It's Never a Goodbye, Only a See You Later
Author’s Note:
I don’t know everything about death and beyond. I don’t claim that I do. What I do believe is that this information has been passed on to me for the specific reason of helping others with their grief, growth, and well-being among many things.
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Please take the information that resonates deep within your soul and utilize it. Everything else, just leave behind, or maybe put it in a filing cabinet somewhere in the back of your mind to maybe pull out and ponder later. Whatever you choose to do with this is your decision — this is simply my offering to you.
May 5th, 2020
Oh grief… my old friend.
Your presence isn’t always welcome. It’s certainly never expected.
Some days we chat and reminisce while we listen to the wind in the trees or feel the sun on our faces.
Other days I yell at you and tell you to leave.
Some days you give me my space to let my mind wander. Maybe your generosity gives me even weeks or months without your weighted presence.
Other days I feel you in the background, not saying much, just being there. A sentient presence of your own.
I met you when I was six. We met again when I was ten or eleven. Again at sixteen, and twenty, twenty-one, twenty-four, twenty-six, twenty-seven. You have become a constant in my life.
We have created quite the relationship over these many years.
And yet, I still feel dread for the day we meet again. Even though I’ll recognize you, I’ll never be prepared for who you dress yourself as next.
What feelings I’ll be forced to face. What lessons you’ll bring.
I consider myself your student, your child, your understudy. To me, you are my muse, my confidant, and my teacher.
You bring out in me that which is most painful, but simultaneously the most pure.
You have brought me to my knees.
You have given me laughter through my tears.
You send birds, and pretty sunsets, and songs to me as my reminders.
And most of all, you never let me forget about those who mean the most to me.
Honoring you means I honor those you’ve called Home; those who shaped me, those who loved me, those who gave me the greatest gifts. Honoring you means I honor all of the love I have in my heart, even when I have nowhere, no one, to send it to.
Oh grief, my old friend.
The sweetest, most beautiful pink iris bloomed today to signal your arrival.
This time you came with gifts — sentimental, material objects to remind me that our spirits are only here for a short while. That this world cannot hold the vibrancy of a human body forever, but the imprint a soul leaves on this physical plane is tangible.
You gave me a reminder of my beautiful matriarch. When I received your gift, I felt her gentle hands wrapped around mine again.
Though you left no letter, your words rang crystal clear.
Peace be upon the weary. There is nothing left to fear.
I am here, as you are there.
But together always we shall be.
Thank you for your visit today, my dear friend. Though my throat is tight and my heart aches, my soul is at peace.
It was winter of 2001 when I met death for the first time. I was six years old. I begged my mom to let me see him one last time, even though his funeral was closed-casket. I don’t think most people could handle seeing a two-year-old boy tucked into an eternal slumber, but I needed to see my brother, Nico, one last time.
While the entire church collectively held their breath, my wail pierced through the heavy air thick with apprehension. My body shook with tremendous sobs, suspended in my dad’s arms. He wasn’t Nico’s biological father, but he was mine, and his heart must have spider-web fractured in that moment, right along with everyone else’s in the congregation. I was told that that was the saddest funeral he’d ever been to, and I can’t help but wonder if it was because of that moment.
My dad pulled me away to take a walk outside while the mourning paid their respects to my mother and step-father. I remember walking around the gravestones asking about death; where Nico might have gone, what did this mean, will it happen to me? I don’t remember what he said, but I think Heaven was probably mentioned. Though, he isn’t the religious type and whatever explanation he gave me was likely ambiguous and open-ended.
(What do you tell a six-year-old who just saw her brother’s dead body?)
Later that night, dreaming in my bed at home, was the first time someone visited me from the other side of the veil.
My brother sat atop a pedestal, a backdrop of spongy, cotton candy clouds of pink and peach. He wore a halo above his head and wings on his back. He looked the same as in his recent human life, but without his disabilities. As a scroll rolled beside him, tracing his words, he spoke to me sweetly.
“It’s okay Jaelyn, don’t cry, it’s really beautiful here! I’m happy and I don’t hurt anymore. There’s lots of angels and they’re really nice. I don’t want you to be sad, Jaelyn. Now I can always watch over you and protect you from Heaven. I’ll always be with you, please don’t worry about me. I love you.”
Twenty-five years later, it’s still one of my most vivid memories. I can still feel the sense of peace emanating off of him, the colors of the sky behind him and the warmth in his words. It was so real, so visceral, that I’ve never once doubted if it was all a figment of my imagination.
For years afterwards, on his “angel anniversary,” birthdays, Christmas, or particularly difficult days, his “Tickle Me Elmo” doll would spark back to life on the shelf, with a high-pitched, “I love you!” and infectious giggle. It was very simple to me, after that. He was still here, just in a different form. Somehow, with magical superpowers to animate toys that had long since lost battery life, too.
***
I met grief again when I was 18, in a hospital room. It was December 31st, 2012 and my godmother, Pip, was preparing to leave her body from a hard fight with melanoma that had spread and metastasized in her brain. My mom called me to let me know that day would most likely be her last day here, if I wanted to say goodbye that it should be the top of my priorities.
I went to her hospital room prepared with a tear-soaked letter. My voice was thick as I read it aloud to her quiet, fragile body, not seeing any signs of consciousness. But I could sense that she had a presence, that my audience was receptive and comprehending my words. I took her cold, brittle hand in mind for a gentle squeeze and gave her permission to go, that she could move on and I was grateful she let me say my goodbye. I left the hospital with tears on my face but understanding in my heart.
It was fifteen minutes after my departure she took her final breath and let go.
***
Grief arrived on my doorstep once again on November 23, 2015. I was 20 years old. Grief’s reappearance was swift, confronting, and overpowering.
This time, grief brought guilt as a companion.
When I got two calls back to back early in my work day, a stone dropped to the bottom of my stomach. I knew something was wrong. My younger sister called again and this time I answered right away.
“Jae...” she said with a wavering voice.
“What’s going on, Bev?”
“Jae.... Erik passed away this morning,” she choked through tears.
My body reacted with a ferocious panic. I dropped to my knees in front of my boss and my coworkers, their eyes wide. I sobbed into the phone with my sister while gripping my heart, gasping for a breath of air to give me some release. I couldn’t bring myself to get off the floor until my boss landed a soft hand on my shoulder and encouraged me to go home and mourn my friend.
I spent the rest of the day soaked in my own snot and tears, curled into a ball on my bed and wailing without restraint. Guilt rocked through my bones, a new series of panicked sobbing each time I remembered his last message to me, just two days earlier.
“Yooo I would love to see you soon I’m so depressed and lonely ahhhh call me if you’re free later,” Erik wrote.
All I responded was, “For sure, keep your chin up Erik it’s not all bad.”
I never called him.
The next day he messaged me again, calling me by his favorite nickname, “Jaebird what are you doing?” to never receive an answer from me. I had my own reasons for not responding at the time, the primary reason being a jealous boyfriend, but that felt like it made it worse. How could I let someone’s insecurity keep me from my friend, who clearly needed me? Only for him to end up dead two days later?
This guilt felt like a train had hit me, then a grizzly bear mauled my broken body and then chewed me up and spit me out into a swamp of my own shit.
In my frantic attempts to calm down, I would realize I had been holding my breath for God knows how long. I would exhale, only to have another thought race into my head and send me plummeting back down into the bottomless crevasse that drowned me in guilt and grief.
I desperately tried to call out to him. From my many experiences with souls on the other side of the veil, I knew he would be able to hear me. But there was nothing. I felt no such warm essence come visit me. Instead, every time I thought of him and tried to connect, I was overcome with anxiety, panic, fear, confusion.
I realized he hadn’t made it to the Light yet.
He was still in “limbo,” wherein he had yet to cross the threshold to the spiritual world and was existing somewhere in between here and there. It wasn’t just my own anxiety, panic, fear, or confusion I was feeling – it was his, too. For a day and a half, I could not shake the uncomfortable panic, I could not feel his presence, until all of a sudden, I felt a tremendous sensation of peace wash over my crown to my toes.
It was a feeling similar to that of an epiphany – euphoric, tranquil, and resolved. His voice flooded in immediately — his voice. In my head. Not mine. My eyes stung as I felt the warmth of his familiar voice envelop me.
He asked me to write to his mom and sister. I was nervous; who was I to write to them amidst their nightmare, trying to channel their beloved Erik’s words? I revised my message many times, scanning it over and over to make sure I wouldn’t twist the knife in their hearts. I knew it was feeble, but the compulsion I felt was undeniable.
I wrote,
“I don’t know where to start or what to say but I’ll do my best. I understand if you do not want to read my message or respond, especially at this time, but I felt Erik’s energy compelling me to reach out to you.
First I want to offer my sincerest and solemnest condolences to your family. There is NOTHING comparable to this feeling. I lost my brother when I was younger and it is surreal. There is no magic button to make the pain go away and no words can truly alleviate the pain of losing someone. Especially someone like Erik with so much vitality, humor, sweetness, compassion, and so much more.
I naively thought since he had survived so much up to that point that he was invincible and he could overcome anything, but we are all human and we all reach our limits of what we can handle. This life was not all easy on him and he had many hard lessons to learn.
But that is why we come to live a life here on Earth — to learn from our mistakes and ascend into higher consciousness; to feel pain so deeply that we have the capability to love at its highest vibration and intensity; to correct karmic cycles from former lives and to become better than we were last time.
Erik always told me that he would do something great with his life because he had survived so much. He did do something great. He blessed all of us with his vivacious soul, made us laugh so hard tears came to our eyes and our guts hurt, he showed unconditional love and compassion, and was always putting others before himself. He loved with an intensity that I promise to exemplify in my own life. I am honored to have known him at a level that many did not ever become familiar with.
But what I really wanted to communicate to you is that he has not disappeared into the void but his spirit is at peace, he is traveling freely without his burdens and he is watching over you. I have been doing a lot of healing work in my own life and have found information that has made this tragedy much more understandable from a spiritual perspective. I would really honor the chance to be in your presence at any point during your healing process so I can pass on information that could be useful to you and your healing, and really just to hold space for our grief together. When words fail I have found that just holding someone’s hand can speak more powerfully than any eloquent speech could.
I give you all my love through this difficult time.”
About a month before his unexpected passing, I began to be very interested in past lives and what’s in between incarnations. I had finished the books Journey of the Soul and Destiny of Souls by Dr. Michael Newton, as well as Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss, and cultivated an unyielding thirst for more knowledge of the nature of the eternal soul. I knew deep in my heart that this information was crucial, though I didn’t know why until the moment I clicked ‘send’.
I finally exhaled when his mother responded to me.
She wrote, “Jaelyn this was amazingly timed and I would love to talk to you. Erik did speak through you. I am so grateful for your message!”
The next day I visited their beautiful ranch, nestled in the valley’s bed. I got there before they returned from the wake, and at first it was surreal being back there and not having Erik’s big, beaming grin to greet me and take me on some silly tour to laugh at how much his turkey looked like a “fugly” dinosaur or try to convince me to jump into their freezing cold pond or dare me to try to ride one of their cows. Though it marked a stark absence in physical form, there was an undeniable feeling that he was close.
Instead of a tour, he gave me the most spectacular sunset. The clouds gilded by gold, sunbeams bright as stars stretching across the sky. Crimson and orange brushstrokes faded to azure and violet as the night sky settled in.
It was not lost on me that watched the entire thing with an angel by my side.
When they pulled into the driveway, I was again overwhelmed. Out of multiple vehicles poured his entire family, and I mean entire immediate family. Parents, sisters, cousins, grandmother… I had a moment of visceral imposter syndrome.
What the fuck am I doing here? Who am I to tell this grieving family that Erik’s death was part of his destiny and ours? Who the fuck do I think I am?
I suspect Erik gave me some of his Leo courage, because those thoughts washed away with the first hug. Once we got settled inside with some tea, they proceeded to tell me about their phone conference with a psychic — a woman who Erik’s mom had happened to read an article from just days before his death — regarding souls who don’t move all the way into the Light right away.
As I listened with rapt attention to their story, I felt entirely affirmed with the spiritual experience I had with him, too.
Erik passed away in his sleep due to an overdose of morphine and likely fentanyl. The crushed pill was still sitting on his bedside table, waiting for forensics and detectives to take it away for testing. Only half of it was gone. However, the half that he took, accompanied by his apnea, was enough to end his life while he was sleeping.
The psychic had gone on to explain some key details in his transition. The exaggerated effect of the drugs, combined with his depressed mood, had his energy at such a low vibration that when he passed, his soul did not have the strength or energy to move into the Light. Instead, the psychic said he spiraled “down.” As a clairvoyant, she found him in a dark void, laying on the ground, still sleeping. His guides were there, but seemingly angry with him. They were protective, standing in a circle around him, but not interacting with him. They merely watched over him, not strong enough to lift his energy for him.
The psychic couldn’t hear what, if anything, was being said, but witnessed his “waking up.” He was frightened. He didn’t know what happened, or where he was. He extended his hands out in front of him, flipping them around. His hands found his face, trying to rub feeling into it. His anxiety grew as he began to realize how grave of a mistake he had made. The psychic intuitively knew that she needed to call in a lighter being to help ferry him to the other side. She watched as this angelic being and Erik had a conversation, and this higher entity brought him through the mortal realm into the family kitchen, where members of his family sat around the table on the phone. She told them where he was in the room, and what he was communicating to each person seated.
Each member of the family confirmed that they felt his presence inside that room as he made his rounds to everyone. When he was finished, this angel brought him into the Light as he waved goodbye with a smile on his face.
Sometime during or shortly after this, my message came into their inboxes.
My eyes tingled and I bit my lip to keep from crying as they recounted their experience. They were eager and open to hearing more from what I was intuiting, so I poured out everything I had learned about the journey of a soul from living to disincarnate to reincarnation and in-between. We spoke for over five hours, from sharing funny memories to speaking seriously about what went wrong and how he ended up leaving this earth way too soon. It was quite clear that Erik had a profound impact and many lessons for us all.
Throughout the evening, I found myself quivering like a leaf, as if I were freezing cold, though I was sitting directly beside the woodburning stove. For me, I’ve always gotten ‘chills’ when something is Truth in my body. This experience had the dial turned all the way up, feeling like my body was vibrating with the energy of what I was channeling through. It brought a sense of relief that Erik was giving me the right words to say to comfort his family.
As the sky darkened to a deep, inky black, we transitioned from the living room to Erik’s bedroom. We stood at the threshold, another wave of grief washing over us. The space was drenched in his energy, his belongings strewn about as if he would walk back in any moment. The energy of despair was so strong I physically couldn’t bring myself to move into the room. We began a ritual of cleansing from our place on the threshold, lighting a large white candle, to help his soul find the Light, and speaking our tearful prayers to him for his ease of transition, peace, and forgiveness.
I lit a bundle of white sage, and as the smoke tendrils rose, we found the strength to move into the room. I poured prayer into every corner of the space, cobwebs of anguish and loneliness lingering. As the sage burned, we prayed that his pain be released and peace to settle in its place.
My attention turned to everything else left in there – the primped and ready new cook uniform he recently got to start his job at the ski resort, his various magazines, piles of dirty and clean clothes intermingled. I smiled at the thought of him sitting up in his bed late at night, rewatching Jim Carrey movies again and again and surfing YouTube for the thousandth time for that one video that would make him laugh endlessly.
I couldn’t believe I’d never hear his laugh again.
When it was finally time for me to go home, I peeked into the room for one last look on my way out. My heart soared and a smile spread wide across my face when I saw that Oakley, his companion dog, and both of his sister’s animals were sleeping on Erik’s bed. They wouldn’t cross the threshold before our ceremony, either. My body flushed with a warmth emanating from my chest as I exited the home into the chilly November night.
Driving home that warmth continued – I felt that I had done the job Erik wanted me to do. I asked him to play a song for me on shuffle. I hit play and a bright reggae beat filled the cab of my car. The harmony transported me back to 2013 at Reggae on the Rocks, one where I was side by side with my two best friends, soaked to the bone by a summer rain that ended with a massive rainbow stretching across the horizon. It was one of my most memorable moments with Erik.
”A heart like a lion, a burning like fire
Waiting just to be set free
A heart like a lion, a burning like fire
How can I bear captivity
Some they tell me I’m a fool, a fool who walks this road alone
So afraid of making changes, remember that nothing is carved in stone
Oh tell me why we are so afraid of the secrets locked within our souls
Everything that we’re made of is dying just to be exposed oh yea”
The song was “Heart Like A Lion” by Rebelution, and I couldn’t think of a more perfect song to play for me in that moment. Everything about Erik was lion-like, from his ferocious strength, to his fearless attitude, and his uncompromising loyalty to those he loves. He even had a tattoo of a lion on his bicep to represent his Leo sun sign.
I listened with to every word intently as I navigated the car home.
So don’t turn your back on yourself, cause there’s nowhere to run
You know your life ain’t a practice run
It’s time to wake up your mind oh yea
For maybe tomorrow will never come or maybe it will but by then it’s too late uh huh
There’s nothing left to do but cry
So now you cry but you don’t know why, and now you cry but you don’t know why
So what you want to be now well it’s time to realize
That everything you need now has been right in front of your eyes
Don’t point your fingers and blame, remember it’s never too late to change
Don’t point your fingers and blame, remember it will be okay
You better get up, you better get out, you better get up and turn your life around,
You only live once, so better act now
‘Cause you never know when it’s gonna come back around.
It spoke everything I needed to hear.
Next, he played “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley. The very same song that we sang together under that rainbow, arms slung around each others’ shoulders at Red Rocks just a couple years before.
Don’t worry, about a thing. Because every little thing, is going to be alright.
It wasn’t more than a few weeks since his passing when he came to me in my dreamtime, and many times since in our decade apart. Each time he appears now, he gets better at communicating and “dreamweaving” as I like to think of it. His favorite form of appearance is hiding in a crowd waiting for me to notice, laughing when he’s caught and throwing his hands into the air with his characteristic smile across his face, eyes alight with mischief and humor.
However, my most prominent experience with him I was completely conscious. I was meditating alone in my room on a quiet afternoon. It was a guided meditation, and I was prompted to create a garden in my mind’s eye. In the many years since this experience, this garden became the “safe place” I go to in all of my meditations. It is enclosed in a greenhouse, with tall ceilings and warm, moisture-filled air. Many, many types of flora span the space; some I’m sure don’t actually exist. But the scent is rich with fragrance — wildflowers, roses, irises and honeysuckle — mixed with humus and wet rock. A small waterfall trickles next to a forest of flowering cannabis.
This particular day, I sat down on a bench that appeared next to this feature, as the guide told me to connect to the feeling of inner peacefulness and absolute, pure love. Next, the guide prompted that someone wanted to visit me here, and that they had something they wanted to say. At first I assumed that this being would be one of my guides or guardian angels.
It wasn’t until after I stopped the meditation that I realized the being that approached me was newly appointed to both positions.
Erik appeared through a patch of sunflowers, stretching towards the sun with bright saffron petals like a crown. Appropriate, to say the least. He walked towards me smiling, and when he got close enough, he greeted me with my favorite nickname, “Hey Jaebird! I like your plants,” smirking as he shifted his sight towards the towering cannabis plants behind me. He was acting casual, suave, like this wasn’t a big deal to just waltz into my mind, but I could still feel the excitement emanating from him for the opportunity to see an old friend. His energy was light, tingly, and warm.
Immediately, I stood up from my bench, gaze locked upon him to make sure the image didn’t change, and promptly wrapped my arms around his ethereal body. At this point in the meditation, I was far away from my physical body, fully engulfed in this spiritual place. I was only consciously aware of the connection to my body because I could feel the wet streaks flowing down my cheeks and my heaving breaths; everything else had dissolved. When he hugged me back, my entire body electrified with the energy I can only describe as unconditional love. Everywhere had tingles, and it felt like my molecules were moving at a rapid frequency — the frequency of love. I remember how when he hugged me in this place it was so overwhelming; this wasn’t of my imagination. I could feel him. This was not some fantasy I created for myself to bring him back to life. This was a transcendence through the barriers of this dimension to meet…somewhere else. He held me while I cried on his shoulder, though I wasn’t particularly sad; I was ecstatic.
Here was proof, in my mind, that he is existing elsewhere…that it doesn’t have to be a goodbye forever.
We stayed like that as long as we could, but it could never have felt long enough. I heard his voice in my head, “Don’t be sad, Jae. I’ll see you again soon.” And as easily and effortlessly as he had appeared amongst the sunflowers, so too did he dissolve again, leaving me with a whole new bin of emotions to sort through, and an irreplaceable experience I will never, ever forget.
In the decade since, grief has come to me on bright spring days, vibrant summer afternoons, calm autumn mornings and crisp winter nights. It has come knocking year after year with fresh condolences or old reminders, but I have learned to expect it all the same.
Death is something that none of us can escape, often shaping our experiences in life. My familiarity with grief and loss has driven me to understand more about the infinite nature of the soul — which I feel with absolute certainty is true.
I’ll share here what I shared with Erik’s family so many years ago, and what I’ve come to understand as I’ve researched the journey of souls over my years as a spiritual seeker.
Fundamentally, we know this as a Law of Conservation of Energy — energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only change forms. In life, we are animate, full of vitality and life and energy.
So when that energy is released from our physical form, it does not just cease to exist. It transfers.
Death is just like taking off some clothes. It is a shedding of physical form, releasing the vibrational soul from the density of human life.
If you’ve ever sat with someone who has been with people as they lay dying, you’ll commonly hear that in the very final moments, they witnessed peace wash over the dying. In my experience, I would agree.
When we leave this life, it’s not supposed to be scary or daunting. We only leave this planet when we have completed the goals we were meant to do, or sometimes when a soul needs a break from the challenges of this lifetime, to rest at Home until they have enough strength and will to try again. It seems that we understand this as we are letting go, and there is an embrace that happens with the promise of peace.
We reincarnate life after life to tie up old karma created in previous incarnations. Karma, in my understanding, is any residual energy that was created in a previous life, or this one, that is holding us back from transcendence or soul-level evolution. Before we are born into a new life, we convene with our guides, our soul groups, and the High Council to discuss the lessons we must go through, the “karma” we are meant to clear, who will help us along our way, and the purpose for it all.
We plan it all, and therefore we are already aware, on a spiritual level, of what’s going to happen to us – maybe we lose our spouse, or live through a near-death experience, or have children with someone who seems all wrong for us. These all are experiences that shape our soul’s learning and evolution. Losing someone gives us the opportunity to learn how to let go; a near-death experience may show us how valuable life is, or set us back on the right track; having children with someone who’s all wrong for you may be tying up karma from a life where maybe you and this person were once enemies, and to settle the score you have to create something positive instead.
Everyone’s experience is different and unique. But when it comes down to it, we are all the same consciousness having a infinite experiences — we are all Source being manifested in infinitely varying forms.
That’s what is so beautiful about all of this — that we are never alone in our life, that everything we do is a part of a greater whole. We always have our spiritual team cheering us on or supporting us in our karmic journey.
So when people pass on, it simply means that they have overcome the challenges they were sent here to do. Their karma is completed, and they are now free to move on to other challenges or just kick it up in the clouds, surf the stars, or help guide us while we try to navigate our own stormy seas.
After all, death is only painful for those left behind. Grief is only a physical emotion, known only to this planet. The pain of losing someone does not exist in spiritual dimensions, because it is seen as simple as a transfer of energy. All of us meet grief in our time here. Grief grants us the opportunity to let go gracefully, to appreciate what remains, and also experience even higher highs from experiencing the lowest of the lows.
Grief is about rooting into our darkest, most painful emotions. Grief shows us the depths of which we were able to love. It gives us the gift of compassion, of rawness. It shows us our humanity.
Grief walks us closest to the kingdom of God than any other time in our human life; the place where we are so consumed by Love that there is no distinction between ourselves and that essence.
May we let that love continue to permeate our experiences, recognizing that the love that all of a sudden feels like it has nowhere to go, is actually bringing us closer to them than ever before. And most importantly, may we never take that love for granted.
“Forever remember me as a loving smile
So I may live again.” - Erik’s voice as I awoke from a dream in 2018
