember what was said, but I know it was a precious time together, one that I will always treasure. At last I was able to properly say good-by.

Doris and I talked to Mom a few nights after my visit. I wanted this session because I was concerned that we couldn't speak. She assured me that we, indeed, talked about a lot of things. She seemed very excited about her situation because she was discovering that life in the astral was pleasant. There was no pain and she could travel anywhere, at will, merely by thinking about it. She could go to distant planets and return. She remarked that Dad, who was a science fiction buff, would really like that.

I made one last personal visit in the astral. When I saw her then, she was illuminated. The light around her and radiating from her was so bright it was difficult for me to look at her. It was obvious that she was changing and that something important was going on. When we spoke to her one final time Mom informed us that she was going on into the light. She decided that she was not going to wait for Dad. That was the night we said good-by for the last time.