Julia M’s Experiences after Losing her Child

Julia M [full name deleted for privacy] was kind enough to share her experiences with her deceased child. They include incidents of her pets’ abnormal behavior, electronic phenomena, a precognitive dream before her son’s death, dreams in which she does communicate with him after his death and is able to see his progress, physical communication, and last, a message from a medium on the other side of the globe. She has written several times since then, some of which I will also post. Her innate openness led her to spontaneous afterlife communication. And it is that communication which has helped her to recover from grief much more quickly than mothers do who have not had communication. Julia and I look forward to your comments.

Here’s what she wrote:

Hello from another “Julia”,

I lost my twenty-two-year old son Riley last Sept. 26th to a heroin overdose…I’m writing to you for two reasons…First, I found one blog posting where you talked about drug overdose victims sometimes having the most difficulty moving on, ( hopefully I’m remembering what you wrote correctly)…Could you expand on that please or direct me to subsequent posts where you might have discussed it.

Secondly, I saw in a Feb. posting that you asked for reader’s experiences with the afterlife…I’m not sure what I’ve had, but I have had several incidents just prior to and since my son’s death that I’d like to share with you…I was raised an Episcopalian so I’ve always had a faith, but nothing OTT and no strong feelings one way or the other about communication with those who have passed…I wasn’t looking for any communication from my son after he died and am not quite sure what to make of what I’ve experienced…Any thoughts or insights you might have with regard to these experiences will be much appreciated…Here it is and thank-you in advance:

Events Since Riley’s Death

1. 6 weeks ( aprox.) before Riley died I had a dream that he had died…In the dream I’m walking from my bedroom towards the kitchen and I see Riley in there cooking something on the stove, ( something he did quite frequently)…I’m annoyed in the dream because I didn’t know he was in the house and he had not asked to come over ( one of the rules we had set for him in real life)…So I’m feeling annoyed as I’m walking toward him and it slowly dawns on me that he’s not acknowledging my presence although I’m almost up to him and he should be able to see me…But he just keeps cooking and moving back and forth between the stove and fridge with kind of an otherworldly look to him…At that point I notice that he’s actually transparent and his body parts are kind of moving between the cabinet and refridgerater doors…And it’s at that point I realize he’s dead and I immediately woke up with the most awful feeling. Normally I don’t remember my dreams for very long, but this one stayed with me and there is probably not a day I didn’t think about it from the day I had it until the day Riley died…It left me with the most uneasy feeling…I actually told my mom and Joe about it right after I had it and am kind of glad I did now, so that they realize it was real…I never mentioned it to Riley

2. About two weeks after Riley died, one night the dogs began to act very strange after we’d gone to bed, and actually had been acting odd since his death…One dog is normally a barker and the other just the opposite…But this night they exchanged roles jumping off the bed and heading down the hallway toward the kitchen/front door…We called them back and they wouldn’t come…Joe finally got up and they were both sitting up straight looking UP…Champ is normally our watchdog, but instead of barking his was wagging his tail…Carter on the other hand was barking like crazy, the way he would when Riley would come in…Usually if Joe calls them they come right away…But now he couldn’t get their attention at all…And he and I both said, “If this is you Riley, we need to go to bed”…And with that the dogs followed us back down the hall…So that’s part I of this story.

Part II is that the next evening I’m talking to mom on the phone and relaying this story to her, while also being on FB at the same time…Just as I’m getting into the part about “hey, we thought it might be Riley, I get a FB status from Riley saying , “Riley M [full name deleted for privacy] “likes” Paranormal Activity”…Now I realize that as long as you have an active FB account you can still see “likes” randomly from people…But for it to happen at exactly that moment??…I have a screen shot with the date of it…Also, the only other “like” from Riley that popped up on my screen after his death besides this one was on election night and I’m again talking to Mom on the phone discussing election night and all of a sudden “Riley M [full name deleted for privacy] “likes politics” popped up!!…( Except that he didn’t)…But, strange or what??…As I said, I know they can still pop up, but to have two pop-up on the same subject I’m discussing at that exact time?

3. This is a dream, again about two weeks after his death…I dreamed we were at the funeral home, but out in the reception area and not near the casket…At the beginning of the dream, it’s not clear if we’re there for Riley or someone else…That part is fuzzy…But there are lots of people around and eventually I realize we’re there for Riley…With that, Riley comes bursting into the front as he used to do when he was agitated and he tells us in a very annoyed manner that it’s not him in the casket and that we’ve made a mistake…I become very confused and I’m asking him who it is then…He just keeps saying it’s not him…At one point I look at Joe and say “We’re about to cremate someone else’s child, what should we do?”…Joe looks at me like
no, that’s him in there…With that Riley throws his dad a look and storms off out the door and I take off after him asking for him to explain what’s going on…He just waves me off and I wake up.

4. About a month after the previous dream I have another one…In this one Riley, Reid, and I are sitting outside on some sort of deck of a restaurant…I’m sitting next to Riley and Reid is sitting directly across from him…I say to Riley that I’ve been telling Reid that he, Riley, could tell him all about going to Providence and what it would be like and with that Riley begins talking to Reid about high-school, but none of their conversation stands out to me in the dream…I just begin to look at Riley’s profile and I’m thinking how good and healthy he looks and then it slowly dawns on me that he’s dead…And I say out loud, “Riley, how are you here, you’re dead”!!…He glances over at me, but doesn’t really acknowledge what I’ve said and continues talking with Reid…I begin to become excited, because I think “Oh, my gosh he’s here with us and I just want to hug him”…And I say again, “but you’re dead”…With that he looks over at me and gives a slight nod of acknowledgement of what I’ve said and a little smile…He seems very calm and peaceful…I then tell him I just want to give you a hug, but he puts his hand up and leans away from me, like “you can’t,” and from that point I gradually wake-up.

OK, here is my take on these dreams after I’d done some reading…They say spirits can most easily come to you in your dreams, although not every time you dream about someone who has passed is it necessarily them…The way they say you can tell is if in your dream you acknowledge in your mind that they’re dead, it’s them trying to communicate something to you…If on the other hand they’re just a part of the dream and you don’t really think of them as being dead, then it’s just your memory of them being part of your dream…So, I think perhaps in the first dream Riley had not quite come to terms with what had happened to him, which I’ve read is somewhat common in his type of death, and just an annoyed, confused, and upset spirit…Sometime in the month that followed he was able to accept what had happened, had moved forward, and was trying to reassure me that he was now at peace and okay…I’m not sure, but I do know the first dream bothered me greatly and I woke from the second one feeling much more at ease.

5. OK, here’s where these experiences really take a turn and all I can say is, “they happened”:
I really had no other noticeable experiences then from late October until later March, but during that time I was of course reading books on losing a child, which then led me to book on the after-life, and finally to books about angels…Before this I wouldn’t have said I disbelieve, but I would have probably never bought a book on angels…One night I decided to “talk” to my angel(s) and just thank them for helping me get through this rough time as well as the rest of the family…I asked them to take care of Riley…And then I asked them if there was some way they could “prove” to me that he was okay…Immediately after I asked that I thought it sounds as if I have no faith and I didn’t want to make a game of “prove it to me and I’ll believe in you”…So I said, no you don’t have to prove to me he’s okay because I know he is…BUT it would be really nice to know that you’re listening to me though, could you prove that?? LOL I completely forgot about it and a day later after I’d taken Reid to school, I came back in and decided to lay back down for a couple of hours because I hadn’t slept well…I got back into bed, switched the news on TV, and closed my eyes…I was relaxed, but had not fallen asleep yet, when all of a sudden, in my head I hear a male voice say, “Julia,” as clear as anything…And simultaneously, a little boy mannequin that my mother has had for years appears in my mind dressed in an outfit that Riley had worn when he was about four or five…I recognized it at once and had given that outfit to my mom for her mannequin probably 17 years ago because it fit it…The voice was not Riley’s or anyone else’s I recognized…It was a very kind voice, but it definitely wanted my attention…I have NEVER heard another voice in my head in my life…And it clicked with me immediately that the little mannequin was representing Riley, ( and I hadn’t given that mannequin a thought in YEARS…It’s in Mom’s attic and not dressed in that outfit any longer)…It startled me but I wasn’t afraid and I knew it was real and I guess trying to show me that it was real and that it knew what was on my mind…But probably even more important, it didn’t scare me!!…And I know that if you think about something like that happening to you, that at least the thought of it would scare you…But no, it didn’t scare me at all and in fact I felt very happy and peaceful, ( which hasn’t exactly been my norm)…I can’t really describe it any better than that…It’s probably the most life-changing thing that’s ever happened to me…I have absolutely no doubt that there is something beyond this and I think that’s what the voice was was trying to convey to me…I got up for awhile trying to take it all in, but a couple of hours later I found myself really tired and decided to lay back down with the intent to sleep this time…Just as I’m going into the dream like half-awake/half-asleep state something made me look over at a chair I have in the bedroom and I see Riley sitting in it with his arms crossed just smiling at me…The odd thing about this is that the chair and room appeared to be much longer and further away from the bed than the it/they are…And again he looks very peaceful and while he didn’t speak out loud in my mind I’m hearing him say, “I’m OK…You’ve been wanting to know and see me and here I am”…And what do I say??…”Riley, I’m so happy, but I’m so tired right now, could we do this later”??…Seriously…And with that he smiles real big and shakes his head like, “oh Mom”…And then I went to sleep…This little episode of Riley in the chair is the only one I’m not that confident about, although it did seem very real, ( can tell you exactly what he was wearing), and again I was not scared at all….After this experience with the voice happened I began researching all over the internet looking for people who had had similar experiences, etc….There are LOTS of sites of people who claim to talk to and channel angels, but many of them don’t feel authentic and you pretty much feel they’re a con and after your money, but I found a couple of sites that seem to be quite legit, ( if you believe in that sort of thing…They’re well published “angel people”), and one in particular caught my attention…A woman in Aussie…She seemed very grounded and not quite so “out there” as some of the others do…More practical…I looked around her site and saw contact link and I thought I would share my experience with her and see if she’d give me her take on it…So I write out what happened, hit submit, and I get the message, “Thank-you for contacting us, however due to the large volume of correspondence we receive, we are unable to personally reply back to you, but please enjoy visiting our site”…OK, figures I thought…LOL…And I forgot about it.

6. After #5 happened, I began making more of an effort to talk/pray/whatever in a more organized way than I had before perhaps…I usually do it while I’m taking a bath at night….I also “talk” to Riley at the same time and about three weeks ago I told him I really missed his hugs and I was so sorry that I had not been more affectionate with him right before he died…Riley and I were both the most demonstratively affectionate in the family, but I had quit being quite so loving to Riley before he died, because if he sensed a weakness in me he was ready to pounce on it…Regardless, it’s one of my bigger regrets…Anyway, I didn’t give it much more thought, because I’ve said that to him several times…So again, the next morning after taking Reid to school I decided to lay back down, ( do we see a pattern here??). 🙂 Anyway, I lay back down on my left-side which puts my back toward our bedroom door…Again, I’m relaxed, but NOT asleep or quite in the dream-like state yet either…Champ usually will come nap with me and I’m certain I heard and felt him jump up on the bed and lay back to back with me, as he usually does…BUT I didn’t look to see if it was him or reach out to pet him…A minute or so later I begin to feel as if he’s putting his legs/paws around my shoulders and back and I start to think, “how’s he doing that??”…He couldn’t physically do what I’m feeling being done and then it slowly dawns on me that it feels like a human hug…A very warm sweet human hug and I just lay there…I’m sure for only a few seconds and then it was over…And again I wasn’t scared, although I was a little apprehensive to look behind me…When I finally did there was nothing…And certainly not Champ…I immediately got up to go see if I could find him and he was asleep out cold in Reid’s room…You have to know Champ, and the fact that what happened probably occurred in less than a two-minute time-frame…There’s no way he could have come into my room, then jumped down, gone into Reid’s room and fallen into that deep of a sleep…And he slept like a log the rest of the morning, ( slightly out of character for him).

7. The day after the “hug” happened I log into my email and I have an email from the woman I had written too earlier…At first I thought it was just a generic mail advertising her site and I almost deleted it, but I went back to it and there’s a brief note saying she’s recorded a message for me and giving the names of two books she thinks I might like…And again I’m thinking she’s trying to sell me something, etc. and went onto other mail because I couldn’t find any recording…But again I went back and DID find the recording ( and read more of what she’d written in the email) and it was a very personal message to me saying that while she doesn’t normally respond to emails anymore she had read my message and said something about mine compelled her to read and respond to it personally and that she believed I’d been visited again since I wrote to her several weeks earlier…A physical visit…Very recently…To say I was floored doesn’t do justice to what I felt…She said she had no doubt what was happening with me was the real deal because of details I’d given that ring true to her experiences and other authentic visits she’s familiar with…And she pointed how that she’d been drawn to my letter out of thousands, believing something “higher” was at work…Drawn to it to reassure me when I’m questioning myself…And I have to agree…The books she thought I’d enjoy weren’t her books at all and the twelve-minute message she recorded was very sweet and personal and not trying to offer her services or materials, etc…And I haven’t heard from her since and that was about three weeks ago.

I know this has to sound bizarre and I realize I’m a grieving mother, but I’ve never experienced things so real in my life…And I am a practical person and I would never make something like this up, especially with regard to my dead child…I can’t explain them, but they are very real to me…I think the thing that makes me believe they really happened is my lack of fear during the events, the feeling of peace I’m left with after they’ve occurred, and finally my real skepticism prior to them occurring…As I said, I certainly had a faith, but was not looking or expecting anything like this to occur from “the beyond,”…Who knows, maybe it all has been a dream, but if that’s the case it’s the most lifelike real dream I’ve ever had.