“Saul has to go. Many lessons will be learned by his death.”

I couldn’t believe those words but there they were, strongly and undeniably resonating in my head as I washed dishes in my kitchen sink while my husband sat in our family room watching a football game on TV. I actually looked around to see where the voice came from, but I was alone in the kitchen. It was weird, yet something felt very right about the message – so much so that I actually began to contemplate just who would learn a big lesson if Saul died. I brought him a glass of water, kissed the top of his head and banished the thought from my mind. It was ridiculous, simply silly ruminations to be put out of my head.

That errant thought that I had rejected turned out to be true a few months later.

As Saul and I were driving home after a weekend skiing in the Catskills, he fell asleep at the wheel, we had a tragic car accident, and he died while I (barely) survived the accident. Even more astounding is the fact that I received a second message while we were actually flipping for the first of four times into the air. It said, “He’s not going to make it. You are.” Not only did that message also prove true, but an authoritative voice trumpeted in my head with a profound directive as the EMTs were pulling me through the window of my completely totaled car, where my dear husband of 17 years dead lay next to me.

Truth be told, Saul was physically dead but he was in no way permanently gone from my life. Those two messages and that verbal directive began a profound spiritual awakening that would transform my life.

Two months after the accident, I had a most astounding experience as the famous medium John Edward channeled Saul for 25 minutes with minute details of both our lives and the accident that he could not possibly know. My appetite whetted for more, I started seeing other mediums to see what messages and information they too could communicate to me from Saul. Through one very gifted medium, Saul began to answer questions I posed about what he was experiencing where he was (called the Other Side) and much more. I wrote those fascinating, enlightening answers into a book called They Serve Bagels in Heaven: one couple’s story of love, eternity and the cosmic importance of everyday life.

Here’s just some of what I’ve found out:

1. It’s not over when it’s over!

Saul has reached out to me in every way he could to let me know without a shadow of a doubt that it’s really him over there. I mean, who could know what his most private part looked like? Or his toes? Or the details of a joke we often shared? Or details about business and the kids? I wasn’t a believer when he died, but how could messages like these from different mediums who knew absolutely nothing about Saul and me – people who met me for the first time – leave me still doubting that it’s definitely him there reaching out to me here?

2. We’ve had other lifetimes and we will be back together again.

Yes it’s tempting to say that these past lives, channeled through a medium, are products of her own over-active imagination, except that in at least one instance, she knew information that she in this lifetime could not possibly know. You’ve probably had other lifetimes besides this lifetime that you are now living also!

3. I found out that we come into each new lifetime to learn lessons for our soul growth, and often we are here to make a difference in the world.

This is called a Soul Purpose. When what you are doing feels so completely right on throughout all of you, you’ve probably stumbled onto your soul purpose.

4. It’s not about getting “a report card” at the end of your time here.

But if you’ve been unkind or worse, you will have a reckoning with the consequences of your negative behaviors to others. It is not “hell” in the traditional sense of the word. And we can always choose to heal, be it here on Earth or on the “Other Side.”

5. I also found out that life is about living love as a behavior.

It’s about being loving and kind, not only to others but also to ourselves. I’ll be talking much more about this in future blogs!

So is death really the end of life? I say NO WAY! It is simply the end of “this life,” and you will probably be back again to learn more lessons next time around. Stay tuned!